Ridgely Evers

Summary

A veteran entrepreneur and proven visionary, Ridgely has been CEO of companies in the farming, software, real estate, investment, and consumer products industries. In 2016 he decided to focus his "third half of life" on sequestering carbon at scale. To that end he created AVIVO Wines, a brand designed to scale to 1 million cases at a price of $20/bottle, made using regeneratively farmed grapes, a farming method that actively puts carbon in the ground, in sharp contrast to conventional grape growing. AVIVO is committed to transparency, including (starting in 2026) publishing detailed financials online so others can see the efficiency and adopt similar practices. The first 3 release (red, white, and rosé) received scores between 92 and 97 points, finding both critical and market success. He heads DaVero Farms & Winery, a vibrant DTC winery in Sonoma county; and Elevation Custom Crush, which serves the wine industry. He is also a dirty-fingernails farmer, and serves as an advisor to a number of early-stage companies — most notably, InnerPlant, an ag-tech company that will truly transform global food production. He began writing code in 1967, in assembler, on a PDP-8/S. In 1988 he joined Intuit – then a small startup – to lead the creation of QuickBooks, today the defacto standard for small business bookkeeping. Following Intuit he served as CEO of six technology startups across a number of industries. In 1990 he imported the first olive trees brought into the US in the 20th century, and with his wife Colleen McGlynn founded DaVero Farms & Winery in Healdsburg, which has steadily grown into one of the most highly-regarded producers of Italian-varietal wines, extra virgin olive oils, and other artisan food products. He has long been a passionate supporter of America’s small business community, and served on the board of and led Government Relations for SCORE, a nationwide organization with over 12,000 volunteer executives who provide counseling services to small business owners. He is active in a number of local organizations in Sonoma County in Northern California, where he lives. In 2009, he served on the President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He earned a BA in International Relations, with distinction, from Stanford University, and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business.