Mark Wexler (social entrepreneur)
Mark Wexler is an American entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and researcher. He is the co-founder and CEO of Not For Sale, a global nonprofit organization working to end human trafficking through enterprise-driven solutions. He is also co-founder of REBBL, a plant-based beverage company created to combat trafficking in the Peruvian Amazon, and co-founder of Just Business, an investment and incubation firm focused on mission-driven enterprises.
Wexler's work has been featured by CNN, Forbes, Fast Company, USA Today, VICE, MarketWatch, Voice of America, and Stanford Social Innovation Review. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London, where his research focuses on minerals, metals, and human rights. He is co-authoring The Art of Being a REBBL with David Batstone.
Wexler attended the University of San Francisco.
Early career
In 2006, Wexler co-founded Just Business, an international investment and incubation firm that launches mission-driven companies integrating human rights and environmental responsibility into their business models. In 2007, he co-founded Not For Sale with David Batstone, a professor at the University of San Francisco whose 2007 book Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade — and How We Can Fight It had drawn attention to human trafficking in the Bay Area and internationally.
Not For Sale was established not primarily as an advocacy organization but as an enterprise-driven platform for addressing the root causes of human trafficking through economic development and community empowerment.
Not For Sale
Not For Sale operates projects in multiple countries, including Thailand, Peru, Vietnam, the Netherlands, and the United States. The organization's model focuses on creating economic alternatives for communities vulnerable to trafficking rather than relying solely on rescue and rehabilitation.
In 2007, before formally establishing Not For Sale, Wexler traveled to Thailand's Golden Triangle region, where he met Kru Nam, an artist and activist who had been rescuing stateless and trafficked children near the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar. This encounter contributed to the development of Baan Kru Nam, a children's village in Northern Thailand that provides shelter, education, and long-term support to rescued children. As of 2026, the children's village is the subject of a documentary in production by Emmy Award-winning Terra Mater Studios.
Not For Sale has received international recognition for its work. In 2025, the organization received an Anthem Awards Silver for its ongoing work in the Peruvian Amazon. USA Today featured the organization alongside Facebook, Google, and Salesforce as an example of technology's new entrepreneurial approach to philanthropy. Wexler was also quoted in USA Today in 2014 in a piece on technology and economic disparity in San Francisco, where he described Not For Sale's work equipping marginalized communities with skills to participate in the emerging economy.
Free2Work
In 2011, Not For Sale launched Free2Work, a consumer-facing mobile application that allowed users to scan product barcodes and receive ratings on forced labor and child labor in the supply chains behind those products. The app graded companies on an A-to-F scale based on supply chain transparency, labor standards, and worker protections.
Stanford Social Innovation Review covered the app as a tool for conscious consumers. Fast Company described it as a way to find forced labor "hiding in the grocery store." The USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy's Technology and Human Trafficking project included Free2Work as a notable technological application in anti-trafficking efforts. The app was also included in the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies report on 100 Best Practices in Combating Trafficking in Persons. Fashion brand Eileen Fisher cited Free2Work in its supply chain transparency and anti-trafficking commitments.
Free2Play
Not For Sale also developed Free2Play, a sports-based anti-trafficking awareness initiative in partnership with Major League Baseball players. CNN reported on the program in 2012, featuring MLB players who joined the campaign to fight modern-day slavery. HuffPost profiled the initiative's connection between professional sports and anti-trafficking advocacy. Participants included San Francisco Giants pitcher Jeremy Affeldt and Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez.
REBBL
In 2011, Wexler and Batstone organized what they called the Montara Circle, a two-day gathering of approximately fifty entrepreneurs, technologists, investors, and business leaders tasked with developing a for-profit solution to human trafficking in Peru's Madre de Dios region. The group's proposal, initially pitched by San Francisco Giants pitcher Jeremy Affeldt, was a beverage company that would source ingredients directly from indigenous communities vulnerable to trafficking, creating economic demand that would reduce their exploitation.
The resulting company, REBBL (an acronym for Roots, Extracts, Berries, Bark and Leaves), launched its first product in 2012 through a crowdfunding campaign on Causes.com. The company sources Brazil nuts and other ingredients from communities in Peru's Madre de Dios region and donates a percentage of net sales to Not For Sale.
REBBL was recognized as a finalist and honorable mention in Fast Company's World Changing Ideas awards in 2019 and 2020. Forbes profiled the company multiple times, describing its model as combining profitability with positive social change. As of 2026, REBBL has donated over $2 million to Not For Sale, supporting programs that have reached over half a million survivors and at-risk individuals worldwide.
Dignita
In 2015, Not For Sale's Netherlands branch opened Dignita, a restaurant in Amsterdam that provides culinary training and employment to survivors of human trafficking. The restaurant, whose motto is "Eat Well, Do Good," was developed in collaboration with Toos Heemskerk-Schep, director of Not For Sale Netherlands, who had worked as a social worker in Amsterdam's Red Light District.
CNN reported that the restaurant had trained over 160 participants by 2016, providing survivors with hospitality certifications and employment experience. VICE's food channel Munchies published a feature on the program, documenting how survivors develop culinary skills and rebuild social connections through daily work in a professional kitchen environment. Paste Magazine also covered the restaurant as part of its broader reporting on responses to human trafficking. As of 2026, Dignita operates one location in Amsterdam: Hoftuin.
Research
Since 2020, Wexler has served as a Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London, where his research focuses on minerals, metals, supply chains, and their intersection with human rights and environmental sustainability.
Wexler's work has been cited in a 2010 report commissioned by the Canadian Federal-Provincial-Territorial Forum of Senior Officials, which identified Not For Sale's model as a promising practice in anti-trafficking victim services.
Other ventures
Wexler is the founder of Krunam Technologies PBC, Inc., a public benefit corporation. He serves as interim marketing director at M2i Global, a minerals and metals company focused on building responsible supply chains and a U.S. Critical Minerals Reserve. He is a founding team member and board member of Regenerate Technology Global, a battery sustainability and recycling technology company. He has served as an investor and consultant to American Battery Technology Company (NASDAQ: ABAT), Hydra Energy, and Relocity, Inc (exited: 2024).
Wexler serves on the board of Blue Dragon Children's Foundation (USA), an anti-trafficking organization based in Hanoi, Vietnam, and on the board of The Moving Company, a Minneapolis-based theater company.
Speaking
Wexler has delivered keynote presentations at events including the Passion Conference at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta (approximately 60,000 attendees), TEDxFurmanU (titled "Just Businesses: Modeling a path to end modern-day slavery"), the 10th Founders World Summit in Stockholm, and corporate events for AllSaints and Spence Diamonds. He has also spoken at Stanford University, the University of Michigan, the Kellogg Institute at Notre Dame, and Handong University in South Korea.
Publications
- Wexler, Mark and Batstone, David. The Art of Being a REBBL: 10 Rules to Becoming a Changemaker (forthcoming).
- Contributing writer, The Essential Abolitionist: Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery.
- Wexler, Mark and Batstone, David. "The Right Stuff." Sojourners Magazine, July 2004.
- Wexler, Mark. "A New Way to Fight Modern-day Slavery: Just Businesses." HuffPost, 2016.
- Wexler, Mark. "Creating Thriving Communities: Key to Addressing Modern Slavery." The B Team, 2015.
Awards and recognition
- Anthem Awards Silver Winner (2025), for Not For Sale's work in the Peruvian Amazon
- Fast Company World Changing Ideas Finalist (2019)
- Fast Company World Changing Ideas Honorable Mention (2020)