Shawn Askinosie

In 2006, Shawn Askinosie left a successful career as a criminal defense lawyer to start a bean-to-bar chocolate factory and never looked back.

Askinosie Chocolate is a small batch, award winning chocolate factory located in Springfield, Missouri, sourcing 100% of their beans directly from farmers. Shawn travels to regions of Ecuador, the Amazon, the Philippines, and Tanzania to source cocoa beans for his chocolate. They open their books to farmers, translating financials into their language and profit share with them.

Recently named by Forbes “One of the 25 Best Small Companies in America”, the Askinosie Chocolate mission is to serve their farmers, their neighborhood, their customers, and each other, sharing the Askinosie Chocolate experience by leaving the world a better place than they found it. So far the company has provided over a million school lunches to malnourished children in Tanzania and the Philippines, without any donations. Founded at the forefront of the American craft chocolate revolution and regarded by many as a vanguard in the industry.

Shawn was named by O, The Oprah Magazine “One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World.” Shawn has been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Missouri-Columbia and Missouri State University. Seth Godin, entrepreneur, and author, recently praised the company’s model: “[Shawn] has built a practice of creating a worthwhile luxury good that directly benefits people. Not sort of. Not a little. But directly.”

Shawn's book, recently released, co-written with his daughter Lawren, published by Penguin titled "Meaningful Work: The Quest To Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul" is an Amazon #1 New Release. Read Seth Godin's review of the book here. He is a Family Brother at Assumption Abbey, a Trappist monastery near Ava, Missouri and the co-founder of Lost & Found, a grief center serving children and families in Southwest Missouri.

To inquire about a chocolate tasting or a general speaking engagement, please visit my blog.