Contributor

Dal LaMagna

Author, 'Raising Eyebrows: A Failed Entrepreneur Finally Gets It Right'

Dal LaMagna and Responsible Capitalism

Dal is currently working as a responsible capitalist activist. He is an major funder and active Trustee of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute which awards MBA's in Sustainable Business. With his friends Wally Carbone and Carla S. Reuben he has written Raising Eyebrows, A Failed Entrepreneur Finally Gets It Right. The book is designed to inspire people to start and operate a small business while doing it responsibly.

Dal and Iraq
During the Bush Administration, Dal has been a progressive activist concentrating on stopping the violence against U.S. troops and Iraqis in Iraq.  He is an executive producer of four feature length Iraq War movies:  The Ground Truth, The War Tapes, Iraq For Sale.   and Meeting Resistance.

Dal has participated in two meetings with members of the Iraq Parliament and others in Amman, Jordan.  The first meeting, in August 2006, was comprised of a peace delegation where he and 15 other peace activists –on a mission to listen the Iraqi voices -- met with Iraqi members of Parliament, sheiks, and torture survivors. The second meeting occurred when he accompanied Congressman Jim McDermott of Washington State. Dal produced video presentations from both of these meetings and is using them to help educate members of the U.S. Congress and other Americans as to the Iraqi perspective on the war.    In March of this year, Dal produced a live video conference between members of the U.S. Congress and Members of the Iraq Parliament.    

Government and Education

He the founder of the Progressive Government Institute (PGI), a non-partisan, educational organization dedicated to ensuring transparency and accountability in the executive branch of the United States federal government.   In 2005, he merged this organization with the Backbone Campaign.

Dal ran for U.S. Congress twice in the 3rd Congressional District in New York as the Democratic and Green candidate in 1996 and 2000, respectively and is currently running for President in the 2008 Democratic Primary.  During the 2006 federal elections, Dal served as an active chair of Washington State Senator Maria Cantwell’s re-election campaign.

Dal received his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1971 and his master’s in public administration in 2002 from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government where he was named a Littauer Fellow.   He graduated from Providence College in 1968 and played on their basketball team as a freshman.  He spent his junior year abroad at the University of Fribourg Switzerland.  His earlier educational days were spent at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Brooklyn, the Cathedral Preparatory Seminary, and Saint Clare’s in the Rosedale section of Queens.

Business Acumen

Dal LaMagna is also known as Tweezerman.  He founded the company in 1980 and built it into a multi-national, premier personal care tool brand that practices responsible capitalism. Part of the company’s mission is to benefit all stakeholders -- including financial partners, employees, customers, vendors, the community and the natural environment. While at Tweezerman, Dal traveled throughout the world extensively.  He also co-founded a Tweezerman India a factory located in Pondicherry, India.   

Dal sold Tweezerman, U.S.A.  ; in December of 2004 and also sold his share of Tweezerman, India in 2005 to Zwilling J.A. Henckels Company, a privately held German company that continues the practice of responsible capitalism.  Dal’s U.S.A. employees kept their jobs and shared $10 million dollars in capital gains because each one was a shareholder in the company.   Dal’s India employees kept their jobs and received a half year’s salary as a gift from Dal and his two partners when the transaction completed.


Dal is a long standing member of the Social Venture Network (SVN), a group of responsible capitalists promoting social and economic justice through their businesses.  He served on its Advisory Board of Directors for two years.

He is on the board of directors of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, an MBA program that is “Changing Business for Good.”   Part of the BGI program includes the Dal LaMagna Responsible Capitalism series.  Dal also serves on the board for The Center For Congress, Yes Magazine, Tweezerman Corporation, and Icestone.   He is a founding partner of and a blogger at The Huffington Post and serves on the Dean’s Council for the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.  


Dal is a supporter of numerous progressive activist organizations including: Responsible Wealth, CodePink,  The League of Young Voters, UFPA United for Peace and Justice, , Business Leaders For Sensible Priorities (BLSP),  the Drug Policy Alliance, the Center for Economic Policy and Research,  The Nation Institute,  Momma’s House, The Rockridge Institute, the Center For Partnership Studies, Gold Star Families For Peace, the Campaign For America’s Future, the Center for Independent Media,  Mount Desert Island Laboratory, the Rainforest Action Network, and the Washington State Progress Alliance.

Dal currently lives in Poulsbo, Washington and maintains a second home in Washington, D.C. He has two children:  a daughter, 29, and a son, 21.

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