Shelley Alpern is Director of Corporate Engagement at Rhia Ventures, whose mission is to drive a more equitable and vibrant market for women’s sexual, reproductive and maternal health care. Prior to Rhia Ventures, she led shareholder advocacy and research for the leading sustainability firms Clean Yield Asset Management and Trillium Asset Management, where she led and participated in shareholder advocacy efforts to advance more progressive corporate environmental and social policies. Shelley received the SRI Service Award in 2005 for “outstanding contributions to the socially responsible investment community,” the Silent Spring Institute’s first Rachel Carson Award, and national recognitions for her work to advance LGBTQ rights in the workplace. Her work has been covered in numerous publications.

Read article: Company Misalignment Between Reproductive Rights Policies and Lobbying

Antoine Argouges is the founder and CEO of Tulipshare, a revolutionary retail activist investment platform. Tulipshare is Antoine’s second business. Antoine has spent years in product development and solution-building for some of the world’s biggest dating apps, Match.com, Badoo, Bumble and co-founded Lumen. Antoine likes to build products used by millions of people and make a real impact on people’s lives.

Read article: The Promise of Retail Shareholder Power

For over 20 years, Amy D. Augustine has influenced companies and investors to advance sustainable business integration, performance, and disclosure at a global scale. As Director of ESG Investing at Boston Trust Walden, she oversees the firm’s ESG integration and active ownership strategies to promote greater corporate accountability through company dialogues, proxy voting, and public policy engagement. Amy co-chairs the Institutional Investor Committee of the Thirty Percent Coalition (the Coalition for U.S. board diversity®), which aims for equal representation for women and people of color on corporate boards of directors. She also serves on the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Standards Investor Advisory Group, as well as the UN PRI’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Advisory Committee and its Corporate Reporting Reference Group. Prior to joining Boston Trust Walden, Amy worked at Ceres and Calvert Investments. Amy has authored numerous reports and sustainability frameworks and frequently writes and speaks on ESG issues.

Read article: Positive Signs on the Road to Board Diversity

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: Concealing Harassment and Discrimination Claims Hinders Diversity Efforts

Ron represents and provides strategic guidance to investment funds and other large investors in shareholder activist situations, including large stock accumulations, behind-the-scenes engagements, letter writing campaigns, exempt solicitations, submitting shareholder proposals, negotiating settlements and running proxy contests. He also counsels public companies on a day-to-day basis, preparing and filing their Securities Exchange Act reports and advising them on corporate governance and securities law issues.

Read article: New Universal Proxy Rule Will Democratize Director Elections

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: Boards Face "NO" Votes Due to Lack of Climate Governance Practices

Rhonda Brauer is the President and Founder of RLB Governance LLC, where she provides strategic environmental, social and governance (ESG) consulting services to investors, companies, non-profits and NGOs. Rhonda has provided strategic advice to boards and management teams on ESG and shareholder engagement issues, as Secretary & Corporate Governance Officer for The New York Times Company and as Senior Managing Director for Corporate Governance at Georgeson (a leading proxy solicitation firm).

Rhonda has been a Senior Fellow at The Conference Board’s ESG Center (formerly the Governance Center), and served four years on the Board of Directors of the Society for Corporate Governance (formerly the Society of Corporate Secretaries & Governance Professionals). She received her AB, magna cum laude, in History from Cornell University, and her JD, magna cum laude, from Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington.

Read article: Boards Face "NO" Votes Due to Lack of Climate Governance Practices

Benedict Buckley is a Portfolio Analyst at ClearBridge Investments. Benedict joined ClearBridge in 2013 and has 8 years of investment industry experience and 5 years of related industry experience. Prior to ClearBridge, he worked as an Associate at the World Resource Institute and as a Senior Research Analyst at Trucost.

Benedict has an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London and a BSc in Biology from the University of Manchester. He is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society New York.

Read article: Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative: Transparency and Accountability on Climatetive-transparency-and-accountability-on-climate

Samantha (Sam) Burke is an ESG Analyst responsible for evaluating current and potential portfolio investments and engaging companies to advance sustainable business practices. In her role, Sam analyzes corporate sustainability polices, practices, and performance across a broad array of environmental, social, and governance factors and works on shareholder engagement initiatives related to a wide range of sustainability issues, including board diversity and workplace equality. Sam began her career in 2015 and joined Boston Trust Walden in 2020. Prior to joining Boston Trust Walden, she worked at Ceres and at Ernst & Young in the Financial Risk Advisory practice. Sam earned a BBA in Finance, with a focus on sustainability and environmental studies, from the College of William & Mary. She holds the Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting (FSA) Credential and is a member of the Oxford University Smith School of Enterprise and Environment’s Sustainable Finance Foundations co-hort.

Read article: Positive Signs on the Road to Board Diversity

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: A Model Code for Companies to Govern Their Political Spending 

Rebecca DeWinter-Schmitt is the Associate Program Director at the Investor Alliance for Human Rights, an initiative of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, which serves as a collective action platform for responsible investment grounded in respect for people’s fundamental rights. She is an expert in business and human rights whose two-decade career spans key consulting, advocacy, and academic roles to further responsible business conduct. Rebecca has advised companies in various sectors on identifying and addressing their human rights risks, advocated for the incorporation of human rights in multi-stakeholder initiatives, standards, and legal requirements, and educated the next generation of business and human rights professionals. Prior to joining the Investor Alliance, she directed the Human Rights in Business Program housed at American University Washington College of Law’s Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law. She also serves as a volunteer expert on business and human rights for Amnesty International USA.

Read article: Mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence Is Good for Investors and Business

Kate R. Finn is Executive Director of First Peoples Worldwide, an organization whose mission is to work from a foundation of Indigenous values to achieve a sustainable future for all. Ms. Finn leads the organization, situated within the University of Colorado at Boulder, to build corporate accountability to the rights of Indigenous Peoples at the intersection of law, finance and business.

Ms. Finn’s areas of focus and research expertise include Indigenous Peoples law and policy, federal Indian law, preventing violence against women, sustainable finance, and business and human rights. Her recent work focuses on articulating the impacts of development in Indigenous communities as business and financial risks to forecast the materiality and opportunity of embedding respect for Indigenous Peoples into routine business operations.

Ms. Finn holds a J.D. and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Colorado, and a B.A. from Princeton University. She is an enrolled citizen of the Osage Nation.

Read article: Pipeline Finance and Respect for Indigenous Rights

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: A Model Code for Companies to Govern Their 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: Insuring Net-Zero Progress

Amy Galland is the principal of Empower Venture Partners. She has over a decade of experience providing entrepreneurs, investors, and NGOs strategy, fundraising, sustainability, communications, and analysis expertise and is founder and former CEO of NTWC, an image-based technology company which was acquired in 2016.

Prior, Amy was the Research Director at As You Sow where she wrote numerous publications analyzing industry performance on key issues of corporate responsibility, led successful shareholder engagements, and created organizational and program strategies. Prior, Amy worked as a project manager and production coordinator in the music industry and as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at SUNY Binghamton teaching courses in Art History and Women’s Studies.

Amy was awarded an MBA and a PhD in Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles, an MA in Anthropology from Stanford University, and a BA in Philosophy and Art History from Tufts University.

Read article: Climate Targets - The Latest Trend in Corporate Greenwashing

As Environmental Heath Program Coordinator, Ariana works to engage companies and investors to protect consumer safety from environmental contaminants, especially harms posed from agricultural practices.

Ariana has previously worked with other nonprofit organizations, conducting research and promoting environmental health through education. She recently worked in conservation research and as a freelance environmental writer and researcher.

Ariana earned her master’s in environmental policy and Management from the University of Denver and a Bachelor of Science in General Science from the University of Oregon, where she concentrated in Environmental Science.

Read article: Shareholders Help Big-AG Build a Resilient Supply Chain

James Hawley is Senior ESG Advisor, Truvalue Labs/Factset. He is also Professor Emeritus School of Economics and Business, Saint Mary College of California.

He is the author of two books, the first on international banks and the global monetary system, and also of the influential The Rise of Fiduciary Capitalism (2001). He is co-editor Corporate Governance Failures: The role of institutional investors in the global financial crisis. (2011), as well as co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Institutional Investment and Fiduciary Duty (2014,) and The Routledge Handbook of Responsible Investment (2015). His most recent book is Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing that Matters (2021), co-authored with Jon Lukomnik.

He has spoken before numerous professional investor conferences and is frequently quoted in business and other media. He was a member of the expert consulting team to the formation of the Principles for Responsible Investment in 2004-05.

Read article: A New Investment Theory for Dealing with Systemic Risks

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 hometown of Oakland, California.

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: Concealing Harassment and Discrimination Claims Hinders Diversity Efforts

Patricia is Founder and CEO of Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN), a for-benefit NGO that champions human rights in the mining and harvesting of raw materials found in products we use every day.

Since 2004, Patricia has worked with civil society and shareholder communities to address labor and human rights abuses. She speaks extensively on the issues of modern slavery, benchmarking, traceability, and value chains. Patricia has contributed to KnowTheChain’s benchmarking reports, OECD’s due diligence guidance for the garment sector, BCI’s forced labor task force, and ICCR’s Human Workers Rights Leadership Group. She is spearheading RSN’s latest initiative, YESS: Yarn Ethically & Sustainably Sourced, which aims to eradicate forced labor from cotton production globally.

Prior to RSN, Patricia managed production at Gap, Inc., encouraged equitable trade for IATP, and trained women's artisan cooperatives. She has degrees from Fashion Institute of Technology, Cornell, and Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Read article: Mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence Is Good for Investors and Business

Diana Kearney is Senior Legal and Shareholder Advocacy Advisor at Oxfam America, where she leads the organization’s legal and shareholder proposal activism. Her work centers around corporate accountability, with a particular focus on human rights due diligence, vaccine access, and land rights. She holds a JD from NYU Law, a MSc in International Development from Lund University, and a BA from Boston University. 

Read article: Technology Transfer Needed to End COVID-19 Vaccine Inequity

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.

Read article: Secret Influence: Astroturfing Sways Public Policy

Oliva Knight leads As You Sow’s Racial Justice Initiative. She earned a Masters with Distinction in Environment, Development and Policy from the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK where her research focused on African American participation in mainstream environmental movements in the United States, investigations into the PIC, examinations of racialized landscapes in California's transit and urban policies, and post-colonial West African environmental policies and impacts. At Pitzer College, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Analysis and African Studies. Olivia previously worked for a Bay Area non-profit organization that provides health care to children with Autism and has always been passionate about assuring quality health care for communities of color.

Read article: Changing Corporate Attitudes on Racial Justice

Alison’s work focuses on the financial risks of climate change and pushing for corporate action and responsibility.

Previously, Alison’s research focused on corporate engagement for zero-deforestation supply chains, specifically highlighting nature-based climate solutions and sustainable agriculture in Southeast Asia and West Africa.

She has experience in grassroots climate organizing and environmental justice policy. Alison holds a B.A. in International Relations from Boston University.

Read article: Carbon Offsets Are Not Emissions Reductions

Natasha is currently a Partner and Head of Stewardship at the asset manager Sarasin & Partners LLP, where she steers the firm’s stewardship work, ensuring effective engagement, voting and public policy outreach in order to promote the creation of sustainable value. Since 2017, she has spearheaded Sarasin’s flagship Climate Active strategy.

Natasha has been a vocal advocate for reform of the accounting and audit system to promote long-term stewardship as well as action by company boards to confront climate change. Natasha is a member of the Disclosure and Transparency Committee of the International Corporate Governance Network, as well as the Consultative Advisory Group for the International Audit and Assurance Standards Board. Natasha sits on the Investment Committee for the Cambridge Assistants Contributory Pension Scheme and is a non-executive director at Carbon Tracker, a leading think-tank on investment and climate change.

Read article: Directors And Auditors Fail To Account For Climate Risks

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: 2022 Proxy Legal Overview: ESG Proposals in Ascendance

Forbes calls long-time institutional investor Jon Lukomnik one of the pioneers of modern corporate governance. The managing partner of Sinclair Capital LLC, a strategic consultancy to institutional investors, Jon has been the investment advisor or a trustee for more than $100 billion (including New York City’s pension funds) and has consulted to institutional investors with aggregate assets of $1 trillion dollars. He served for more than a decade as the executive director of the IRRC Institute and is a former Pembroke Visiting Professor at the Judge Business School at Cambridge.

Jon’s most recent book, “Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters” is co-authored with Professor Jim Hawley. Their work focuses on MPT’s inability to deal with systematic risk, and how investors can and do mitigate risks such as climate change, income inequality, lack of diversity, and anti-microbial resistance. Jon hosts Spark Network’s popular podcast, “Outside In with Jon Lukomnik”.

Jon is also the co-author of two previous books, What They Do With Your Money and “The New Capitalists (Financial Times pick of the year) and more than 200 other articles.

Read article: A New Investment Theory for Dealing with Systemic Risks

Jillianne Lyon is a Senior Program Associate at Investor Advocates for Social Justice (IASJ). She leads IASJ’s Climate + Dignity shareholder advocacy campaign, as well as co-leading campaigns on racial equity and peace & demilitarization. Jillianne has a strong background in corporate accountability and climate justice from various professional and academic experiences in refugee resettlement, public policy, and human rights research. She holds a B.A. from the University of Connecticut in Human Rights and Political Science.

Read article: Pipeline Finance and Respect for Indigenous Rights

Conrad MacKerron has more than a decade of experience managing corporate dialogues and shareholder advocacy initiatives on cutting-edge social and environmental issues. As Senior Vice President of As You Sow, Conrad engages global consumer and electronics companies on their waste policies. Conrad founded the As You Sow shareholder advocacy program in 1997. He specializes in engagements on resource efficiency, recycling and producer responsibility.

He is former senior social researcher at Piper Jaffray Philanthropic & Social Investment Consulting, and Social Research Director at Progressive Asset Management (both social investment firms). He also served as Senior Analyst, Energy and Environment, at the Investor Responsibility Research Center (now part of RiskMetrics Group). Formerly a journalist, he was Washington Bureau Chief for Chemical Week and a writer for BNA's Environment Reporter. He currently blogs for GreenBiz.  

He holds a Masters Degree in Journalism and Public Affairs from The American University.

Read article: Plastic Pollution - Holding Big Oil Accountable for Plastic Mismanagement

As Waste Program Coordinator, Kelly works with companies to improve their circular economy operations, including limiting natural resource extraction and supporting robust repair, reuse, and recycling programs. Kelly specializes in sustainable consumer goods packaging, plastic pollution prevention, nurdles, and electronic waste.

Kelly is the author of As You Sow’s 2021 Corporate Plastic Pollution Scorecard and leads research efforts on As You Sow's other periodic publications evaluating corporate progress towards a circular economy, including Waste & Opportunity 2020: Searching for Corporate Leadership. Additionally, Kelly manages As You Sow’s Plastic Solutions Investor Alliance, an international coalition of nearly 50 institutional investors with more than $2 trillion in combined assets, working to engage publicly traded consumer goods companies on the threats posed by plastic pollution and waste.

Prior to joining As You Sow, Kelly was a legislative analyst and advocate working to pass circular economy policies for the state of California. Kelly received her BA from University of California Davis, where she studied global and environmental health.

Read article: Reducing Plastic Pollution with Absolute Reductions and Refillables

Alexandra has spent the last twenty years scaling environmental solutions. 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. Alexandra manages the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN), a membership-based investor collaborative, based at CPA. 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.

Read article: Reducing Chemical Footprint Reduces Legal and Regulatory Risk

Sara has 23 years of experience in sustainable investing and environmental and social advocacy. Sara began her career in the international development and disaster response fields, then in SRI research. In 2005, she moved to Frankfurt to work on Fortis Investments’ SRI fund management team. Sara launched her Washington, DC-based consultancy on sustainable investing and corporate responsibility in 2011, which she closed to join TSC in 2020.

Read article: Cost Externalization: A Bad Trade for Diversified Shareholders

Nadira Narine is Senior Program Director of Strategic Initiatives, primarily responsible for research and analysis, coordination and support of program work on water and food issues.

As Food and Water safety intersects with so much of our program work - from the water impacts of hydraulic fracturing to human rights violations in the agricultural sector and the impacts of commodity over-speculation on global food prices - Nadira is responsible for helping members exploit synergistic opportunities, within the ICCR coalition, that measurably advance ICCR’s social responsibility work with multiple companies and across many sectors. She has been a staff member at ICCR since 2004, and prior to this assignment served the organization as a Program Assistant and Associate Program Director.

Nadira was born in Trinidad. She obtained a BA and MA in Political Science from The Graduate Center, The City University of New York.

Read article: Growing Support for Racial Justice Audits

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: Finding the Balance Between Child Safety and Internet Privacy

Andrea Ranger is a Green Century shareholder advocate, leveraging the Funds’ and the firm’s clout as a shareholder to drive companies to adopt more environmentally sustainable policies and practices. She currently oversees Green Century’s Insure a Fossil Fuel Free Future campaign which presses the world’s largest insurers to transition away from fossil fuel underwriting in alignment with global climate benchmarks. She also oversees Green Century’s Curbing Climate Change campaign which focuses on getting companies to set rigorous science-based greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.

Prior to joining Green Century, Andrea served as an environmental and technical consultant on utility energy efficiency programs and green school projects, coordinated residential solar projects, and taught high school biology. She holds a BAS in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, a BA in Biology from Acadia University and a Masters in Public Policy from Tufts University.

Read article: Insuring Net-Zero Progress

Paul Rissman is a retired investment executive, and Director and member of the Investment Committee of the Sierra Club Foundation. In 2018 he co-founded Rights CoLab, a startup business and human rights organization. For two decades Paul worked at AllianceBernstein LP, where he served in various roles, including portfolio manager, executive vice president, CIO of Alliance Growth Equities, and director of global growth research. He is also an Open Society Fellow, and an advisor to Just Capital and Citizen Shareholders. He received his doctorate in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. His scholarly research focused on pastoralism and animal domestication in India during the Bronze Age.

Read article: How Big Banks Put Climate and Investors at Risk

Stephanie N. Rivers is a business management consultant specializing in start-ups, social enterprises and philanthropy. Currently a consultant at Whistle Stop Capital, Stephanie has worked for several notable organizations such as Helen Keller International and Boys & Girls Clubs of America. She received her BA in Communication from the University of Oklahoma and is now working towards her Master in Public Affairs at the University of California, Berkeley, Goldman School of Public Policy, while also pursuing her EMBA at Quantic School of Business Technology.

Read article: Data Transparency Key to Improving Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace

Josh's work focuses on the climate and health impacts of the expanding petrochemicals industry. Spanning issues of climate change, petrochemical production, and plastic waste, his research supports As You Sow's Energy and Waste programs.

His past work includes lifecycle emissions of plastics, single-use plastic reduction, low-cost solar refrigeration in rural India, and distillation processes for fuel desulfurization. Josh holds a M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley in the area of Energy, Civil Infrastructure, and Climate and a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (B.C.E.) from the University of Dayton in Ohio.

Read article: Plastic Pollution - Holding Big Oil Accountable for Plastic Mismanagement

Dr. Mark Rossi, Executive Director, Clean Production Action, has decades of experience creating solutions for safer chemicals and sustainable materials. Part of the Clean Production Action team since 2004, he began as Research Director and Co-Director, before rising to Executive Director in 2016. Mark is a member of the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Act Advisory Committee and recipient of the US EPA Region I’s Environmental Merit Award and the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable’s P2 Ambassador Award. He is a leader with the unique ability to bring together diverse groups and achieve innovative outcomes. Mark co-created GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals, founded BizNGO, and co-founded the Chemical Footprint Project.

Read article: Reducing Chemical Footprint Reduces Legal and Regulatory Risk

Leslie Samuelrich leads Green Century Capital Management, focusing on the firm’s investment strategies, business development, and impact investing program. 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, Morningstar, the New York Times, Responsible Investor, Barron’s, and many other outlets. She recently completed two terms on the Board of Directors of the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment (US SIF), is a guest lecturer on impact investing at The Wharton School and annually presents at dozens of industry conferences. 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.” She also was selected as one of the “43 World-Changing Women in Conscious Business” in 2020.

Read article: McDonalds's Break Animal Welfare Pledge - Now Faces Board Battle

After a 35 year career, Frank retired from an executive position with a Global Fortune 500 company to join Seventh Generation Interfaith. He also serves as a board member of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility. Frank gives back to the local community as a certified mentor for SCORE and is on the adjunct faculty of Cardinal Stritch University (Milwaukee, Wisc.).

Read article: Scope 3 Climate Impacts Missing from Utility Net Zero Targets

David manages the Say On Climate Initiative and specializes in assessing environmental, social, governance (ESG) and climate-relate corporate performance. David’s previous experience includes working at HIP (Human Impact + Profit) Investor where he created HIP’s online data portal for sustainability ratings of corporations, bonds, and funds as well as established new frameworks to rate thousands of municipal bond issuers. David has also consulted as a website and marketing strategy expert for Fund Votes, an organization that analyzes proxy voting of large funds and has since been acquired by Morningstar.

David has written and co-authored numerous publications, including Waste and Opportunity 2020: Searching for Corporate Leadership and U.S. Energy Projection Uncertainty. David holds an MBA from the Presidio Graduate School and a B.S. in Applied Physics from UC Santa Cruz.

Read article: Say on Climate Global Shareholder Coalition

Daniel conducts research and support for As You Sow’s Energy Program, helping engage investors and companies identify and address issues related to climate change. His previous work includes research on coalmine economy transitions in Europe, circular economy, and fossil fuel divestment. Daniel has experience as a sustainability consultant working on projects in Sweden and Kenya. He holds a M.S. from the International Institute of Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University, Sweden in Environmental Management and Policy, and B.A. from the National University of Ireland, Galway in Political Science, Sociology, and Spanish Studies.

Read article: Scope 3 Climate Impacts Missing from Utility Net Zero Targets

Melissa Walton is a research associate at As You Sow supporting the Executive Compensation and Say on Climate programs. Melissa spent her early career in environmental and natural science education. More recently, she has completed quantitative plus qualitative research and reports for nonprofit organizations on a variety of sustainability topics. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Emory University, a master’s in environmental management from Duke University, and an MBA from Presidio Graduate School.

Read article: How to Make ESG Pay Links More Effective

As ICCR’s Chief Executive Officer since January 2016, Josh Zinner oversees programs and operations for the organization, and is the lead external organizational representative. Josh has more than 25 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.

Among earlier roles, Josh founded and ran the Foreclosure Prevention Project at South Brooklyn Legal Services for more than a decade. He helped to build and lead an influential statewide coalition of over 160 organizational members, New Yorkers for Responsible Lending, which fielded successful campaigns to achieve groundbreaking legislation and regulation to curb financial abuses. Previously, he worked with Oxfam America on private sector campaigns including access to medicines work; as a housing lawyer with low-income seniors; and as a social worker for five years working with adjudicated youth, street children, and homeless adults. Before it was disbanded in June of 2018, Josh was a member of the Community Advisory Board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Read article: Lawsuit Challenges SEC's Restrictive Shareholder Proposal Rules