Dr. Janice Lao
VP of Sustainability, Helen of Troy
There’s a moment in every life when something clicks—when confusion becomes clarity, when chaos suddenly reveals a pattern. For Janice Lao, that moment came not in a lab, not in a lecture hall, but across a table with her father.
At the time, she was a teenager—bright, curious, and ambitious enough to want a career in science. There was just one problem: math. Or rather, the belief that she wasn’t good at it.
Her father, an engineer and self-proclaimed “genius with math,” saw something she didn’t. When she finally asked him for help, what followed wasn’t just tutoring. It was a transformation.
“He told me math isn’t hard,” Lao recalls. “It’s like a language. If you learn the rules, you’ll understand everything.”
Within six months, everything changed. What once felt impossible became intuitive. Patterns emerged where there had been confusion. Equations began to make sense. Soon, she wasn’t just keeping up, she was excelling, even mastering calculus.
But more importantly, she had unlocked something far greater than math.
She had learned how to see. For Lao, math wasn’t just numbers, it was a way of understanding the world. Patterns weren’t confined to equations; they appeared everywhere: in human behavior, in environmental systems, in climate data.
“Math is about patterns,” she says. “And once you see patterns, you can’t unsee them.”
That perspective would go on to define her career. Drawn to environmental science, she found herself captivated by a field that blended disciplines—chemistry, biology, physics, and advanced mathematics—into one cohesive understanding of how the world works. It was, in her words, “everything at once.”
And yet, what truly set her apart wasn’t just technical ability. It was her instinct to connect the dots. Even early on, she noticed something unsettling: she could see where things were heading before others did.
In the early 2000s, long before climate change became a mainstream conversation, Janice encountered it through data—graphs, models, projections. To her, it felt like discovering an “open secret. I would leave the classroom and everything outside looked normal. And I’d think—am I the only one who knows what’s coming?”
The science was clear. The patterns were undeniable. If current behaviors continued, the consequences would reshape how we live—how we grow food, how we travel, how societies function.
But outside the classroom, nothing seemed to change. That disconnect—between knowledge and action—became the defining tension of her career.
Her academic journey eventually led her to Oxford, where her focus expanded beyond pure science to include something equally critical: people.
“It’s not just technical,” she realized. “It’s behavioral.”
Climate change wasn’t just a scientific problem. It was a human one. That realization deepened during her time in Washington, D.C., working with the World Resources Institute. There, she explored two powerful ideas: how to collaborate ethically with Indigenous communities, and how financial systems—specifically banks—could influence environmental outcomes by tying funding to sustainability performance.
It was a revelation. “I didn’t realize how big a lever business could be,” she says.
Suddenly, the path forward became clearer. If science could explain the problem, business could scale the solution.
Today, as a sustainability leader at Helen of Troy—a global consumer goods company behind brands like Hydro Flask and OXO—Janice sits at the intersection of science and strategy.
Her role is not just to understand environmental impact, but to redesign it. From the materials used in products to the chemicals in coatings, from manufacturing processes to long-term lifecycle effects, every decision carries consequences. Her job is to ensure those consequences are intentional—and responsible.
“I’ve spent my career translating science into business language,” she explains. Because while data can inform, it rarely inspires action on its own.
“We don’t have a technology problem,” she says. “We have a courage problem.”
The tools already exist. Renewable energy works. Electric vehicles are viable. Sustainable materials are advancing. The science is there. What’s missing is the willingness to act.
“I can give you all the data,” she says, “but unless I win your heart, you’re not going to move.”
This is where her work becomes less about science and more about storytelling—about reframing sustainability not as a distant, abstract threat, but as something immediate and human.
Because at its core, the issue isn’t just about carbon or climate.
“It’s about our ability to live on Earth,” Lao says.
If she could deliver one message to the world, it wouldn’t be about emissions or energy. It would be about perspective. “Right now, we see the world through money,” she says. “If we changed how we define value, if we saw it in terms of people, joy, and quality of life, it would change every decision we make.”
It’s a radical shift, but also a necessary one. Because as long as value is measured purely in financial terms, sustainability will always feel like a trade-off rather than an investment.
Inside the corporate world, Lao is focused on embedding sustainability into every decision, not as an afterthought, but as a starting point. That means working with designers to eliminate harmful materials before products are even made. It means holding teams accountable, ensuring sustainability isn’t siloed but shared across departments.
“You can’t just leave it to the sustainability team,” she says. “Everyone has a role.”
It’s a systems approach, one that mirrors the patterns she first learned through math.
Because just like equations, ecosystems—and businesses—are interconnected.