Proxy Preview Contributors

Here are the authors who contributed in 2017.

2018 contributing authors coming soon!

Andrew behar

Andrew Behar is CEO of As You Sow, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing corporate environmental and social responsibility. Founded in 1992, As You Sow envisions a safe, just, and sustainable world in which environmental health and human rights are central to corporate decision making. Previously, Andrew founded a clean-tech start-up developing innovative fuel cell technologies for grid-scale energy storage. He is on the Board of Directors of the US Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investing (US-SIF), he is on advisory boards of Real Impact Tracker and 1-Earth Institute, on the steering committee of Institutional Investor Educational Foundation, is a member of the UN Green Finance Advisory Group that developed the recently released UN Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative, and was named one of 30 “Eco Rock Stars and Environmental Mavericks” in Origin Magazine. His book, The Shareholders Action Guide: Unleash Your Hidden Powers to Hold Corporations Accountable was published in November 2016 by Berrett-Koehler.

David abbott

David Abbott is executive director of The George Gund Foundation, a grantmaking organization focused primarily on Cleveland and committed to making Cleveland, and urban areas generally, more globally competitive, livable, sustainable and just. He oversees the Foundation’s work in the arts, community and economic development, education, the environment, and human services. He is a member of the executive committee of The Fund for Our Economic Future, a collaboration of grantmakers, and serves on the board of Team NEO, a partnership of business and philanthropy. Both are working to catalyze economic transformation of Northeast Ohio.

Prior to joining the Foundation, he served as president of University Circle Incorporated, executive director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and executive director of the Cleveland Bicentennial Commission. Abbott was also the Cuyahoga County administrator and, early in his career, a reporter for The Plain Dealer. He holds a B.A. in political science from Denison University, a M.S. in journalism from Columbia University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

shelby alpern

Shelby Alpern joined Clean Yield Asset Management as director of social research and advocacy in the fall of 2012. A shareholder advocate for nearly two decades, Shelley has led and participated in a wide range of advocacy campaigns, leading to numerous negotiated agreements with leading corporations. She has worked on a broad number of issues, including greenhouse gas emissions, corporate political spending, palm oil, and LGBT workplace policies.
For her efforts in promoting inclusive nondiscrimination policies, she was recognized by the Gay Financial Network and Fortune magazine as one of the 25 most powerful lesbians and gay men in business and by The Advocate magazine as “one of our best and brightest activists.” Her work to press a leading cosmetics manufacturer to remove phthalates as a product ingredient was recognized by the Silent Spring Institute in 2005 with their first Rachel Carson Award. In 2005 she was voted by her industry peers to receive the SRI Service Award.

Susan Baker

Susan Baker is a Vice President and member of Trillium’s Shareholder Advocacy team. With more than 20 years of experience in the investment industry, Susan lead and participates in numerous advocacy initiatives including dialogues with corporate leadership and filing shareholder proposals to advance the interests of sustainable and responsible investors. Having the opportunity to work with Joan Bavaria, a pioneer in the field of social responsible investing, Susan spent the early part of her career as an investment manager and equity analyst at Trillium.She currently serves on the boards of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, Pesticide Action Network North America, and The Thirty Percent Coalition. Susan earned a B.A. from Middlebury College, and Ed.M. from Harvard University.

Mark Bateman

Mark Bateman is Aperio’s Director of SRI/ESG Research. He is an internationally recognized ESG/SRI/Impact expert and works with Aperio’s clients to create customized ESG/SRI/Impact solutions that reflect their values. In addition to his work with Aperio, Mark is the founder of Segue Point LLC, a consulting firm focused on responsible investing and sustainability. Before founding Segue Point, he served as the director of research at IW Financial, a leading provider of value-added environmental, social, and governance (ESG) research. Prior to that, Mark spent 11 years at the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute (IRRC) in Washington, DC, in a range of positions, including director of the environmental information service and ultimately vice president of research and operations. He also served on the original steering committee of the Global Reporting Initiative, helping to develop a sustainability reporting framework for companies. He serves on the board of directors for the Sustainable Investments Institute (Si2), a social proxy research firm, and is the founder and publisher of CSR2, a newsletter on corporate responsibility issues for faith-based congregations. Mark holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University and an MA from George Washington University.

Rob Berridge

Rob Berridge is a Senior Manager of Investor Programs at Ceres, where he leads shareholder engagement with companies on climate change and sustainability issues, as well as various projects for the Investor Network on Climate Risk. 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 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.

Ken Bertsch

Ken Bertsch is Executive Director of the Council of Institutional Investors. CII and its members have worked for more than 30 years advocating for the rights and interests of public shareholders, including one-share, one-vote; strong and fair disclosure rules; board member accountability to shareholders; and fair treatment for dissident shareholders when raising challenges through proxy contests and shareholder proposals. See www.cii.org; CII Policies on Corporate Governance can be found at http://www.cii.org/corp_gov_policies.

Farnum Brown, Ph.D

Farnum Brown, Ph.D is Managing Partner and Chief Strategist at Arjuna Capital. Farnum entered the investment business in 1980 and in 1987 established one of the first socially responsible investment advisory services in the United States. From 1994 to 2012 Farnum worked at Trillium Asset Management, a pioneer in responsible investing. At Trillium he was a senior vice president, technical analyst and the firm’s chief strategist. Farnum founded the non-profit Open Media and Information Company Initiative (OpenMIC), a shareholder coalition promoting online access, privacy, and net neutrality. He has served on the Boards of Directors of the Future of Music Coalition, the Public Media Company, and the Art of Cool Project. Farnum received his bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Shanna Cleveland

Shanna Cleveland is a Senior Manager at Ceres where she directs Ceres’ work on the Carbon Asset Risk (CAR) Initiative. The CAR Initiative supports investor engagement with fossil fuel companies to better assess and manage the risks that significant capital expenditures may be stranded as the world shifts to a low carbon economy. Recent studies have confirmed that achieving the international goal of limiting global average temperature rise to “well below 2 degrees Celsius” will require leaving significant quantities of fossil fuel reserves in the ground.
Prior to joining Ceres, Shanna led clean energy initiatives as a Senior Attorney at Conservation Law Foundation. Shanna’s work included reaching a landmark settlement agreement with a developer of a proposed natural gas power plant to limit and phase out greenhouse gas emissions from the facility, a first-of-its-kind decision from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regarding compensation for reliability through capacity payments, and a nationally recognized analysis of the impacts of and policy options for reducing fugitive emissions from the natural gas distribution system.
Shanna earned her law degree at the University of Virginia where she served as an Executive Editor of the Virginia Law Review, an LL.M. in Environmental Law from Vermont Law School, magna cum laude, and her undergraduate degree from Harvard University, magna cum laude.

Jackie Cook

Jackie Cook specializes in corporate ESG disclosure analysis aimed at strengthening investor stewardship on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. She founded and curates the Fund Votes proxy vote tracking project as well as the Climate Risk Disclosure project, which employs proprietary tools for compiling, analyzing and representing large volumes of narrative corporate disclosures in sustainability domains related to climate change. She recently joined SHARE as Associate Director for Proxy Voting and Research Services. Jackie has worked for governmental, academic, advocacy and commercial organizations in delivering ESG-related research and analytical data solutions and is a graduate of Oxford University’s Saïd Business School as a Rhodes Scholar.

Bruce Freed

Bruce Freed is president of the Center for Political Accountability, a Washington, D.C. based NGO whose mission is to bring transparency and accountability to corporate political spending. It has pioneered the examination of corporate political spending and the risk it poses to companies and shareholders and produces the CPA-Zicklin Index that benchmarks companies on their political disclosure and accountability policies and practices. As a result of CPA’s efforts, political disclosure has been adopted by 130 large companies and is becoming a mainstream corporate practice.In his work with CPA, which he founded in 2003, he has drawn on his three decades of experience in journalism, Congress, and strategic public affairs. Mr. Freed speaks widely and co-authored The Conference Board’s Handbook on Corporate Political Activity. He has appeared in the Washington Post, Financial Times, Reuters, US News & World Report, the Sacramento Bee, the International Corporate Governance Network 2013 Yearbook, and The Conference Board Review.

Danielle Fugere

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.

Michael Garland

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 more than $160 billion in assets and a long history of active ownership on issues of corporate governance and sustainability. Mr. Garland and his team are responsible for developing and implementing the Funds’ active ownership programs for public equities, including voting proxies, engaging portfolio companies on their environmental, social and governance policies and practices, and advocating for regulatory reforms to protect investors and strengthen shareholder rights. He also co-chairs the Activism Committee of the Council of Institutional Investors and serves as Comptroller Stringer’s designated representative to the CERES board of directors.

Anita Green

Anita Green is the Manager of Sustainable Investment Strategies for Wespath Investment Management, located in Glenview, IL. Ms. Green is responsible for strategic development and implementation of Wespath’s corporate engagement program. In this role she regularly communicates with corporate management about policies and practices related to environment, social, and governance issues. Ms. Green serves on the board of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and is a previous board member of the USSIF, The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment.

Steven Heim

Steven Heim is a Managing Director and Director of ESG Research and Shareholder Engagement at Boston Common Asset Management, LLC. With over 20 years of service in the investment field, he has worked to promote corporate transparency, accountability, and attention to sustainability issues. Mr. Heim has led public and private engagements with companies and investors on a diverse range of issues, including climate change, human rights, sustainable agriculture, hydraulic fracturing, and global supply chain standards. His efforts to protect the human rights of Indigenous Peoples have helped catalyze positive changes at U.S. and international companies including ConocoPhillips and Repsol.

John Keenan

John Keenan is the Corporate Governance Analyst for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). John has been working on corporate governance research, pension fund activism, and pension defense since November 2003. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Council of Institutional Investors (CII). From 2012 to 2016, he co-chaired of the Activism Committee of the CII. In 2008, John was named one of the “Rising Stars of Corporate Governance” by the Yale Millstein Center. From 2001 through October 2003, he served as Senior Policy Analyst for Proxy Voter Services, a division of Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) serving the Taft-Hartley community.

Jonas Kron

Jonas Kron is Trillium’s Director of Shareholder Advocacy. With almost 20 years of experience in shareholder advocacy, Jonas is responsible for leading and coordinating Trillium’s extensive advocacy program, which works to engage companies on their environmental and social performance. His advocacy work includes direct communications with company leadership, investor education and awareness, filing shareholder proposals, and public policy advocacy at the municipal, state and federal levels. Jonas is co-chair of US SIF’s Public Policy Committee and is a member of the US SIF Board of Directors. As a recognized legal expert in the field and a leader in shareholder advocacy, Jonas regularly represents Trillium in the media, at public events, and with clients. Prior to joining Trillium, Jonas was an environmental attorney and public defender as well as outside counsel to many socially responsible investment organizations. Jonas holds J.D. and master’s degrees from Vermont Law School.

Natasha Lamb

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.

Luan Jenifer

Luan Jenifer, Executive Vice President, joined Miller/Howard Investments in 2002. Luan has worked in the operations department since joining the firm. During her tenure she was promoted to Head Trader and then to Director of Operations and Shareholder Advocacy. Prior to joining the firm, her work experience included managing a local TV station, customer service, inventory control and data management for various businesses and non-profit organizations. She continues volunteer work for several community organizations in the Woodstock area. She received her Associate of Science degree from the State University of New York at Ulster in 1993.

Conrad MacKerron

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.

Mary Jane McQuillen

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.

Donna Meyer

Donna Meyer joined Mercy Investment Services as social responsibility consultant in 2012 and became director of shareholder advocacy in 2013; she provides advocacy services for the socially responsible investment program with a focus on health issues, including domestic health, global health, and nutrition. 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, the CHI Mission and Ministry Fund, and the UT Conflict of Interest Committee. 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.

Mary Minette

Mary Minette has 10 years of experience as director of environmental education and advocacy for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Washington Office. During that time, she served as the North American representative to the Climate Change Advisory Group of the ACT Alliance, a global network of faith-based relief and development organizations; as president of the board of Creation Justice Ministries, formerly the National Council of Churches eco-justice program; and on the executive committee of the National Farm Worker Ministry board. Read more about Mary’s experience online.

Kilian Moote

Kilian Moote is an expert in supply chain transparency and legal disclosure. He is the Project Director for KnowTheChain, a Humanity United project dedicated to helping businesses and investors understand and address labor abuses within their supply chains. In this role he oversees all aspects of KnowTheChain’s strategy, publications, and business engagement. He has consulted with Fortune 500 companies and used that experience to create guidance documents and engagement best practices for national governments, including the U.S. Department of Labor and the European Commission. Prior to joining Humanity United, Kilian conceptualized and led Free2Work, a risk assessment and evaluation tool, funded by the US State Department, designed to inform brands how they can reduce human trafficking risks in their supply chains. Kilian has lectured at the University of San Francisco, where he developed and taught a new MBA course on Sustainable Supply Chain Management.

Nora M. Nash Sr.

Nora M. Nash Sr. is a professed member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia. Currently, she is the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility for her congregation. She manages the congregation’s assets for responsible investment as well as community development loans and social justice grants. She is an active member of the Philadelphia Coalition for Responsible Investment as well as the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR). She does presentations at Neumann University and other local universities and communities on various dimensions of justice and advocacy. She has been recognized internationally for her shareholder advocacy work with corporations and has been the subject of many television, radio, newspaper, magazine interviews from Philadelphia to London and she is one of the subjects in the book If Nuns Ruled the World. She has been the recipient of numerous awards for leadership and service including the 2005 Neumann University President’s Distinguished Alumni Award and the 2011 Franciscan Federation Award. In 2014, she received The Legacy Award from The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR). Most recently, she received an Honorary Doctorate from Neumann University in Aston, PA. She is a graduate of Neumann University, holds a Masters in Education/Administration from St. Bonaventure University, and completed post graduate studies in ministry at Notre Dame University.

Michael Passoff

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.

Leslie Samuelrich

Leslie Samuelrich is President of Green Century Capital Management. Leslie focuses on the firm’s current and emerging investment strategies, business development, and impact investing program. She is a frequent speaker on impact, gender-lens, and environmentally sustainable investing. Prior to joining Green Century, Leslie served as the Chief of Staff at Corporate Accountability International and Executive Director of Green Corps. Leslie earned her BA in economics from Boston College and currently serves on the Board of Directors for US SIF, the membership association for professionals, firms, institutions and organizations engaged in sustainable, responsible, and impact investing, as well as the Advisory Board of the Intentional Endowments Network.

Jonathan A. Scott

Jonathan A. Scott leads a volunteer family board managing the Singing Field Foundation, which distributes $250,000 annually to organizations and causes of interest to family members, concentrating on environment, health and animal welfare. The foundation practices “active ownership” of its assets so that endowment funds are managed in alignment with foundation grantmaking and values held by the family. Scott also directs corporate relations and legacy giving programs for the national environmental group, Clean Water Action.

Heather Smith

Heather Smith is the Lead Sustainability Research Analyst at Pax World Management LLC. As such, she researches and evaluates the environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of companies for inclusion in Pax World’s portfolios. She is also a member of the Pax World Gender Analytics team and a Portfolio Manager of the Pax Ellevate Global Women’s Index Fund. Heather is involved in overseeing Pax World’s proxy voting and coordinating its gender related shareholder engagements. She previously served as a member of the Sustainable Investment Research Analyst Network’s (SIRAN) steering committee. Prior to joining Pax World, Heather was a Legislative Aide for the New Hampshire State Senate. She received a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and an MBA from the University of New Hampshire.

Tim Smith

Tim Smith serves as the Director of ESG Shareowner Engagement at Walden Asset Management, a division of Boston Trust & Investment Management Company. Walden has been a leader in sustainable and responsible investing (SRI) since 1975. As of June 30, 2015, Walden managed approximately $2.7 billion in assets for individual and institutional clients.
Mr. Smith joined Walden in 2000 to lead 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. One of Walden’s priority issues is Board diversity pursued through letters, company dialogues, shareholder resolution and proxy voting.
Previously, Mr. Smith served as executive director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) for 24 years.

Nanya Springer

Nanya Springer is associate director of the Center for Political Accountability and is responsible for working with our shareholder partners, engaging the corporate community, and overseeing research projects including the annual CPA-Zicklin Index of Corporate Political Disclosure and Accountability. She brings over a decade of experience in the nonprofit sector and is a graduate of the University of Maryland and the University of Illinois College of Law.

Rosanna Landis Weaver

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 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 packages, 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.

Heidi Welsh

Heidi Welsh, the founding executive director of the Sustainable Investments Institute (Si2), has analyzed corporate responsibility issues for more than 25 years. Starting at the Investor Responsibility Research Center in 1987, she provided detailed coverage of shareholder advocacy and monitored corporate compliance with a fair employment code in Northern Ireland for 16 years. In addition, she co-authored CDP’s S&P 500 report in 2007, headed up 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.

Austin Wilson

Austin Wilson is the Environmental Health Program Manager at As You Sow, where he employs shareholder advocacy to promote corporate responsibility related to environmental health, particularly in the food and agriculture sectors. Prior to joining As You Sow, Austin served as Research Associate and Network Coordinator at the Responsible Hospitality Institute in Santa Cruz, CA. Austin graduated magna cum laude from UC Santa Cruz with undergraduate degrees in Combined Mathematics/Economics and Politics.

Pat Zerega

Pat Zerega joined Mercy Investment Services as director of shareholder advocacy in 2011 and became senior director of shareholder advocacy in 2013. Pat has more than 15 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 bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling from West Virginia University as well as a certificate in Organizational Development from the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland.