Shelley Alpern is Director of Shareholder Advocacy for Rhia Ventures. She has over two decades’ experience leading and contributing to shareholder advocacy campaigns on a wide range of environmental and social issues, resulting in numerous negotiated agreements to advance more progressive corporate policies and practices. Prior to Rhia Ventures, she worked for the leading sustainability firms Clean Yield Asset Management and Trillium Asset Management. Her work in advancing LGBT rights was recognized by several organizations including Fortune and The Advocate, and she received the SRI Service Award in 2005 for “for outstanding contributions to the socially responsible investment community.” Shelley received the first-ever Rachel Carson Award from the Silent Spring Institute for her successful efforts to persuade a major cosmetics manufacturer to eliminate a toxic product ingredient.  Shelley has always been amazed at the positive influence that actively engaged shareholders can have on companies. She holds degrees from University of Pennsylvania and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.

Read article: “The Business Case for Reproductive Health”

Susan is Vice President, Shareholder Advocacy at Trillium Asset Management. Working on behalf of clients and collaboratively with investor partners her work has led to dozens of successfully negotiated agreements on issues including board and workforce diversity, environmental health, and human and labor rights. 

She began her career at the Harvard Management Company and later moved to Trillium where she held investment manager and equity research analyst responsibilities for more than a decade. After working outside the investment industry for six years she rejoined Trillium and its shareholder advocacy team in 2006.   

Susan is a member of The Chemical Footprint Project and the Investor Committee of The Thirty Percent Coalition. She previously served on the Boards of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, Pesticide Action Network, North America and The Thirty Percent Coalition. Susan obtained her BA from Middlebury College and M.Ed from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Read article: “Majority Shareholder Votes Put Spotlight on C-Suite Diversity”

Mary Baudouin: For the past 17 years, Mary Baudouin has served as the Provincial Assistant for Social Ministries for the Jesuits, first with the New Orleans Province and currently with the US Central and Southern Province (UCS).  Part of her responsibility is engaging in socially responsible investment work; she is currently leading engagements on human rights with CoreCivic, a private prison company, and with American Airlines on reducing carbon emissions.  She serves as an associate for the Jesuit Social Research Institute of Loyola University New Orleans.  She has spent most of her life working in social justice ministry in the Catholic Church.

Read article: “A Tale of Two Prisons: Human Rights for Inmates And Detainees”

Andrew Behar, As You Sow CEO, has 30 years of experience as a Senior Executive and strategist in the cleantech, communications, and life science sectors. Prior to joining As You Sow, Andrew founded and was CEO of a start- up developing innovative fuel cell technologies. He served as COO for a social media agency focused on sustainability and has been a strategic consultant in the nonprofit sector. He is a member of the board of US Social Investing Forum (US-SIF) and is a member of the UN Sustainable Stock Exchange Green Finance Advisory Group. His book, The Shareholders Action Guide: Unleash Your Hidden Powers to Hold Corporations Accountable was published in November 2016 by Berrett-Koehler.

Read article: “Corporations Redefine Themselves After 50 Years of Shareholder-Primacy”

Meredith Benton leads Whistle Stop Capital, LLC. Whistle Stop assists in the development of active investor strategies to address social and environmental concerns across asset classes. She has formerly served as the Director, Head of Client Relations at Sonen Capital, a Vice President at Boston Common Management and the Associate Director of Social Research at Walden Asset Management. Meredith has led numerous successful shareholder engagement programs, conducted extensive analyses of corporate human rights and environmental practices, and directed the impact investment parameters of more than $2 billion in assets. Meredith was twice-elected by her industry peers to the board of US SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment. She obtained her BS at Oberlin College and her MBA at INSEAD.

Read article: “You Can’t Break the Glass Ceiling Without a Promotion”

Rob Berridge, Director of Shareholder Engagement, Ceres Rob is Director of Shareholder Engagement at Ceres, where he works with investors and companies on climate change, sustainability and governance issues, as well as various projects for the Ceres Investor Network on Climate Risk and Sustainability.

Prior to Ceres, Rob served as a board member and Vice President of Green Century Capital Management and as a staff member of U.S. EPA’s Green Lights and Energy Star Programs. He has also worked in commercial lending, as an environmental consultant, and for a start-up hazardous waste recycling firm.

Rob has a degree in environmental studies from Brown University and a Masters in Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Read article: “Climate Action 100+ Targets The 100 Largest Corporate GHG Emitters”

Bertsch was named Executive Director of the Council of Institutional Investors in March 2016. He has more than 30 years of experience across a wide range of investment, consulting, management and corporate governance roles. He most recently served as a Partner at CamberView Partners. He previously was President and CEO of the Society of Corporate Secretaries & Governance Professionals; Executive Director for corporate governance and proxy voting at Morgan Stanley Investment Management; Managing Director for corporate governance analysis at Moody's Investors Service; Director of the governance engagement program at TIAA-CREF; and in various roles at the Investor Responsibility Research Center. He holds a JD from Fordham University School of Law and an undergraduate degree from Williams College.

Read article: “The Attack on Shareholder Rights”

Dan Carroll is the Center’s Vice President for Programs. Prior to joining the Center, Dan spent six years on Capitol Hill, advising a senior House member on campaign finance issues, the judiciary, and tax policy. Dan also tracked judicial nominations, researched and analyzed federal appellate court decisions, and created advocacy materials for a national non-profit advocacy organization, and served in the chambers of a federal magistrate judge. He earned a degree in Public Policy from Hamilton College and a J.D. from William & Mary Law School, where he was a fellow at the Institute of Bill of Rights Law.

Read article: “2020: Year of Reckoning for Companies on Political Spending”

Dr. Christine Chow is the Global Lead of Technology, with 23 years of experience in investment management, research and consulting. Her PhD thesis on responsible investment was short-listed for a United Nations award in Sweden for industry relevance and academic excellence.  She is a Member of the Court of Governors at the London School of Economics (LSE), a member of the School’s Investment Committee, a Board Member of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) and a member in the Data Governance Task Force of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Artificial Intelligence. In 2019, she was named as one of Brummell Magazine’s Inspirational Women in the City of London. Christine graduated from the London School of Economics and the University of Melbourne. She completed executive education on financial engineering at Stanford University. She was an adjunct finance professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Read article: “Alphabet / Google Needs Board Oversight Committee on Human Rights”

Gina joined Investor Advocates for Social Justice in June 2016. As Senior Program Associate, she supports shareholder advocacy campaigns calling on companies to address human rights impacts of business activities. Gina helps lead IASJ’s Shifting Gears initiative, focused on engaging companies in the automotive sector on human rights risks in global supply chains. She supports additional company engagements focused on workers’ rights and immigrants’ rights. Gina also assists with relationship management for Affiliates and Clients, development activities, proxy voting, and office operations. Gina graduated with honors from Grinnell College with a B.A. in Anthropology and French, with a concentration in Global Development Studies.

Read article: “Investors Want Auto Industry to Shift Gears on Human Rights”

Jared is an ESG Research Analyst responsible for evaluating current and potential portfolio investments and engaging companies to advance sustainable business practices. In his role, Jared examines and evaluates corporate sustainability policies, practices, and performance across a broad array of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) areas. He also supports engagement efforts with companies across a range of sustainability issues and assists the Corporate Governance Committee in voting proxies consistent with Boston Trust Walden policies. Jared earned a BA in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland, and an MA in Food Systems from New York University.

Read article: “Proxy Voting Power can Transform Company Climate Action”

Bruce F. Freed is president and co-founder of the Center for Political Accountability, a Washington, D.C. based NGO whose mission is to bring transparency and accountability to corporate political spending. Founded in 2003, CPA is successfully reshaping how companies engage in political spending.

Under his leadership, CPA produces the annual CPA-Zicklin Index that benchmarks the S&P 500 on their political disclosure and accountability policies and practices and TrackYourCompany.org, a searchable, sortable database on company political spending. He helped develop CPA’s innovative strategy of using corporate governance to address the risks companies face from political spending. As a result of CPA’s efforts, political disclosure and accountability is recognized as the norm.

He draws on his long experience in journalism and on Capitol Hill. Bruce speaks widely and co-authored major CPA reports including Collision Course, the first examination of the heightened risks to companies of conflicted political spending.

Read article: “2020: Year of Reckoning for Companies on Political Spending”

Danielle Fugere is President and Chief Counsel at As You Sow. She brings a wealth of experience in achieving broad and lasting change and in-depth knowledge of clean energy, conservation policy, toxic enforcement, and team building. Danielle served most recently as Executive Director of the Environmental Law Foundation. Prior, she was Legal Director and Regional Program Director for national nonprofit Friends of the Earth, where she spearheaded innovative legal strategies to reduce global warming pollution and directed campaigns to reduce pollution and promote sustainable alternative energies and fuels. Through her work, Danielle has been instrumental in securing compliance with environmental laws and industry conversions to environmentally sound technologies, including a settlement with the City and County of Los Angeles resulting in a $2.1 billion sewer system upgrade. Danielle was recognized with the WaterKeeper’s Environmental Achievement Award in 2000 for her outstanding achievements protecting California waters from pollution and compelling polluters to assume the costs of environmental degradation. She holds a JD from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and a BA in Political Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Read article: “Big Banks Must Take Responsibility For Their Own Climate Footprints”

Mary Beth Gallagher is the Executive Director of Investor Advocates for Social Justice (formerly the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment), whose mission is to advocate on behalf of a community of investors whose faith-based values promote human rights, climate justice, racial equity and the common good. Mary Beth represents institutional investors in shareholder engagements with their portfolio companies on Environmental, Social, and Governance issues. Mary Beth addresses human rights, climate and environmental justice, business impacts on immigrants’ rights, and responsible financial practices.  Mary Beth received a B.S. in Environmental Science from Boston College and a J.D. from American University Washington College of Law. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, West Africa, and brings a human rights-based approach to shareholder engagement, integrating stakeholder perspectives into investor engagements while connecting corporate responsibilities to long-term shareholder value. She is on the Steering Committee of the Investor Alliance for Human Rights.

Read article: “Investors Want Auto Industry to Shift Gears on Human Rights”

Michael Garland is Assistant Comptroller for Corporate Governance and Responsible Investment for New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer.  The Comptroller serves as investment advisor, custodian and a trustee to the New York City Pension Funds, which have approximately $200 billion in assets under management and a long history of active ownership on issues of corporate governance and sustainability.  

Michael and his team are responsible for developing and implementing the Funds’ active ownership programs for public equities, including voting proxies at approximately 11,000 portfolio companies around the world; engaging portfolio companies on their environmental, social and governance policies and practices; and advocating for regulatory reforms to protect investors and promote sustainable capital markets.  Recent initiatives include spearheading the Boardroom Accountability Project launched in fall 2014, which has helped to establish proxy access as a fundamental right at hundreds of U.S. companies.

Michael serves on the Council of Institutional Investors’ Board of Directors, where he is Public Fund Co-Chair; the Broadridge Independent Steering Committee; and the Grant & Eisenhofer ESG Institute Oversight Board.  He also serves as Comptroller Stringer’s designated representative to the board of directors of CERES, a non-profit that works with investors, companies and capital market influencers to take stronger action on the world’s biggest sustainability challenges.

Read article: “Using ‘Rooney Rule’ to Advance CEO Diversity”

Lila Holzman manages the Energy Program at As You Sow, which engages companies on issues relating to climate change and the release of toxins that pose serious health and environmental risks to local communities. Lila’s previous work experience includes working in the residential solar industry, serving as a sustainable agriculture volunteer in Panama with the Peace Corps, implementing a clean cookstove pilot in Ghana, and interning with the United Nations Global Compact.She currently serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Northern California Peace Corps Association. Lila holds an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania with a focus on Environmental & Risk Management as well as an undergraduate degree from Rice University where she double majored in Environmental Engineering and Policy Studies.

Read article: “Natural Gas in the Power Sector: Bridge Fuel or a Stranded Asset?”

Kristin is founder and CEO of Nia Impact Capital, a women-led Registered Investment Advisor leading the charge to change the face of finance by hiring and training women and people of color in sustainable and transformative investing. Kristin founded Nia Global Solutions, a gender-lens portfolio of solutions-focused companies, in her efforts to bring impact investing into the public markets.

An impact Investor since 2007, Kristin oversaw the investment process for the first family foundations as they moved their endowment assets into 100% alignment with their philanthropic mission. In 2010 Kristin went on to found Nia Community, a 100% mission-aligned impact investment fund focused on social change and environmental sustainability in her home town of Oakland, California.

Kristin is a co-founder of Impact Hub Oakland and of the North Oakland Community Charter School, and served on the founding board of George Mark Children’s House. Prior to devoting her career to transforming our financial system, Kristin was a full-time educator, teaching bilingual classes in Oakland and San Francisco. She earned her PhD in Education at University of California, Berkeley, her Masters in Research in Bilingual Education from Stanford University and her BA and teaching credentials from Tufts University.

Read article: “You Can’t Break the Glass Ceiling Without a Promotion”

John Keenan is a Corporate Governance Analyst for Capital Strategies for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which is the largest union in the AFL-CIO representing state and local government, health care and child care workers. John serves on the board of the Council of Institutional Investors, where he previously co-chaired the its Shareholder Advocacy Committee. Before joining AFSCME, he was a proxy voting analyst at Institutional Shareholder Services and also a paralegal in Washington, DC. He is a graduate of Brown University.

Since November 2003, Corporate Governance Analyst, Capital Strategies for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, working on corporate governance research, pension fund activism and pension defense. Since 2016, board member of the Council of Institutional Investors (CII) and is currently a board co-chair. From 2012 - 2016, co-chair of the Shareholder Advocacy Committee of the CII. In 2008, was named one of the “Rising Stars of Corporate Governance” by the Yale Millstein Center.

From 2001 through October 2003, served as Senior Policy Analyst for Proxy Voter Services, a division of Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) serving the Taft-Hartley community. Responsibilities included proxy voting analysis, corporate research, proxy voting according to AFL-CIO guidelines, policy research and serving as lead analyst in proxy contests.

From 1995 to 2000, worked as a paralegal at the law firm of Williams & Connolly. Casework included anti-trust, lease-backed securitizations, the Lanham Act and discrimination.

Graduate of Brown University, 1994, with a B.A. in Political Science.

Read article: “Could Lobbying Disclosure at Boeing Have Prevented Oversight Lapses that led to Fatal Crashes?”

As Senior Manager for Investor Engagements, Morgan is focused on implementation of the Climate Action 100+ initiative in North America. She is responsible for supporting investor leadership on target companies and working with Ceres’ Oil and Gas, Electric Power, Transportation and Food and Water teams to track company progress in line with the goals of Climate Action 100+.

Morgan spent five years working with European investors on corporate and policy engagement at the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC.) While at IIGCC and as a consultant she led the publication of a number of collaborative guides on Investor Expectations of Corporate Climate Risk Management.

In her role as a consultant for the physical climate risk research provider 427, she authored an engagement guide, “From Risk to Resilience - Engaging Corporates to Build Adaptive Capacity.”  She also advised family offices and investment advisors on integration of environmental indicators into investment practices.

Morgan holds a master’s degree in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree in Geography and International Business from San Francisco State University. Morgan is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area. She currently sits on the coordinating committee for the grassroots organization No Coal in Oakland. She is also a Research Advisory Council Member for the Sustainable Finance Initiative in Hong Kong.

Read article: “Climate Action 100+ Targets The 100 Largest Corporate GHG Emitters”

Natasha Lamb is a Managing Partner and Director of Equity Research & Shareholder Engagement at Arjuna Capital. Natasha integrates Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors into Arjuna’s investment process while engaging major corporations to improve their performance through shareholder advocacy. Previously, Natasha was Vice President, Shareholder Advocacy and Corporate Engagement, and an Equity Analyst at Trillium Asset Management. Natasha has been profiled in Forbes and the Boston Globe, while her work has been featured in Rolling Stone, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, as well as on NPR and CNN. In 2016, Natasha received the Upstart Business Journal Upstart 100 Award and the Aiming High Award from Legal Momentum for pioneering a shareholder campaign on gender pay equity. Her 2014 landmark negotiation with Exxon Mobil led to the company’s first public report on global warming and carbon asset risk. Natasha is a trustee of The Food Project and Chairman of the Crane Institute of Sustainability, host to the Intentionally Designed Endowments Network. She teaches sustainable investing at Pinchot University and holds an M.B.A in Sustainable Business from Pinchot. Natasha received her B.A. cum laude from Mount Holyoke College.

Read article: “It’s Time for an Honest Accounting of Pay Equity”

Sanford Lewis is an environmental attorney with 35 years of experience in environmental law and policy. His clients include institutional investors, social investment firms and nonprofit organizations. His practice is focused on shareholder proposals, shareholder rights and improving corporate environmental and social disclosure requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Lewis is the Director and General Counsel of the Shareholder Rights Group http://ShareholderRightsGroup.com and was co-author of “Fooling Investors and Fooling Themselves: How Aggressive Corporate Accounting and Asset Management Tactics Can Lead to Environmental Accounting Fraud.” He is also a documentary filmmaker. Mr. Lewis has a BS in Environmental Studies and Urban Communications from Cook College, Rutgers University, and a JD from the University of Michigan Law School.

Read article: “Proposed Rules Threaten to Obstruct Pathway to Improved ESG Disclosure and Performance”

Conrad MacKerron is Senior Vice President at As You Sow, a non-profit that promotes corporate social responsibility through shareholder advocacy. Conrad manages corporate dialogues and initiatives on social and environmental issues. He specializes in recycling and resource efficiency of products and packaging. His current focus challenges consumer brands to stop plastic pollution by making plastic packaging recyclable, taking financial responsibility for recycling, and reducing use of plastic overall. His work has led Apple to greatly increase e-waste take back, McDonald’s to phase out polystyrene foam packaging, and Starbucks to strengthen efforts to recycle cups and phase out plastic straws. He was formerly director of social research at Piper Jaffray Philanthropic & Social Investment Consulting, and Washington Bureau Chief for Chemical Week. He received the Socially Responsible Investment Service Award for outstanding contribution to the social investor community. He is author of Business in the Rainforests: Corporations, Deforestation and Sustainability.

Read article: “Starbucks Signals Historic Shift from Single-Use Cups and Plastics to Reusable Packaging”

Alexandra McPherson, Principal, Niagara Share. Ms. McPherson has spent the last twenty years scaling environmental solutions through the development of new organizations, projects and partnerships.  She co-leads the Collaborative for the Regenerative Economy (CoRE) with the University at Buffalo’s Materials Design and Innovation Department and Clean Production Action (CPA). CoRE is investing in a new multi-million dollar material innovation, and clean production program for clean energy technologies. Ms. McPherson manages the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN), a membership-based investor collaborative, based at CPA. Through IEHN, she promotes market development of safer chemicals to enhance shareholder value, public health, and the environment. Prior to her work at Niagara Share, Ms. McPherson launched and co-founded Clean Production Action. There, she assembled a world-class team to deliver environmental tools and services to major corporations, governments and nonprofits worldwide, including Apple, Dell, HP, Kaiser Permanente, the European Union, and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Read article: “A Lighter Chemical Footprint Sought for Consumer Goods, Health Care, Technology Sectors”

Mary Jane McQuillen is a Portfolio Manager and the Head of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Investment Program at ClearBridge Investments. Mary Jane co-manages the ClearBridge Sustainability Leaders Strategy, as well as a number of other active equity ESG strategies, and is a member of the ClearBridge Proxy Committee. She has 20 years of investment industry experience. Mary Jane serves on the Board of Directors for the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute and the Sustainable Investments Institute. She is a member of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) Listed Equities Steering Committee and ESG Integration Sub- Committee, and the United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) Asset Management Working Group. Mary Jane received her MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School. She holds a BS in Finance from Fordham University.

Read article: “The Beverage Recycling Conundrum”

Donna Meyer, PhD, is director of shareholder advocacy for Mercy Investment Services, Inc.; she provides advocacy services for the socially responsible investment program with a focus on health issues, including domestic health, global health, and nutrition. Together with the UAW Trust, she is co-leading the Investors for Opioid Accountability (IOA).Donna served as a healthcare administrator for a number of years prior to becoming the CHRISTUS Health system leader for Community Health; in the latter position, she directed their socially responsible investment program. She also has provided SRI consulting services for Dignity Health and several other organizations and has an adjunct faculty appointment at the Saint Louis University College for Public 

Health and Social Justice, Department of Health Management and Policy. She served on the board of directors of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) from 2007 through 2013. She currently serves on the Texas Health Institute Board and the CHI Mission and Ministry Fund. Donna has bachelor's with high distinction and master's degrees from the University of Minnesota and a PhD from the University of Texas School of Public Health.

Read article: “Opioid Crisis & Insulin Prices Prompt Shareholder Push for Big Pharma Board Accountability”

Kate Monahan is the Shareholder Engagement Manager at Friends Fiduciary Corporation, a Quaker faith-based socially responsible investment firm. She joined the firm in 2017 and manages Friends Fiduciary’s efforts to witness to Quaker values on Wall Street by engaging companies on a wide variety of environmental, social, and governance issues. Kate is an alum of Haverford College.

Read article: “Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency = Clean Energy Future”

Brianna Murphy Vice President, Shareholder Advocate Brianna is a Vice President and member of Trillium’s Shareholder Advocacy team and joined Trillium in 2010. Brianna’s responsibilities include engaging companies on environmental, social, and governance issues and public policy advocacy. Prior to Trillium she was a Portfolio Administrator at US Bank in Trust Services. Brianna earned a B.A. in Economics from the University of New Hampshire and an ALM in Sustainability and Environmental Management from Harvard University Extension School. She previously served on Bentley University’s Sustainability Advisory Board and was Board Treasurer of the IGLTA Foundation.

Read article: “Majority Shareholder Votes Put Spotlight on C-Suite Diversity”

Michael Passoff is the founder and CEO of Proxy Impact, a shareholder advocacy and proxy voting service for sustainable and responsible investors (SRIs). Michael has over 20 years of experience in corporate social responsibility, shareholder advocacy, and philanthropy. For more than a decade Michael served as the Senior Program Director for the As You Sow Foundation’s Corporate Social Responsibility Program. In 2005 he founded the Proxy Preview to alert foundations, SRIs, pension funds, labor, and faith-based communities to upcoming shareholder resolutions that are relevant to their mission. Michael has led and participated in more than 300 shareholder dialogues and resolutions on environmental, social and governance issues. His shareholder advocacy work led him to be named as one of 2009’s “100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics” by Ethisphere Magazine and he also received the Climate Change Business Journal award for a shareholder campaign that prompted greenhouse gas emission reductions and renewable energy development at public utilities.

Read article: “Facebook at Center of Storm Over Child Sexual Exploitation Online”

Bryan Pham is the chaplain at the law school at Gonzaga University where he also teaches bankruptcy law and serves as staff/supervising attorney in the Indian Law/General Practice Clinic. Additionally, he also teaches in the Religious Studies Department and is an undergraduate pre-law advisor at Gonzaga. Ordained in 2004, Bryan is a Jesuit priest of the USA-West Province of the Society of Jesus. Before coming to Gonzaga, Bryan taught in the theology department at Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), was chaplain at LMU Loyola Law School, and practiced immigration law with the Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic at the law school.

Read article: “A Tale of Two Prisons: Human Rights for Inmates And Detainees”

Paul Rissman is Co-Founder of Rights CoLab and Board Member of the Sierra Club Foundation. He is formerly an analyst, portfolio manager, and director of research at AllianceBernstein.

Read article: “2020 Could Be Pivotal Year for Sustainability Accounting Standards”

Part of the Clean Production Action team since 2004, Mark has the unique ability to bring together diverse groups and achieve innovative outcomes. He is the founder of BizNGO, a collaboration of businesses, advocacy organizations, and government agencies who work together to advance safer chemicals and sustainable materials. Mark is the co-founder of GreenScreen® for Safer Chemicals, a globally recognized chemical hazard assessment tool that governments, businesses, and NGOs use to identify chemicals of high concern to human health and the environment as well as safer chemicals. He is the co-founder of the Chemical Footprint Project, a unique initiative to score and benchmark corporations on their overall chemicals management performance. Since becoming Executive Director in 2015, Mark led the launch of GreenScreen Certified™, a certification program for products that avoid chemicals of high concern and use safer chemicals, and the integration of the Investor Environmental Health Network into Clean Production Action.

Read article: “A Lighter Chemical Footprint Sought for Consumer Goods, Health Care, Technology Sectors”

Larisa joined Loring, Wolcott & Coolidge in 2013 and runs the shareholder advocacy program. Previously, she was Director of Shareholder Advocacy for Green Century Capital Management and Research Director for Corporate Accountability International. She graduated from St. Lawrence University and holds a Masters of International Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Read article: “Alphabet / Google Needs Board Oversight Committee on Human Rights”

Leslie Samuelrich leads Green Century Capital Management, focusing on the firm’s investment strategies, business development, and impact investing program. The Green Century Funds have experienced 570% growth under her leadership. Ms. Samuelrich has more than 25 years of experience in ESG investing, corporate engagement, and environmental and public health advocacy. Her comments have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the New York Times, Responsible Investor, Barron’s, and many other outlets. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the US SIF and the Advisory Board of the Intentional Endowments Network. She is a guest lecturer on impact investing at The Wharton School and annually presents at dozens of national and regional industry events. Ms. Samuelrich was honored with the 2019 SRI Service Award, which recognizes an “individual who has demonstrated leadership, innovation, high standards of professional conduct, and accomplishment in collaboration with other SRI industry leaders.” 

Read article: “Verizon Heeds Shareholder Call To Source More Renewable Energy”

Mr. Smith serves as the director of ESG shareowner engagement at Walden Asset Management.  Walden and Boston Trust & Investment Management incorporates environmental, social and governance (ESG) analysis into investment decision-making for our clients.  We also strive to strengthen corporate ESG policies, performance, and accountability through shareholder engagement. As of February 2018 Walden and Boston Trust managed $8 billion in assets for individual and institutional clients. 

Mr. Smith joined Walden in October 2000 and leads Walden’s ongoing shareholder engagement program to promote greater corporate leadership on ESG issues. This includes company dialogues, shareholder proposals, proxy voting, and public policy advocacy. Among the areas Walden focuses on are sustainability reporting, political spending and lobbying, board diversity, executive compensation and governance, climate change, supply chain standards, water use, and human rights. Mr. Smith is actively involved in representing Walden at public events and in fostering long-term client relationships. He is chair of Walden’s ESG Research & Engagement Committee and a member of the Corporate Governance Committee.

Previously, Mr. Smith served as executive director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) for 24 years.  ICCR coordinates corporate responsibility programs for over 300 religious, institutional investors committed to using shareholder advocacy to influence corporate conduct and promote social justice. ICCR has been a primary player in the corporate responsibility movement and social investment community since the early 1970s.

In 2007, Mr. Smith was named as one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics” by Ethisphere Institute. In 2008, he was elected as a board member of the Wespath (the Board of Pensions of the United Methodist Church, one of the largest pension funds in the U.S. He serves on Wespath’s Principles Committee. In 2010, Mr. Smith received the Bavaria Award for Impact at the third annual Joan Bavaria Awards for Building Sustainability into the Capital Markets. In 2011 and 2012, he was named one of the most influential people in corporate governance by the National Association of Corporate Directors.

Mr. Smith previously served as chair of USSIF, an industry trade group, for five years, and presently serves as co-chair of their Public Policy Committee. He chairs the board of Shared Interest, a South Africa development fund. Previously, Mr. Smith served on the boards of the Domini Social Equity Fund for ten years, World Neighbors, an international development organization, and the Kimberly-Clark Sustainability Advisory Board. 

Mr. Smith earned a B.A. from the University of Toronto and masters of divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary.

Read article: “Proxy Voting Power can Transform Company Climate Action”

Christy Spees leads As You Sow’s Environmental Health Program, engaging investors and companies to ensure consumer safety from environmental contaminants, especially through agricultural practices. Christy has previously worked to promote clean and fair food and farming as an educator for Whole Foods Market. She was also a community organizer for urban farmers and farmers markets in Chicago, Illinois. She earned a Masters in Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts in Writing from Illinois Wesleyan University. Christy has also held positions as a Research Associate with UIC’s Institute for Health Research & Policy and as Health Equity Intern with Health & Medicine Policy Research Group.

Read article: “Regenerative Agriculture Takes Root Among Food Manufacturers”

Fran serves as the Executive Co-Director of Green America, focusing on Green America’s programs on green business, impact investing, and public policy. Green America is a nonprofit membership based organization in Washington, DC that involves consumers, businesses and investors in economic strategies to advance positive social and environmental change. Fran joined the organization in 2000.

Fran’s work on impact investing includes responsible banking, community investing, shareholder action, and fossil fuel divestment. She also serves on Green America’s Endowment Committee.

She holds a Master’s Degree from the Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame and earned her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis in Political Science.

Read article: “SEC Putting Corporate Interest Over Shareholders and Consumers”

Rosanna Landis Weaver has been working in the governance and compensation fields since 1992. She began her work in governance with a position in the Corporate Affairs office at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, supervising research on corporate governance and management practices. She has served as a panel member at a number of conferences including: the Practicing Law Institute’s Corporate Governance Institute; and an Investor Relations Business conference on “Understanding and Responding to Shareholder Activism” and appeared on “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” She joined the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) in 1999 and served as an expert on labor shareholder activism, writing reports on labor fund activism, executive compensation shareholder proposals and golden parachutes. At Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), she worked on the executive compensation team as a senior analyst until 2010, with a particular focus on change of control regarding single triggers, modified single triggers and excise tax gross-ups. At ISS, Ms. Weaver also participated in policymaking and meetings with corporations and analyzed “say on pay” resolutions. From 2010 to 2012 she was governance initiatives coordinator at Change to Win. Ms. Weaver holds a BA in English from Goshen College and a Masters in American Studies from the University of Notre Dame.

Read article: “What Pay Ratio Disclosure Can Tell Us About Decent Work”

Pat Zerega joined Mercy Investment Services as director of shareholder advocacy in 2011 and became senior director of shareholder advocacy in 2013. Pat 20 years of experience in corporate social responsibility, both with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and as an independent consultant. She previously served as director of the AIDS Interfaith Care Teams in Pittsburgh and as director of the Christian service department of the Archdiocese of Detroit. She serves on the board of directors of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, GoodWeave USA and Residential Care Services. Pat holds a bachelorʹs degree in psychology and a masterʹs degree in rehabilitation counseling from West Virginia University as well as a certificate in Organizational Development from the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland.

Read article: “A Tale of Two Prisons: Human Rights for Inmates And Detainees”

Josh Zinner is Chief Executive Officer for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of over 300 institutional investors representing more than $500 billion in assets under management, that engage corporations to press for greater accountability for their social and environmental impacts. Josh has nearly 30 years’ experience as a non-profit leader, coalition-builder and policy advocate. Josh is also a long-time public interest lawyer who has spent his career working to promote social and economic justice and corporate accountability. For the eight years prior to coming to ICCR, Josh co-directed the New Economy Project, an organization that works with community groups on economic justice issues and is at the forefront both locally and nationally in the fight against discriminatory financial practices.

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