Rick Alexander is the CEO of The Shareholder Commons, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping shareholders use systems stewardship to protect common resources and vulnerable populations.   

Previously, Rick practiced law in Delaware for 30 years. During that time, he was selected as one of the ten most highly regarded corporate governance lawyers worldwide and as one of the 500 leading lawyers in the United States. In 2015, Rick became Head of Legal Policy at B Lab, where he worked to create sustainable corporate governance structures around the globe.  He left that position in 2019 to found The Shareholder Commons.  

Rick is a member of the Delaware Corporation Law Council,  the System Stewardship Advisory Council of the PRI, and the Patient Benefit Council of Beren Therapeutics, P.B.C. He also serves as Treasurer of the American College of Governance Counsel.    

Read article: Anti-Shareholder Activists are Undermining Our Capital Markets

Rob is Senior 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 Transition Planning Will Improve Business Transparency and Resilience

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: Strong Shareholder Support for Code of Conduct for Corporate Political Spending

Parker is an early-career climate professional who is passionate about the intersections of climate science, data analysis, and corporate decarbonization. Parker previously worked at the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), where his research informed SBTi pathways for the energy and industrial processes sector and the oil and gas industry. Parker graduated in May of 2022 with a BS in Geology from Bates College, where he studied climate change in coastal environments.

Read article: Amazon Lags Behind Peers in Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas Disclosures

Laura directs the Ceres Ambition 2030 initiative, which works to decarbonize six of the highest-emitting sectors by driving aggressive corporate greenhouse gas emission reductions through disclosure, target-setting, and the development and implementation of Climate Transition Action Plans.    

Before joining Ceres, Laura was the Sustainability Director at Amherst College and a Senior Associate on the GHG Protocol team at the World Resources Institute. Laura is an expert in life cycle assessment and carbon accounting and currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Science Based Targets Initiative’s Technical Council. Laura has a Ph.D. and bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Villanova University, respectively.  

Laura lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with her husband, two children, and several pets. Laura is active in local climate work through the Town of Amherst Energy and Climate Action Committee.   

Read article: Climate Transition Planning Will Improve Business Transparency and Resilience

Erin Essenmacher is a seasoned board member and C-suite leader with expertise in innovation, growth, and brand strategy. She has served on nearly a dozen boards across ESOP, B-Corp, retail, venture capital, media, and renewable energy, with governance experience in crisis management, talent, succession planning, and CEO search. Passionate about sustainable capitalism, Erin advises boards on strategy, governance, and board-C-suite dynamics.

Previously, she was Chief Strategy and Member Engagement Officer at Athena Alliance, leading growth, branding, and thought leadership, and chaired the Athena Advisory Board. As President and Chief Strategy Officer of NACD, she transformed its content strategy, driving a 400% revenue increase and launching the NACD.DC Directorship Certification. Earlier in her career, Erin was an award-winning writer, director, and producer, creating content for PBS, History Channel, and major brands like Apple and Sony. She is a frequent speaker on governance, digital transformation, and board diversity.

Read article: Board Diversity Reduces Material Risk and Increases Long-Term Sustainable Growth

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: Strong Shareholder Support for Code of Conduct for Corporate Political Spending

Mr. Gassman is a legal consultant who focuses on sustainability issues. His core work involves providing insight into the intersection of sustainability, competition law, and fiduciary duty. All views expressed are his own and do not constitute legal advice or reflect the views of any client or potential client.  

Prior to his current work, Mr. Gassman was an antitrust lawyer, first at a Wall Street law firm and then at several boutique plaintiff-side firms. He spent most of his career representing consumers, individuals, and smaller businesses in antitrust and other large-scale commercial litigations—typically against large corporations. During his litigation career, he recovered over $150 million for his clients.    

Mr. Gassman attended New York University School of Law and studied English and philosophy as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley. He currently lives in San Francisco with his wife, two children, and a dog.   

Read article: Legal Efforts to Hobble Shareholder Rights

Cole brings over two decades of environmental sustainability and international development expertise as Director of Programs at As You Sow. Overseeing six key areas — Biodiversity, Climate and Energy, Environmental Health, Racial Justice and Workplace Diversity, as well as Shareholder Relations Management — he leverages his diverse background to drive impactful change. His tenure at the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization saw him aligning 33 country programs with UN Sustainable Development Goals, while his work at The Nature Conservancy led to the certification of 3.2 million acres of tropical forests. Armed with a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration and fluency in English and Spanish, Cole combines academic insight with hands-on experience. An avid nature enthusiast and social justice advocate, he channels his passion for addressing the ravages of climate change and promoting equity into As You Sow's mission. Cole uses his expertise in environmental, social, and governance issues to create lasting impact through shareholder advocacy and corporate engagement.

Read article: Avocado Industry Helps Reduce Deforestation in Mexico

Mikail Husain is an ESG Analyst with the SOC Investment Group. He has worked at the SOC Investment Group since 2021.

Read article: Health and Safety Audits Needed for Fast Food Industry

Dave Jones is Director of the Climate Risk Initiative at UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center on Law, Energy & Environment (CLEE).  He was Senior Director for Environmental Risk at The Nature Conservancy from January 2019 – June 2021 and Distinguished Fellow with the ClimateWorks Foundation.  Jones was California’s Insurance Commissioner from 2011 - 2018.  He founded and chaired the Sustainable Insurance Forum (SIF), an international network of insurance regulators developing climate risk regulatory best practices.  Jones was the first US financial regulator to require disclosure of investments in fossil fuel assets due to concerns about climate risk and the first to conduct climate risk scenario analysis of insurers’ investment portfolios.  Jones has testified before Congress, state legislatures, the G-20 Financial Stability Board, and regulatory agencies, about the need for financial regulators to address climate change related risk.  Jones has degrees from DePauw University (B.A.) and Harvard University (JD/MPP). 

Read article: Marching Steadily Toward an Uninsurable Future

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: New SEC Rules Undermine Lobbying Disclosure Proposals

As Associate Director, Corporate Engagement, Juana Lee provides oversight on SHARE’s human rights and decent work program. Previously, Juana held the position of Manager, Human Rights and Social Impact at Scotiabank. In this role, she supported the implementation of the bank’s enterprise-wide human rights strategy to better align the bank's business and operations with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Prior to Scotiabank, she worked at SHARE in different capacities on the engagement team. Juana was also a Researcher at Corporate Accountability, a Boston based non-profit organization, where she conducted research on political interference and lobbying related to food and beverage corporations. Juana holds a master’s degree in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Western University. She also holds a CFA ESG Investing certificate. 

Read article: Alphabet’s AI-Driven Target Ads Pose Human Rights Risks

Elizabeth’s work focuses on the financial risks of climate change and pushing for corporate action and responsibility. Her research centers banks, insurance, and climate change induced water and biodiversity risk. She has experience in grassroots climate and environmental justice organizing. Elizabeth is an AmeriCorps alumna and holds a B.A. in Psychology and Sociology with a focus in U.S. Health and Inequalities from the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Read article: Avocado Industry Helps Reduce Deforestation in Mexico

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: 2025 Update on SEC Rules for Shareholder Proposals

Conrad MacKerron has more than a decade of experience managing corporate dialogues and shareholder advocacy initiatives on cutting-edge social and environmental issues. Conrad founded the As You Sow Corporate Social Responsibility Program in 1997.

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 is author of Business in the Rainforests: Corporations, Deforestation and Sustainability (IRRC, 1993) and Unlocking the Power of the Proxy (2004). Conrad served on the board of the Social Investment Forum (SIF), and was chair of the steering committee for its Advocacy and Public Policy Program. He also served on the As You Sow Board of Directors from 1993 until 2005. In 2007, he received the SRI Service Award from SIF for “outstanding contributions to the SRI community.” He holds a Masters Degree in Journalism and Public Affairs from The American University.

Read article: Challenging Companies to Draw Down Use of Flexible Packaging

Louis Malizia is the Corporate Governance Director of the SOC Investment Group. Louis is a corporate governance leader and global investor engagement practitioner working with pension funds sponsored by unions affiliated with the Strategic Organizing Center with approximately $250B in assets under management. He engages with corporate boards and senior management, institutional investors, proxy advisors and other key stakeholders.

Louis has management and board experience. Louis spent more than two decades at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, leading the union’s initiatives to reform corporate governance and executive pay policies and practices, promoting best practices in human capital management, enhancing shareholder rights and evaluating corporate transactions.

Read article: Health and Safety Audits Needed for Fast Food Industry

Alex Martin is a Policy Director for Climate and Finance at Americans for Financial Reform and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. 

He manages the organization’s growing engagement and policy portfolio on climate-related financial risk and regulation. Before joining the organization, Alex served as a legislative fellow on the climate team for Senator Schatz (D-HI) and as informal committee staff for the Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, focusing on climate-related systemic financial risk, economy-wide decarbonization, and environmental justice. Alex holds a PhD in physical chemistry from New York University. 

Read article: Corporate Climate Disclosure Will Go On Despite SEC Retreat

Diana’s work focuses on cutting corporate greenhouse gas emissions and evaluating companies' environmental progress through a climate scorecard.

Diana's previous work includes studying wildlife management and conservation techniques in central Kenya and raptor migration and conservation at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, PA. Diana holds a B.S. in Environmental Science from American University.

Read article: The Future of Freight: Decarbonization of Heavy-Duty Trucking is Accelerating

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: Big Tech Lobbies Against Child Safety

Andrea Ranger is a Director of Shareholder Advocacy at Trillium Asset Management where she engages Trillium’s portfolio companies on reducing their exposure to climate risk. She focuses on GHG emissions associated with the expansion of AI and asks companies to set science-based targets and issue climate transition plans.   

She previously served as a shareholder advocate at Green Century Capital Management and engaged insurance, tech, auto, and semiconductor companies. She pressed them to reduce their exposure to the fossil fuel industry and establish credible plans to achieve their climate targets. Additionally, she was part of a small team which oversaw the firm’s proxy voting, and she regularly prepared press releases, statements, and blogs about her work. 

From 2015 to 2023, Andrea served on the board of the non- profit Massachusetts Climate Action Network which supports municipalities in advancing their energy efficiency and renewable energy goals. She led the board’s JEDI subcommittee. 

Read article: AI Energy Demands Pose Challenge to Alphabet's Net Zero Goals

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, born in Chicago to Haitian immigrants, brings a lifetime of legal experience and advocacy to the office. Attorney General Raoul launched his legal career as a Cook County juvenile prosecutor. Thereafter, he successively opened a general law practice, served as a higher education attorney for City Colleges of Chicago and became a partner at two national corporate law firms. He also served as an Illinois State Senator for 14 years. 

Raoul was sworn in as Illinois’ 42nd Attorney General in 2019 and took the oath to serve a second term on January 9, 2023. The Attorney General is the state’s chief legal and law enforcement officer, responsible for protecting the interests of the state and its residents. The Attorney General’s office works to safeguard communities, protect consumers, assist crime victims, preserve the environment, promote government transparency and defend the rights of Illinoisans. 

Read article: Attorneys General Stand Firm on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility

Brandon Rees is the Deputy Director of Corporations and Capital Markets for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). The AFL-CIO is a federation of labor unions that represent 15 million working people. Brandon Rees also serves as the Supervisory Committee Chair of the AFL-CIO Employees Federal Credit Union and a leadership team member for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility's Advancing Worker Justice program. He has previously served as the Shareholder Advocacy Committee Co-Chair and Asset Owners Advisory Council member of the Council of Institutional Investors, a trustee of the AFL-CIO Staff Retirement Plan, and as a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s standing advisory group. He received his B.A. in Economics and J.D. from U.C. Berkeley. 

Read article: A Human Rights Due Diligence Framework for Artificial Intelligence

Natalia Renta is the Associate Director of Corporate Governance and Power at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. In her role, she advocates for policies to increase information available to investors, enhance the ability of long-term, diversified investors to have their voices heard in corporate governance, and make financial services intermediaries more accountable to the asset owners they work for. Prior to joining Americans for Financial Reform, Natalia was a Senior Policy Strategist at the Center for Popular Democracy and an attorney at Make the Road New York. She earned her J.D. from Stanford Law School. 

Read article: Shifting Policy Terrain on Shareholder Engagement

Paul helped found Rights CoLab, a global network of human rights experts incubating strategies for corporate and investor accountability, in 2018. He was formerly Executive Vice President at Alliance Bernstein L.P. and Chief Investment Officer of Alliance Growth Equities. He has served on various non-profit and for-profit boards, including the Sierra Club Foundation. Paul has also conducted scholarly research on sustainability reporting, is a member of ISSB’s Sustainability Reference Group, and is a Founding Partner of the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures. He was an Open Society Fellow. 

Read article: The Net-Zero Banking Alliance, Climate Finance, and Banks' Accountability to Shareholders

Andrew Shalit is a Green Century shareholder advocate, leveraging the Funds’ and the firm’s influence as a shareholder to drive companies to adopt more environmentally sustainable policies and practices. Prior to joining Green Century in 2023, he had been an advocate for the environment and society for nearly three decades. He most recently created Steady Type, a touchscreen keyboard for people with hand tremors. In his career, he was also Cofounder of 18by Vote, a non-partisan group working to increase voter turnout by teenagers, Director of Shareholder Advocacy at Green Century Capital Management, and Technology Director at V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls. Andrew has a B.A. in English from Harvard University.

Read article: Nature is Critical to Business: Urgent Need to Address Biodiversity Risk

Jaylen Spann is a Lead Research Associate at Whistle Stop Capital, a consultancy which helps investors assess, and address, social and environmental concerns within their portfolios. Jaylen's work focuses on analyzing how different social and environmental issues are expressed within client portfolios, determining how these issues may impact corporate performance, and working directly with companies to encourage improved practices. Past initiatives include conducting portfolio assessments for advisors and foundations, building impact reports, and benchmarking 1000 companies on their workplace equity data transparency. Her shareholder engagement work with client-held companies has led to changes in corporate data disclosure, improved employment policies and broader access to health

Read article: Shareholders Support Corporate Workplace Diversity Regardless of Politics

Heidi Welsh, the founder and former executive director of the Sustainable Investments Institute (Si2), has analyzed corporate responsibility issues for more than 30 years. Starting at the Investor Responsibility Research Center in 1987, she authored annual assessments of shareholder advocacy and also monitored corporate compliance with the MacBride principles for fair employment in Northern Ireland for 16 years.  She later headed sustainability research within a unit of what is now MSCI and consulted on Global Reporting Initiative guidelines.  Welsh is the lead author of three Si2 studies about corporate political activity governance and spending.  She received her B.A. from Carleton College, cum laude, and an M.S. from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University.

Read 2025 Report (pages 54-57): 2024 Proxy Season Review