Responsible Investor USA 2024 | 3-4 December 2024

Carolyn Allwin

Adjunct Professor, Columbia University

Carolyn Kim Allwin is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and Bard Graduate Programs in Sustainability. She also runs a boutique sustainability consulting firm, Elysian Advisers. She has a specific sector focus on helping companies navigate regulatory changes and implement efficient cross-border sustainability and tax planning strategies. Allwin has also served as Head of ESG & Sustainability at Capco, Chief Sustainability Officer for Recap Investing, Tax Counsel at GoldenTree Asset Management, and Consultant at Ernst & Young.

Ulrich Atz

Research Fellow, NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business

Ulrich Atz is a Research Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Business and part of the NYU Stern Doctoral Program in Accounting. In his prior role as Associate Researcher, he provided quantitative expertise and co-authored the article on the Return on Sustainability Investment (honored with a "best paper" award). His research interests cover sustainability disclosures and ESG information, financial and business innovation, and statistical methods for interpreting data.

He also served as the Chief Measurement & Technology Officer at NYU’s HUMAN Project, a research platform and mHealth startup until its launch as a private company. Before moving to New York City, he worked at the Open Data Institute (ODI), a world-leading organization advocating for the innovative use of open data. As Startup Programme Manager, he grew the number of incubated startups from 25 to 52 and oversaw the ODI's involvement at the Open Data Incubator for Europe, a €7.8M EU Horizon 2020 project. Over the years, he has trained and consulted hundreds of people on data, statistics, and innovation. He holds a Diploma (BSc + MSc) in Economics from the University of Mannheim and an MSc in Social Research Methods (Statistics) from the London School of Economics. He grew up in South Tyrol, a bilingual region in the Italian Alps

Antoine Begasse

Finance Counsellor, Delegation of the European Union to the United States

Antoine Begasse is the EU Financial Counsellor at the Delegation of the European Union to the United States. He is in charge of Financial Services.
Previously, he was a policy officer at the European Commission within DG FISMA (Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union). He worked on corporate reporting and sustainable finance.
Antoine holds a Master in Business Administration from the Louvain School of Management and a Master in European Affairs from the College of Europe.

Vicki Benjamin

President - Co-founder, Karner Blue Capital

Vicki is a co-founder of the Adviser and has been its Chief Executive Officer since it commenced operations as an investment adviser in 2018. Vicki maintains a 57% ownership stake in KBC. Ms. Benjamin was a partner at KPMG from September 2005 until February 2015, when she joined Calvert Investments, Inc. as its Chief Financial Officer. She served as the President of Calvert Investments, Inc. from January 2017 through June 2020. She received a B.A. from the University of New Hampshire and an M.B.A. from Bentley University McCallum Graduate School of Business.

Sarah Bernstein

Managing Principal/ Head of Sustainability, Meketa Investment Group, Inc.

Ms. Bernstein is an institutional investment consultant and has been focused on ESG and sustainability issues for over two decades. Ms. Bernstein joined the firm in 2019 as part of the merger between Meketa and Pension Consulting Alliance (PCA). She leads ESG projects across varying clients and serves as an ongoing member of Meketa’s consulting teams for select clients. Ms. Bernstein chairs Meketa’s ESG Investing Committee and is a member of the firm’s Corporate Responsibility Committee and Net Zero Operations Task Force.
Prior to joining PCA in 2002, Ms. Bernstein was an equity analyst with several Wall Street firms, including Kaufman Bros., First Union Capital Markets Corp., and US Bancorp Piper Jaffray. In the July 2000 issue of “Wall Street Journal 1999 Best on the Street,” Ms. Bernstein was named No. 1 for Estimate Accuracy and No. 3 for Stock Picking within the Enterprise Software sector.
Prior to her Wall Street experience, Ms. Bernstein was an Economic Affairs Officer at the United Nations Secretariat where she analyzed investment, productivity, growth, inflation, technological change, and employment in developed market economies for internal UN discussion and publication. In addition, Ms. Bernstein was a Vice President with Mantis Holdings, a Project Director with the Ontario Investment Fund Initiative, and a Senior Economist with the Cuomo Commission on Competitiveness.
Ms. Bernstein represents Meketa on the steering committee of the Investment Consultants Sustainability Working Group – US (ICSWG-US), is a member of the Private Equity Women’s Investor Network (PEWIN) and serves on the PEWIN Foundation Board of Directors. Ms. Bernstein holds the SASB FSA (Fundamentals of Sustainable Accounting) Credential.
Ms. Bernstein earned a Bachelor of Arts in Politics from the University of California and a Doctor of Philosophy in Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York City.

Meketa Investment Group, Inc.

Meketa Investment Group is an independent, full service investment consulting and advisory firm with offices in Boston, Chicago, London, Miami, Portland, and San Diego. Since 1978, we have provided creative investment solutions custom tailored to fit the unique circumstances of our clients. Our services include Traditional Investment Consulting, Alternative Investments Consulting, and Outsourced CIO services. We work with clients on both a full retainer and project basis, and all of our services are available on a discretionary or non-discretionary basis.

Since the inception of the firm over 45 years ago, we have been guided by the principles of excellence and integrity. We are committed to offering independent advice that is free of conflicts of interest. We work only for our clients and serving our clients’ best interests is our only goal.

Willie Botha

Program & Technical Director, IAASB

Willie joined the IAASB in January 2019. He leads the IAASB team in advancing the IAASB’s strategy and work program and works closely with the IAASB Chair in managing the activities of the Board.

Willie has a broad range of experience in different aspects of the audit profession, after previously serving as a Senior Executive at the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants, a Senior Technical Specialist at the Auditor General South Africa and an audit partner and technical director at an audit firm. Willie was also the head of the Department of Accounting, and Associate Professor of Auditing, at the University of Pretoria.

He has previously served as a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountant’s Assurance Guidance Committee and the South African audit regulator’s Committee for Auditing Standards.

Lisa Bozzelli

Sustainable Finance Advisor

Lisa has spent over 20 years in the financial markets, most recently with Fannie Mae where she managed Fannie Mae’s multifamily bond portfolio as the senior director of the multifamily capital markets trading desk and launched the firm’s market-leading green and social bond programs. Driving demand for the bonds, Lisa engaged with global investors to develop data and disclosure solutions for the nascent asset class. Now in its 11th year, the green bond program integrates water and energy efficiency savings into commercial real estate financing and has originated over $115 billion in Green MBS. Lisa served on the International Capital Market Association (ICMA)’s Executive Committee of the Principles, the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC)’s Sustainability Steering Committee, and the Structured Finance Association (SFA)’s ESG & Structured Finance Task Force.
Prior to joining Fannie Mae, Bozzelli was an Investment Banker with the Real Estate Investment Banking team at Jones Lang LaSalle in Washington, D.C., and the Global Industrials Group at Credit Suisse in New York. Before entering the financial services industry, she served as a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy, flying the E-2C Hawkeye. Bozzelli holds a BS from the U.S. Naval Academy and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Fannie Mae

Fannie Mae advances equitable and sustainable access to homeownership and quality, affordable rental housing for millions of people across America. We enable the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and drive responsible innovation to make homebuying and renting easier, fairer, and more accessible.

Dan Byrd

Director - ESG Industry Practice Lead, Moody’s Analytics

Dan Byrd is the ESG Industry Practice Lead for Moody’s Analytics. He is an experienced legal professional, particularly with regard to how complex regulatory frameworks impact investment and business decisions. Prior to joining Moody’s, he was co-founder and general counsel of a private credit fund that specialized in small business finance, fintech and esoteric private credit, including energy efficiency retrofits to buildings and municipal street lights. Dan was also a senior policy and communications consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office, and worked at a hedge fund that invested in the public securities of clean energy companies and sustainability leaders. Dan began his career as an environmental attorney at the law firm K&L Gates, representing corporate clients and regional businesses in litigation, administrative proceedings and general business advisory across waste management, clean air and clean water issues. Dan received his B.A. in environmental studies and biology from the University of Pennsylvania, M.A. in environmental management from Yale University, and J.D. from Rutgers University.

Moody’s Analytics

Built on more than 100 years of experience, Moody’s research and insights provides transparent, rigorous, comprehensive, and independent perspectives on interconnected risks and opportunities. Moody’s on Climate delivers insight on physical and transition risks with unique perspective on the interconnected impacts on global debt markets, credit, and broad financial implications. Our solutions are designed to complement your existing risk management workflows to deliver the insight you need today, and the expanding risk insight necessary in an uncertain climate future. Our DNA is financial intelligence and our investments have amplified our offerings with data, modeling, and expertise for financial quantification of climate risk to help you make better, faster decisions.

Annette Capretta

Chief Counsel, ICI Global

Annette Capretta is Chief Counsel of ICI Global and guides the Investment Company Institute’s international legal program in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere for the benefit of ICI members and long-term investors. In previous positions at ICI, she served as Associate General Counsel, focusing on environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters, and as Deputy Managing Director of the Independent Directors Council (part of the ICI). Before joining ICI, Annette held senior management positions at the Securities and Exchange Commission and in the legal department of a large fund complex. Annette began her legal career as a litigator, after a one-year clerkship with a federal judge. Annette received her law degree from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from the University of North Carolina.

David Carlin

Head of Risk, UNEP FI

David Carlin leads risk programming for UNEP- Finance Initiative (UNEP FI). He has worked with over 100 financial institutions on topics of climate scenarios, climate risk assessments, and sustainability regulation. He and his team support financial actors across the world to develop best practices for managing environmental risks and identifying environmental opportunities.
He currently advises UNEP FI’s Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). He has also been a technical advisor to the Glasgow Financial Alliances for Net Zero (GFANZ).
He is the founder of Cambium Global Solutions, which helps governments, corporations, and financial institutions address the most pressing environmental challenges and thrive in a changing world.
He is also a contributor to Forbes, where he writes about climate change and leadership and a senior associate at Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)
David has worked as a Principal in Finance, Risk, and Public Policy for Oliver Wyman and in Model Risk Management for PNC Bank. His background is in quantitative modeling and decision science.
He conducted research in financial decision-making at Carnegie Mellon University and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College.

Sabina Chatterjee

Director, Sustainable Finance & Advisory, Wells Fargo Corporate & Investment Banking

Sabina is a Director in Wells Fargo’s Sustainable Finance & Advisory (SFA) Group within the Corporate & Investment Bank, where she is responsible for driving sustainable finance and integrating ESG into various facets of client strategic advisory work. She also assists with the implementation and execution of Wells Fargo’s public climate and sustainability goals. Sabina is based in New York City.
Prior to joining SFA in 2021, Sabina led coverage of Chemicals investment banking clients, after having spent over a decade in equity research across both Wells Fargo and other banks (J.P. Morgan and BB&T Capital Markets). Before making the switch to finance, Sabina worked as a chemical engineer at Colgate-Palmolive.
Sabina earned her MBA and MEM degrees from the Kellogg School of Management and the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, and a BS and BE in Biology and Chemical Engineering from New York University and Stevens Institute of Technology.

Crowley, Daniel F. C. RI USA 2023 CROPPED

Daniel F. C. Crowley

Partner, K＆L Gates LLP

Dan Crowley is a partner in the K＆L Gates LLP Washington, D.C. office. His practice is focused on public policy issues relating to financial services and capital markets, and he leads the firm’s global financial services policy practice. In the decade before joining K＆L Gates, he led the government relations efforts at the Investment Company Institute, The Nasdaq Stock Market, and the National Association of Securities Dealers. Previously, he served for eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives in increasingly senior staff positions including general counsel, Office of the Speaker. Dan was a President George W. Bush appointee at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He is nationally ranked for government relations by Chambers USA (2015-2023), and he is a member of the Economic Club of Washington, D.C.

K＆L Gates

K＆L Gates is a fully integrated global law firm with more than 45 offices located in key capital cities and world commercial and financial centers across five continents. Our broad platform offers clients local market knowledge and access to both national and international capabilities to help our clients navigate the ever-changing international landscape. With the combined knowledge, resources, talent, and experience of nearly 1,800 lawyers and policy professionals. Our many offices around the world operate as one firm, united and without borders. Being a fully integrated firm, we seamlessly represent leading multinational corporations, growth and middle-market companies, capital market participants, and entrepreneurs in every major industry, as well as public sector entities, educational institutions, philanthropic organizations, and individuals. Our range of multidisciplinary practice areas and services, combined with our collaborative culture, enable our clients to confidently turn to us to guide them through nearly any legal issue with reliable service.

Rachel Curley

Director of Policy and Programs, US SIF: The Sustainable Investment Forum

Rachel leads US SIF's policy and programming work to advance the interests and perspective of the sustainable investment community with policymakers and stakeholders. Rachel brings significant organizing, coalition building and public policy experience to the role. Before joining US SIF, Curley worked for seven years as democracy advocate for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, where she supported Public Citizen’s work on democracy and investor protection issues. In this role she led advocacy coalitions supporting corporate political spending and ESG disclosure. Curley started her career as the program coordinator for Doctors for America, where she led the charge on several of the organization’s major campaigns. Curley graduated from Indiana University Bloomington with a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy.

Colleen Davis

State Treasurer, State of Delaware

Colleen C. Davis was elected State Treasurer in November of 2018. In her capacity as State Treasurer, Colleen oversees the entirety of the State’s cash and investment portfolios, helps tens of thousands of State Employees save for retirement through the DEFER program and manages the State’s 529 Education Savings Program, assisting tens of thousands of Delaware families save for higher education, including trade school. On top of that, she helps individuals with disabilities save, without the risk of losing state and federal assistance, through the DependABLE Program.

She is a member of the National Association of State Treasurers (NAST) and was elected Eastern Region Vice President in August 2021. Treasurer Davis also sits on the Executive Board of the College Savings Plans Network (CSPN) and is a member of the Market Transparency Advisory Group (MTAG) of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB).

In June 2022, she championed innovative legislation that would create Delaware EARNS, a program designed to help Delawareans to start saving for retirement. The program is set to launch in 2025. In May 2022, she launched the Aspire529 Program, which helps foster youth in Delaware overcome some of the financial barriers related to attending higher education, including trade and technical schools.

Previously, Colleen served as the Treasurer for the Delaware Physician Assistant Advocacy Group (DAPA), as a board member on the Advisory Board of Forge Life Sciences, and sat on the Board of Delaware Maritime Education. Presently she serves as a member of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.

Sofia De La Parra

Investor Outreach Manager, FAIRR Initiative

Sofía De La Parra is an Investor Outreach Manager at the FAIRR Initiative. She is responsible for strengthening and expanding FAIRR’s investor network. Sofía leads FAIRR’s outreach work in the United States and collaborates on outreach in other global markets. She works closely with investor members to integrate material ESG issues and develop sustainable food systems as a key priority.
Prior to this, Sofia led the Sustainable Proteins collaborative engagement, which targeted 23 food companies and had 84 investor signatories with $23 AUM. Before joining FAIRR in March 2021, she led the project finance venture at Naked Energy Ltd, a clean-tech start-up. Sofía also worked as a Rating Analyst at S&P Global, following Latin American companies across different industries, including retail, consumer products and building materials.

Sofía holds an MSc (Distinction) in Climate Change, Management and Finance from Imperial College London and a first-class BA in International Business Management from Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de Mexico. She also holds a CFA certificate in ESG Investing.

FAIRR Initiative
The FAIRR Initiative (FAIRR) is a collaborative investor network that raises awareness of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities in the global food sector. Our mission is to build a global network of investors who are aware of the issues linked to intensive animal production and seek to minimise the risks within the broader food system.
We focus our efforts on providing high quality Research, facilitating collaborative Engagements and coordinating Policy action for our members. We make sure we do the heavy lifting for investors, so that they can focus on exercising their influence, as responsible stewards of capital, while safeguarding the long-term value of their investment portfolios. With over 370 members globally, representing over $70 trillion in combined assets, we are the world’s fastest-growing ESG network.

Tim Doyle

Senior Policy Advisor, Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC)

Tim Doyle is Senior Policy Advisor to the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Founder and Principal at Doyle Strategies, LLC. Tim previously was Principal and General Counsel at Guidepost Strategies, and prior to that Vice President of Policy and General Counsel of the American Council for Capital Formation.

He previously served as Senior Counsel and Oversight Staff Director for the House Science Committee. Prior to that, he served as Senior Counsel for the House Natural Resources Committee.

Tim holds a J.D. from Michigan State University as well as a B.A. with a dual major in Political Theory & Constitutional Democracy and Criminal Justice. He is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia and Michigan.

Svenja Dube

Associate Professor of Accountancy, Baruch College

Svenja Dube serves as an Associate Professor of Accountancy at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College. She obtained her PhD in 2019 from New York University's Stern School of Business. Prior to joining Baruch College, she worked as an Assistant Professor at Fordham University.

At the graduate level, Professor Dube teaches a course on ESG reporting and measurement. Her research primarily centers on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosures and the role of rating agencies. For instance, she explores the disagreements among various ESG rating agencies and investigates how both rating agencies’ competition and ESG litigation can function as disciplining mechanisms for decreasing such disagreements.

Carolyn R. Eagle

Head of Americas - Sustainable Equity Index Product, FTSE Russell

Carolyn joined FTSE Russell’s Sustainable Investment team in 2018 and currently serves as the Head of Americas for the Sustainable Equity Index Product group. She is responsible for ESG and climate equity index product development and strategy. In this role, she works closely with the firm’s North American asset owner and asset manager clients to achieve their sustainability and investment objectives. Prior to joining FTSE Russell, Carolyn worked for an ESG-focused asset manager, Sustainable Insight Capital Management (SICM).
Carolyn holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Connecticut College and a Master of Science in Sustainability Management from Columbia University, where she continues to guest lectures in Sustainable Finance and Statistics.

Robert Eccles

Professor, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Robert G. Eccles is a leading authority on how companies and investors can create sustainable strategies through the integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in resource allocation decisions. The focus of his work is on how the capital markets can contribute to ensuring a sustainable society for generations to come.
Currently Eccles is a Visiting Professor of Management Practice at the Said Business School, University of Oxford where he is engaged in research projects focused on corporate purpose, corporate reporting, engagement and stewardship, and private equity. Eccles has been a Visiting Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management and was a Berkeley Social Impact Fellow at the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley. He was a Professor at Harvard Business School and received tenure in 1989.
Eccles is the first Chair of KKR’s “Sustainability Expert Advisory Council.” He was the founding Chairman of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, and was one of the founders of the International Integrated Reporting Council. In 2011, Dr. Eccles was selected as one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior – 2012 for his extensive, positive contribution to building trust in business. In 2013, he was named the first non-accountant Honorary Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), one of only nine since 1999. In 2018 he was named by Barron’s as one of the top 20 influencers in ESG investing and cited for being an “ESG research trailblazer.” Also, in 2018 he received “The CSR Lifetime Achievement Award” at
“The 8th International Conference on Sustainability & Responsibility” in Cologne, Germany.
Dr. Eccles received an S.B. in Mathematics and an S.B. in Humanities and Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an A.M. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University. He currently resides in Lexington, MA with his wife Anne Laurin Eccles and their two dogs Basil and Rowan. They have four children (Charlotte, Philippa, Isabelle, and Gordon) and eleven grandchildren (Scout, Russell, Thomas, Thora, Frederick, Dashiell, Philip, Maple, Celeste, Wilde, and Nessa). His main outside activity is weightlifting where he is quite good at the dead lift (achieved his personal goal of 400 pounds with a 410 lift on December 28, 2020—putting him at the 99.8th percentile for his age group), credible at the squat, and pathetic at the bench press.

Naomi English

Managing Director and Head of Climate Strategy, MSCI

Naomi English is Managing Director and Head of Climate Strategy, responsible for managing MSCI's global effort to provide cutting edge data, research and other tools to enable financial institutions to incorporate Climate across their organizations. She oversees the day-to-day operations of the global Climate team and drives collaboration and innovation across MSCI’s product lines.

Naomi has been with MSCI for over fifteen years and was previously leading MSCI’s ESG & Climate Product Strategy & Execution. Prior to her Product roles, Naomi was Global Head of ESG Consultants & Client Service, working with many of the pioneering institutional investors on their sustainable investing objectives and implementation. Naomi started her career at Innovest Strategic Value Advisors.

Naomi holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of British Columbia and a Master of Science (MSc) in Development Management from the London School of Economics, with a focus on Economic Development in Africa. Naomi is an avid runner and triathlete and has completed more than 20 races around the world.

MSCI

MSCI is a leading provider of critical decision support tools and services for the global investment community. With over 50 years of expertise in research, data and technology, we power better investment decisions by enabling clients to understand and analyze key drivers of risk and return and confidently build more effective portfolios. We create industry-leading research-enhanced solutions that clients use to gain insight into and improve transparency across the investment process. To learn more, please visit msci.com.

Mike Ferguson

Senior Director and Analytical Manager, S&P Global Ratings

Michael Ferguson is the Americas Analytical Manager for the Sustainable Finance group at S&P Global Ratings. He manages a team of 20 North American and LatAm Sustainable Finance Analysts. He has been involved in the development, roll-out, and updating of our ESG Evaluation, and is responsible for the inclusion of ESG risks into our credit ratings. He also supports our efforts on Second Party Opinions (SPOs). He is responsible for developing the learning curriculum on ESG throughout S&P Global Ratings. Much of his thought leadership research revolves around environmental regulation and energy policy, especially in the United States.

Michael joined S&P Global Ratings in December 2011 and was in the North American Energy Infrastructure practice as a credit analyst for approximately seven years, covering project financings and power companies. Previously, he worked as a forensic accounting consultant with FTI Consulting in Washington, DC. He worked on a wide array of cases, ranging from stock option backdating and revenue recognition to embezzlement and Ponzi schemes. Michael also worked in the Financial Services Assurance practice at Ernst & Young LLP; he audited hedge funds, insurers, and banks, as well as government agencies.
Michael graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2005 with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Finance and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. He also received an International Business Certificate.

He received a Master of Science degree in Accountancy from the University of Virginia in 2006 and a Master of Business Administration degree from Duke University in 2011, as well as a Masters of Liberal Arts in Sustainability from Harvard University in 2023. Michael is a Chartered Financial Analyst, a Certified Public Accountant, a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst, and a Certified Fraud Examiner. He also holds the CFA Institute ESG Investing Certificate.

Azish Filabi

Executive Director, Maguire Center for Ethics, The American College of Financial Services

Azish Filabi, JD, MA, is the Executive Director of the American College Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics in Financial Services and the Charles Lamont Post Chair of Business Ethics and Associate Professor. Her career has spanned the private sector, non-profits, regulatory agencies, and academia.
Filabi has presented on business ethics and corporate culture at various forums, including the OECD, the NY State Bar Association, the Ethics and Compliance Initiative (ECI), Thomson Reuters, the 1LoD conference, the Conference Board, and the Good Work Institute, among others. At The College, she leads the strategy and research programs of the Center for Ethics, including its annual Forum on Ethical Leadership. She also co-teaches the Trust and Leadership Certificate Program, a bespoke workshop for leaders in business, teaches in The College’s MSM and MSFP Programs, and designs and delivers education for The College’s financial services designations.
Prior to joining The College, Filabi was a member of the BlackRock Investment Stewardship team, where she led corporate governance, sustainability, and proxy voting considerations relating to a portfolio of companies in which BlackRock is invested on behalf of its clients. She also served as Executive Director of Ethical Systems, an organization housed at the
NYU Stern School of Business. Her writing has appeared in Fortune, Kiplinger, Wolters Kluwer, the Journal of Business Ethics, the NAIC Journal of Insurance Regulation, and Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence, among other publications.
Filabi holds a BA as an Echols Interdisciplinary Scholar from the University of Virginia (UVA), a JD from the UVA School of Law, and an MA in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker

Editor, Responsible Investor, PEI Group

Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker joined Responsible Investor as editor in 2022 from Euromoney magazine, where she was ESG editor. Prior to that, she was Euromoney’s editor for Central and Eastern Europe and contributing editor at GlobalCapital. She has covered most aspects of banking and capital markets since switching to journalism from investment banking in 2003.

Danielle Fugere

President & Chief Counsel, As You Sow

Danielle Fugere, President & Chief Counsel, leads As You Sow’s program teams in creating lasting social and environmental change through shareholder advocacy and legal initiatives. She brings an in-depth knowledge of clean energy, sustainability, and team building to her work.

Danielle previously served as Executive Director of the Environmental Law Foundation, focusing on environmental health and water protection; as Western Regional Program Director for national nonprofit Friends of the Earth, she spearheaded innovative climate change strategies and directed campaigns to promote sustainable alternative energies and fuels.
Through her work, Danielle has been instrumental in securing industry conversions to environmentally sound technologies and securing compliance with environmental laws. She holds a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and a B.A. in Political Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

As You Sow

As You Sow is the nation’s non-profit leader in shareholder advocacy. Founded in 1992, we harness shareholder power to create lasting change by protecting human rights, reducing toxic waste, and aligning investments with values.

Sonja Gibbs

Board Member / Managing Director and Head of Sustainable Finance, ICVCM / Institute of International Finance

Sonja leads the IIF’s work on sustainable finance and sovereign debt policy, focusing on research and advocacy for the Institute’s global membership across the financial services industry. Her research interests include the economic impact and financial market pricing of climate and ESG risks, sustainable investment and capital markets development in emerging markets. She oversees the IIF Weekly Insight, which offers a concise perspective on global financial markets with an ESG lens, and the IIF Global Debt Monitor, which looks across mature and emerging economies for debt-related vulnerabilities such as the rapid buildup in EM corporate debt levels. Her policywork on behalf of the IIF includes outreach and liaison efforts vis-à-vis the G20/G7, the multilaterals, global regulators and standard setters, and the Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), as well as the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ). She also serves on the boards of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (IC-VCM), and of Egypt’s Regional Center for Sustainable Finance (RCSF).

Sonja has spent over 20 years in banking and financial markets, most recently with Nomura International in London, where she was Chief Equity Strategist. Earlier positions include stints as a U.S. economist and bank credit analyst in New York and Los Angeles. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) has an MBA and BA from the University of California, Berkeley. Sonja’s work is widely cited in the financial press; she is a regular speaker on sustainable finance and global debt issues at industry conferences and in the media. She and her team also host the popular series of IIF Transition Finance Workshops and ESG Webinars.

Simon Glynn

Founder, Zero Ideas

Simon Glynn is founder of Zero Ideas, a non-profit organization challenging business thinking on climate change. He was a partner at Oliver Wyman for 25 years (until September this year), including co-founding the firm’s climate and sustainability consulting platform. He is a global board member of RePlanet, the science-based environmental organization.

Simon's specialty is leading original research to challenge conventional thinking on corporate climate action and show the way to bolder, more transformative approaches, working across the corporate and NGO sectors. He has consulted to some of the world's toughest-to-transition companies in energy and manufacturing, to several of the leading banks in the US and globally, and to NGOs including CDP, the Climate Group, Potential Energy Coalition, We Mean Business, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Simon’s writing and observations have appeared in the Financial Times, MIT Sloan Management Review, the Economist, and the BBC World Service, as well as in Responsible Investor.

Zero Ideas

Zero Ideas is a research and education charity established to challenge business thinking on climate change. We conduct primary and secondary research and publish articles and research reports to inform business and other leaders on climate issues and to drive and support a more ambitious leadership mindset regarding climate action.
Our current research focuses on how business leaders, policymakers and investors can respond to two challenges of ESG as it has evolved: the politicization of climate action, and the focus on micro metrics in place of macro levers. Our papers on these topics include Radical Realism: Climate action that is fast, feasible and universal; Keeping politics out of companies’ climate action; What if climate justice means climate delay? and We must stop building a Soviet carbon economy. See zeroideas.org.

Rachel Mattes Greenberg

Senior Vice President, Head of Sustainability

Rachel Mattes Greenberg is Head of Sustainability at Citizens Financial Group (CFG). She is responsible for designing and driving strategic environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives across the bank, including planning, executing, and engaging on the bank’s climate strategy. As a member of Citizens’ ESG Executive Steering Council, she supports senior executive alignment on the enterprise-wide approach to ESG topics.
Building on the company’s foundation of sustainability-related efforts, Greenberg joined to provide leadership and oversight on the next steps of Citizens’ journey to help create a more sustainable and inclusive future for all stakeholders and the communities it serves.
Prior to joining Citizens in 2021, Greenberg served as Vice President, Sustainability at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. During her tenure, Greenberg led the development of JPM’s sustainable development financing target and its inaugural green and social bond issuances. Previously, she worked as chief of staff for JPM Wealth Management’s Global Head of Investments and in the world of global art, both in New York City and in Tel Aviv.
Greenberg earned a B.A. in Government and History of Art and an MBA from Cornell University.

Pedro Guazo

Representative of the Secretary-General for the investment of assets, United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund

Mr. Pedro Antonio Guazo Alonso was appointed the Representative of the Secretary-General for the investment of the assets of the UNJSPF on 29 July 2020.

Mr. Guazo was the Finance Director at the United Nations in New York for almost eight years. He managed a portfolio of more than USD$10 billion and an annual revenue of US$13 billion. He led the Organization’s finance operations in practically every country in the world.

Prior to joining the United Nations in 2012, he served in a similar capacity for more than two years as the Director of Finance and Treasury at the United Nations World Food Programme, managing a Portfolio of USD$4 billion and supervising finance officials in more than 75 Country Offices.

During a 15-year banking career, he contributed to the modernization of the Mexican Financial System, while serving as its regulator and supervisor. As CFO and Treasurer at the Federal Mortgage Bank (SHF), he negotiated and managed loans from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Similarly, he championed financial inclusion among people with low and middle incomes as CFO and Treasurer of the National Savings and Financial Services Bank (BANSEFI). His government service included posts at the Ministry of Finance and at the National Banking and Securities Commission, as a member of its Financial Sector Supervisory Body. While a student, he started his professional career at PWC.
A former professor of Finance at ITAM, Mr. Guazo received an International Executive MBA from the IE Business School in Madrid. He earned a Master’s degree in Business Economics from ITESM and graduated from ITAM in 1996 with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting.

Cynthia Hanawalt

Director of Climate Finance and Regulation, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Ms. Cynthia Hanawalt is the Director of Climate Finance and Regulation at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. Her work supports regulatory and policy responses to climate-related financial risk at the federal and state level, and includes a focus on the complex intersections of ESG and antitrust law with sustainability goals and climate resiliency measures. Prior to joining the Sabin Center, Ms. Hanawalt served as Chief of the Investor Protection Bureau for the New York State Office of the Attorney General. She was previously a litigation partner at the firm Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP.

Kendra Haven

Director of Projects (US), InfluenceMap

Kendra joined InfluenceMap in 2020 after earning her Master’s in Sustainable Development from University College London. She has a degree in International Relations and English and completed a U.S. Fulbright fellowship in South Africa. With a background in environment and corporate accountability issues, Kendra works across InfluenceMap's teams on engagement efforts with US-based partners in the non-profit, policy-making, finance, media, and corporate sectors. She helps develop ideas for US-focused content while contributing to InfluenceMap’s ongoing tracking and analysis of corporate lobbying on climate change.

Denise Hearn

Resident Senior Fellow, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Denise Hearn is a writer and applied researcher who advises governments, financial institutions, companies, and nonprofits on antitrust, economic policy, and new economic thinking. She is currently a Resident Senior Fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment.

Denise co-authored The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition – named one of the Financial Times’ Best Books of 2018. Her writing has been translated into 9 languages and featured in major publications globally. She currently authors the Embodied Economics newsletter.

Denise has an MBA from the Oxford Saïd Business School and a BA in International Studies from Baylor University.

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, a joint Center of Columbia Law School and Columbia Climate School, is an applied research center that works to develop critical understanding, practical approaches, and governance tools for governments, investors, communities, and other stakeholders to maximize the benefits and minimize the potential harms of international investment for sustainable development.

Andreas Hoepner

Full Professor of Operational Risk, Banking ＆ Finance, University College Dublin (UCD)

Professor Andreas G.F. Hoepner, Ph.D., is a Financial Data Scientist working towards the vision of a Conflict-Free Capitalism. While the vision is unlikely to be fully achievable, Andreas' view is that anyone can strive to make a regular contribution to reducing abusive conflicts of interests and thereby enhancing the fairness of our society's financial system.

John Hoeppner

Head of US Stewardship and Sustainable Investments, LGIM America

John Hoeppner is the Head of US Stewardship and Sustainable Investments at LGIM America. He is the US representative of the Corporate Governance team. John is charged with shaping the firm’s corporate engagements and driving demand for sustainable investing strategies in the US market.
Prior to joining LGIM America in 2018, he led the Impact Investing practice and launched an ESG data and consulting business at Mission Measurement. Prior to this, he held multiple senior product positions in the asset management divisions of UBS and Northern Trust. John championed a range of corporate and product related sustainable investment efforts. He started his investment career at Cambridge Associates on the capital markets research team.

John earned a BCom from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Andrew Howell

Senior Director of Sustainable Finance, EDF

Andrew Howell is Senior Director of Sustainable Finance at EDF, where he is responsible for engaging with the investor community to help accelerate the energy transition. He works on a range of sectors including oil & gas, petrochemicals, transportation and natural climate solutions. Previously, Andrew was an equity research analyst with Citi Research for nearly two decades, where he led a top ranked research team focused on emerging and frontier markets. Andrew has also worked at the Emerging Markets Investors Alliance, where he led investor ESG engagements in the mining and energy sectors. Andrew attended the University of Pennsylvania and Insead, holds the CFA and Fundamentals of Sustainable Accounting (FSA) designations, and is fluent in French and Russian.

Betty Moy Huber

Partner, Global Co-Chair ESG, Latham & Watkins LLP

Betty Moy Huber, Global Co-Chair of Latham & Watkin’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Practice, advises clients on ESG matters, disclosures, and other regulatory guidance. Betty advises public and private companies, funds and their boards on the full range of ESG-related corporate governance matters, including; ESG policies and disclosure; corporate culture and corporate social responsibility (CSR); sustainable finance and “net-zero” and other climate change matters; SEC and other mandatory and voluntary reporting and disclosure requirements; board oversight, risk management, composition and refreshment; fiduciary duties; board assessments; stakeholder engagement and shareholder proposals.
Drawing on 25+ years of experience providing sophisticated and commercial advice and judgment across a broad spectrum of industries and market caps, Betty helps clients shape and develop ESG strategy, oversight, reporting and other programs to drive value while providing solutions to carefully address, manage and mitigate risk.
Betty serves on a number of boards and advisory panels and frequently speaks and writes for the American Law Institute, American Bar Association, New York State and City Bar, Practising Law Institute, and the Society for Corporate Governance. She lectures on ESG matters at a number of US law schools.

Patricia Hudson

Executive Director, Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ)

Patricia Hudson is Executive Director for the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ). Previously Patricia spent nearly two decades in the investment management industry, most recently as Global Head of ESG Strategy at State Street. Before that she held senior roles at State Street Global Advisors, BNY Mellon, Bridgewater Associates and Wellington Management. Patricia started her career as a political and financial journalist based in Germany for Radio Free Europe and Bloomberg News. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and The Times of London. Patricia has a B.A. with honors from Harvard University.

Matthew Illian

Director of Responsible Investing, United Church Funds

Matthew Illian is Director of Responsible Investing at United Church Funds which is a financial ministry related to the United Church of Christ. In this position Matthew oversees social and environmental shareholder advocacy work, proxy voting and investment screens. He also supports the investment team to ensure UCF’s values, including manager diversity, are being applied by over a dozen external investment managers. Matthew did his undergraduate work at the University of Virginia and received a Master’s degree in Finance from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Matthew serves on the ICCR Advancing Worker’s Justice leadership team and the PRI Asset Owner Technical Advisory Committee.

Carol Jeppesen

Head of US, Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)

Carol Jeppesen is Head of the US for the UN supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and is responsible for PRI’s largest institutional investor market. The term “ESG investing” was coined in conjunction with PRI’s formation in 2006 and our organization is now recognized as the world’s leading proponent of responsible investment, supporting a global network of more than 3,300 investor signatories, representing over $100 trillion in AUM, with the incorporation of ESG factors into investment decision making and stewardship.

Carol has been influential in the growth of RI & ESG integration practices in the US over the past 5 years. She joined PRI in 2015 to establish the organization’s first US office. Since that time, PRI’s US presence has more than tripled to over 750 institutional investor and service provider signatories, including public and corporate pension funds, state and municipal treasuries, educational endowments, foundations, healthcare systems, investment managers, consultants and data providers, representing approximately 20% of PRI's signatory base, globally. Additionally, PRI has expanded its US presence to include professionals in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, DC.

Carol has more than 20 years of experience across investment banking, private equity and asset management. She has worked closely with CIOs, ESG teams, Investment Boards and Trustees at many of the world’s largest investors to guide them on the development of their ESG programs. Carol draws from her extensive analytical experience and knowledge of investment risk and materiality to educate investors on how ESG can enhance traditional investment approaches to improve risk-adjusted returns.

Carol is a frequent speaker at investment conferences globally including those organized by the CFA Institute, CAIA, the World Bank/ IMF and the United Nations as well as for media outlets such as Institutional Investor, the Economist, Bloomberg, Pensions & Investments and Responsible Investor Magazines in addition to investor-organized events. Carol has been a guest lecturer on ESG and responsible investment at many leading universities including Penn, Yale, Columbia and Brown.

Carol holds BS and BA degrees, cum laude in Finance and Economics from Boston University as well as an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Carol was an inaugural graduate of the Sustainability Leadership Forum at Yale University in 2016 and holds the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designation. In addition to her financial education, Carol completed musical training at the Juilliard School.

Dave Jones

Director - Climate Risk Initiative, UC Berkekely Law, Center for Law, Energy and the Environment

Dave Jones is Director of the Climate Risk Initiative at UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center on Law, Energy and Environment (CLEE). Jones was Senior Director for Environmental Risk at The Nature Conservancy from January 2019 – June 2021 and a Distinguished Fellow with the ClimateWorks Foundation. Jones served as California’s Insurance Commissioner from 2011 through 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 change related 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 numerous regulatory agencies, about the need for financial regulators to address climate change and the risks it poses to the financial system. Jones is a graduate of DePauw University (B.A), Harvard Law School (J.D.), and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (MPP).

Mirtha Kastrapeli

Sector Head for Consumer in Corporate Ratings, ISS ESG

Mirtha is an accomplished sustainable investment leader with a track record in developing cutting-edge research in the ESG space. She is also a Fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Sustainable Investment, CCSI. Most recently, Ms. Kastrapeli was the founder and CEO of Beyond Alpha LLC, a specialized research and consulting firm dedicated to helping investors design and implement sustainable investment strategies. Before that, Ms. Kastrapeli was Global Head of State Street’s Center for Applied Research. Mirtha has co-authored multiple studies including ‘We Need To Talk: Why It’s Time for Institutional Investors to Embrace SDG-Aligned Investing’, which was selected one the top 10 ESG papers by Pension and Investment Europe Magazine in 2021 and ‘The Investing Enlightenment: How Principle and Pragmatism Can Create Sustainable Value through ESG’ in 2017.

Colleen Keenan

Senior Financial Officer, World Bank

Colleen Keenan is a senior financial officer in the Investor Relations and Sustainable Finance team at the World Bank Treasury. She is responsible for outreach on the issuance programs of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association. She led the development of IBRD’s Sustainable Development Bond framework and inaugural impact report covering all bond issuance. She works with sustainable investing community and other market stakeholders to promote sustainable capital markets and represents the World Bank on the executive committee of the Green, Social, and Sustainability Bond Principles.

Before joining the World Bank, Colleen worked in microfinance and at international organizations focused on poverty alleviation and advocacy and at Morgan Stanley Investment Management in New York, where she focused on client services and marketing for international equity and global asset allocation products. She holds an M.A. in Economics and International Development from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Chavi Keeney Nana

Director, Equitable Global Supply Chain Program, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility

Ms. Nana/Chavi leads ICCR’s strategic campaign development, coordination with members and allies, and implementation and evaluation of investor actions related to ICCR’s corporate engagement on equitable global supply chains. Prior to joining ICCR, she practiced law for over a decade, focusing on government and internal investigations related to corruption and forced labor, as well as comprehensive and preventative compliance program building and testing in these areas. Prior to entering private practice, she served as the legal and policy assistant to the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s Special Gender Adviser and was a senior policy officer at the Ministry of Justice, Kingdom of the Netherlands. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School, M.Phil. in Development Studies from Oxford University, and is a recipient of the Marshall Scholarship. She is currently a Professor from Practice at the University of Michigan Law School, teaching on business and human rights, anti-corruption law, and supervising students in the Human Trafficking Lab and Clinic.

Dinah Koehler

Director of ESG Research, FactSet

Dr. Dinah A. Koehler is Vice President, Head of ESG Research at FactSet. In this role, she is responsible for research on cutting edge ESG topics and thought leadership. Prior to FactSet, she has worked 25+ years in corporate sustainability, including at corporations (Baxter, Tetra Pak), US EPA in the Office of Research & Development, Wharton/UPenn, The Conference Board, Deloitte, and the Global Sustainable Equities Team at UBS Asset Management. She specializes in environmental risk analysis, regulatory data, life cycle assessment, and impact measurement. She is a seasoned speaker and has published in peer reviewed journals, books, and industry publications. Dr. Koehler earned her Science Doctorate at Harvard School of Public Health, a Masters from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a BA from Wellesley College.

Cary Krosinsky

Co-Founder, Sustainable Finance Institute

A leading educator, author and senior advisor on sustainable finance, Cary Krosinsky teaches popular ongoing classes on the subject at Brown, NYU and Yale.

He was a member of the NY State Common Decarbonization Advisory Panel appointed by Comptroller DiNapoli which informed the fund’s June 2019 Climate Action Plan, now actively implementing his suggestion of minimum standards while increasing their sustainable investments to $20B.

His earlier books on sustainable finance are considered seminal, helping steer what used to be known as socially responsible investing from negative to more positive approaches starting in the mid-2000s
and his most recent, 7th book, Modern China, calls for better relations between China and the West for the sake of solving sustainability challenges, produced with the Sustainable Finance Institute (SFI) where he is co-founder and President.

Sustainable Finance Institute

The Sustainable Finance Institute (SFI) is a consultative think tank, delivering cutting edge sustainable finance education including executive and leadership workshops and training with certification. Our offerings also include academic and other research and analysis, ongoing advisory/secondment and individual one-off projects.

Education and Training recent examples include:

Executive Courses at Yale, NYU and Harvard (2018-present)
In person training, as delivered for example to the IDB in DC (2022)
MBA classes at HKUST and modular training for KPMG via EBS in Germany (2022-present)
Capstone projects with the World Bank at Columbia’s SIPA (2020-present)
Core Undergraduate classes at Brown, Yale and NYU (2014-present)

Current/recent non-academic clients include CSI (created their ESG+ framework in 2021), AAFC (African Healthcare Impact case study launched July 2023), the GIIN (created the Clean Energy theme for their leading Impact platform, theme went live in 2022), Robeco, Mirova and the US Department of Energy.

Lydia Kuykendal

Director of Shareholder Advocacy, Mercy Investment Services, Inc.

Lydia Kuykendal has spent the last 15 years in health advocacy leading issue campaigns, managing coalitions, acting as a media spokesperson, cultivating strategic partnerships and lobbying elected officials. Her current position as Director of Shareholder Advocacy at Mercy Investment Services allows her to engage directly with publicly held companies on issues such as access to health care, human rights, gun safety, transparency in artificial intelligence, and anti-racism. In the past she has worked for Louisiana State University and The American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network. Before coming to Mercy Investments, she served as Engagement Director at Giffords, a national gun violence prevention organization. There she worked to develop and implement engagement strategies and campaigns to reduce gun violence at the national, state, and local levels. A native of North Carolina, she is a 2004 graduate of North Carolina State University with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and earned her Master of Public Health from Tulane University in 2006.

Eli Lehrer

President, The R Street Institute

Eli Lehrer is the President of the R Street Institute. He co-founded R Street in 2012 and has played a key role in establishing it as an important center-right voice in the Washington, D.C. policy scene.
Prior to R Street he served as vice president for Washington, D.C. operations at the Heartland Institute, where he oversaw its D.C. office and headed its work on financial services. Earlier in his career, he worked as a speechwriter to then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.); as a project manager for the Unisys Corp.; as senior editor of The American Enterprise magazine; and as a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Eli started his career as a reporter at The Washington Times.
He is a widely published writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, and The New York Times, among other publications. Eli also serves as a contributing editor of National Affairs.

Maria Lettini

Chief Investment Officer, US Sustainable Investment Forum

Maria Lettini is the Chief Executive Officer of US SIF: The Sustainable Investment Forum. She joined US SIF in May of 2023 and is an innovative leader within the fields of sustainability and finance. She is recognized for building meaningful partnerships across the capital markets value chain to address some of the world’s most critical, and financially material, environmental and social challenges. Most recently, Maria led the FAIRR Initiative. During her six years at FAIRR, she and her team ambitiously drove the narrative around the risks and opportunities in the global protein supply chain with the aim of directing capital towards a more sustainable and equitable food system. Under her tenure, the FAIRR investor network grew to over $70 trillion in combined assets and FAIRR’s expert research reframed the investor narrative on animal agriculture and sustainable protein.

Prior to joining FAIRR, Maria worked for the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) raising awareness of material ESG issues with institutional investors. Maria started her career in global finance and capital markets, working at both J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank. She has served on the Sustainability Accounting Standard Board Standards Advisory Group. She is also a member of the Intentional Endowment Network’s (IEN) Steering Committee.

Maria is based in Washington DC but has lived and worked in San Francisco, New York, Madrid and London. She holds a MA (Distinction) in Environment, Politics and Globalization from King’s College London and a BA in International Business, Latin American Studies and Spanish from San Diego State University.

Sanford Lewis

Director, Shareholder Rights Group

Sanford Lewis is an attorney who represents investors in Securities and Exchange Commission matters related to shareholder proposals and disclosure. He is also founder and director of the Shareholder Rights Group, and alliance of leading investment organizations seeking to preserve and advance their rights to address environmental and social issues at portfolio companies, including through shareholder proposals. He is also a leading advocate of improved disclosure and accounting on environment and human rights, and author of “Fooling Investors and Fooling Themselves: How Aggressive Corporate Accounting and Asset Management Tactics Can Lead to Environmental Accounting Fraud.” 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.

Kerstin Lopatta

Professor of Financial Accounting - Auditing and Sustainability, University of Hamburg

Kerstin Lopatta is professor of Financial Accounting, Auditing and Sustainability at the University of Hamburg and adjunct professor at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance at the University of Luxembourg. Furthermore, she is affiliated with City University of Hong Kong as a visiting professor. She received her doctoral degree from Goethe University Frankfurt.
Kerstin Lopatta has extensive experience in sustainability reporting and financial accounting in practice and research. She is a member of the Sustainability Reporting Technical Committee of the ASCG and chairs the ASCG working group on Climate Reporting. Before embarking on her academic career, she worked as an audit assistant for Deloitte. She has been involved in developing, improving and implementing a variety of disclosure standards in different areas of sustainability reporting. For instance, she served as an academic observer on the Sustainable Finance Committee of the German Ministry of Finance and co-reviewed the adaptation of the German Sustainability Code to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the EU Taxonomy.

Carmen X. W. Lu

Counsel, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Carmen X. W. Lu is Counsel in Wachtell Lipton’s Corporate Department where she advises public and private companies and boards of directors across industries on ESG and corporate governance matters and evolving market trends, expectations and practices.

Carmen advises companies and their boards of directors on matters relating to ESG disclosure, oversight, strategy, policies and practices; ESG governance and board oversight; shareholder and stakeholder engagement on ESG matters; evaluation and identification of ESG risks and opportunities; climate transition planning and “net zero” targets; evolving market, industry and regulatory expectations and requirements; shareholders proposals; shareholder activism; crisis management; director independence board and committee composition and structure; securities regulation; proxy disclosures; listing standards and proxy advisors.

Carmen received a B.A. summa cum laude in Political Science from Yale University in 2012, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and received the Arthur Twining Hadley Prize as the highest ranking graduate. She received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2016, where she was articles and essays editor of the Yale Law Journal and executive editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation.

Lauren Lynch

Manager, Blue Oceans

Lauren Lynch is the Manager for Blue Finance (Ocean ESG) on the WWF-US team, leading the expansion of WWF’s financial institution engagement into key blue economy sectors including shipping, marine renewables and coastal development. Lauren’s team works with banks, investors and insurers to integrate ocean ESG metrics into their financial decision-making processes to help shift financial capital away from harmful activities and towards sustainable and resilient practices. Her team also works with financial institutions to develop new blue financial products that support nature positive business and to identify blue startup capital that can capitalize the blue economy businesses of the future.

Prior to joining WWF-US, Lauren worked as an Engagement Manager and then as a Consultant with the WWF-Singapore Sustainable Finance team, where she built global financial institutions’ capacity to understand and manage environmental and social issues related to agriculture, seafood, energy and infrastructure. In 2021 she helped to launch the Asia Sustainable Finance Initiative (ASFI) Academy, an online sustainable finance academy which has trained over 25,000 professionals in more than 30 countries. Before that, Lauren worked with the Nature Conservancy’s impact investing unit, Nature Vest, and served as an Environmental Extension Agent with the United States Peace Corps in Panama. She has an M.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University and a B.A. in International Studies from Boston College.

Divya Mankikar

Sustainability Market Engagement, S&P Global Sustainable1

Divya Mankikar brings over 15 years of sustainable investment experience to S&P Global. She is responsible for leading S&P Sustainable1’s efforts to engage with policy makers, regulators, standard setters, multi-lateral agencies, trade bodies and key market participants.

She joined S&P Global from CalPERS as Head of Sustainable Investment and Climate Strategy in the office of the CEO. Divya is a co-founder of Climate Action 100+ - a global initiative supported by investors representing over $54 trillion that seeks a low-carbon transition through collaborative engagement of systemically important carbon emitters.

She holds a BA/MA from Boston University in Energy and Environmental Analysis, an International MBA in finance from IE Business School in Madrid, and an MA in Law and Diplomacy focused on business and human rights law from Tufts University’s Fletcher School.

Renaye Manley

Deputy Director, Strategic Initiatives Department, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

Renaye Manley brings strategy, innovation and advocacy to the world of finance and pension funds infusing a lens of racial and gender equity. She currently serves as Deputy Director of the Service Employees International Strategic Initiatives department. In this position, she works with pension trustees, investment professionals and union leaders around the engagement of multi-billion-dollar union and public pensions funds, including corporate governance and shareholder work. She leads SEIU’s “Diversity & Dollars” work, which has led to the adoption of the “Rooney Rule” at seventeen companies, including Facebook and Amazon. She previously served on the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s advisory board on Small Business, Agriculture and Labor. She previously served as the advocacy committee co -chair of the Council of Institutional Investors which convenes the largest groups of investors and asset owners in the United States. She currently serves on the board of the 30% Coalition, an investor coalition dedicated to gender and racial equity on corporate boards. Prior to her job at SEIU, Renaye worked for Interfaith Worker Justice, a community /labor collaboration, coordinating work with national unions and denominations on issues of workplace justice. She has a background as field organizer, working for years at the AFL-CIO where she focused on field campaigns on political and worker organizing. She is a graduate of Indiana University and has a MBA from Western Governors University.

Whitney Mann

Manager, RMI

Whitney is a Manager for RMI’s Center for Climate-Aligned Finance where she works on enabling financial institutions to align their investing and lending decisions with climate goals. In the wake of IRA, she works on leveraging Federal funding incentives to mobilize capital for an equitable clean energy transition in the US, with a focus on Clean Industrial Hubs and the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Before joining the Center for Climate-Aligned Finance, Whitney worked with RMI’s Climate Finance Access Network on improving access to climate finance in least developed countries. Prior to RMI, she worked at NERA Economic Consulting supporting utilities, regulatory commissions, and governments in the design and implementation of markets and auctions for energy procurement, environmental protection, and climate change mitigation. She sits on the Advisory Council of Climate United, a consortium of community and capital partners working to accelerate an equitable clean energy transition.

Aeisha Mastagni

Portfolio manager, CalSTRS

Aeisha Mastagni is a portfolio manager in the Sustainable Investment and Stewardship Strategies unit of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the largest educator-only pension fund in the world. She is responsible for working with a dedicated team to further CalSTRS’ mission of securing the financial future and sustaining the trust of California’s educators.
Aeisha is part of the team that oversees the Sustainable Investment Portfolio and leads CalSTRS’ stewardship efforts, which includes proxy voting, corporate engagement and working with regulatory authorities on market-wide issues.
During her time at CalSTRS, Aeisha has become a prolific media spokesperson and participates in interviews concerning environmental, social and governance topics, including proxy voting, executive compensation and corporate climate disclosures. She speaks with both notable mainstream and pension industry outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters and Pensions & Investments.
In 2012, Aeisha joined the board of directors at Golden 1 Credit Union, one of the nation’s largest credit unions with more than $14 billion in assets and one million members. In 2015, she joined the board of the Council of Institutional Investors, whose mission is to be the leading voice for effective corporate governance, and in 2023, she was elected chair of the CII board.
Before joining CalSTRS, Aeisha worked in the Corporate Governance unit of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System for six years, overseeing the proxy voting program and the corporate governance manager portfolio. Prior to CalPERS, she worked in Operations at Salomon Smith Barney before moving to Morgan Stanley as a financial advisor and assistant operations manager. Aeisha has a bachelor’s degree in economics from California State University, Sacramento.

Ryan McQueeney

Manager, Investments Marketing and Communications, Wespath / Communications Co-Lead, Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance

Ryan supports investment-related marketing and communications at Wespath, one of the largest reporting faith-based pension funds in the world. Wespath is also member of the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, where Ryan serves as the co-lead of the communications working track. Through these roles, Ryan has spearheaded numerous communications campaigns focused on sustainable investment, ESG, climate risk, shareholder engagement. Ryan has also served in investment stewardship and content management roles. He received his bachelor's degree in Communications and Media and Political Science from DePaul University.

Joellen Meckley

Executive Director, Center for Women in Financial Services, The American College of Financial Services

Joellen Meckley is the Executive Director of two centers of excellence at The American College of Financial Services- the Center for Women in Financial Services and the Center for Special Needs. At the Center for Women in Financial Services, Joellen and her staff promote female professionals through mentorship, sponsorship, research, community-building, and applied financial education. Through the Center for Special Needs, she and her staff provide financial professionals with the specialized skill and advanced knowledge to improve the financial security of individuals living with disability and their caregivers. Prior to joining the College, she worked for several years in the long-term care industry, and later was a partner in a law firm, concentrating her practice in advanced planning, asset protection, estate planning, elder law, trusts and estates. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from University of Michigan, an M.H.S. in Health Finance and Management from Johns Hopkins University, and a J.D. from Temple University School of Law.
promoting female profession

Radhika Mehrotra

Associate Director- Capital Markets, CDP North America

Radhika Mehrotra is the Associate Director of Capital Markets for CDP North America. Radhika leads investor engagement for CDP North America and is responsible for driving capital markets interactions with CDP data through portfolio assessment tools, corporate engagement and thought leadership opportunities. She is also leading the development of a disclosure and data solution for private market investors.

Bill Mills

CEO, KPX LLC

Bill is a native of Louisville Kentucky. He attended the University of Louisville where he was granted a bachelor’s degree in finance with a minor in economics.
Upon graduation and for the following thirteen years Bill served in various CFO roles in for profit as well as not-for-profit healthcare systems.
With that experience Bill co-founded Highland Associates in 1986. Highland supplies investment consulting services to not-for-profit healthcare systems.
In 2003 Mills co-founded and was Managing Partner of a Highland Associates affiliate named Highland Good Steward Management (HGSM). In that role HGSM developed and opened the world’s first socially responsible hedge fund of funds (first sub-advised by AIG and succeeded by K2 Advisors) which grew to $500 million prior to the financial collapse. HGSM also developed the world’s first ESG Global Bond Fund which was sub-advised by PIMCO.
HGSM operations have now passed to KPX, LLC, a company co-founded by Mills. KPX’s mission is to apply advanced data science and technology to the integration of ESG into investment decisions and stakeholder engagement activities.
Bill has served on multiple industry and charitable boards. He has been married for 52 years to Connie. They have two daughters who are both married, and two granddaughters aged 9 and 5.

Sara E. Murphy

Chief Strategy Officer, The Shareholder Commons

Sara joined The Shareholder Commons in 2020 after 22 years working in sustainable investing and environmental and social advocacy. Sara began her career working for NGOs in the international development and disaster response fields. In 2001, she transitioned into Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) research for the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC), where she specialized in bioengineering and defense contracting research. After leaving IRRC, Sara spent several years at The Cadmus Group, an environmental consultancy. In 2005, Sara moved to Frankfurt, Germany to work as a senior sustainability analyst for Fortis Investments’ SRI fund management team. Fortis Investments was acquired by BNP Paribas Asset Management during Sara’s tenure. Sara moved back to Washington, DC in 2011, where she launched her independent consultancy on sustainable investing and corporate responsibility.
Sara holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Virginia in French and Spanish, and a Master of Arts degree from George Mason University in Economics. Sara grew up in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, which fundamentally shaped her understanding of the business world’s long reach and influence.

Patricia Pina

Head of Product Research & Innovation, Clarity AI

Patricia specializes in measuring sustainability and impact to help companies, governments, and individuals make environmentally and socially sustainable decisions. She has extensive experience in crafting strategic plans and evaluating major development initiatives for public and private organizations from a variety of sectors, as well as supporting financial stakeholders to implement sustainable finance strategies.
Prior to joining Clarity AI, Patricia was the East Africa Regional Director for IDinsight, a global advisory, data analytics, and research organization on social impact. She also worked for Dalberg Global Development Advisors, Deworm the World and McKinsey & Company. Patricia holds a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Spanish Polytechnic University, a master’s degree in Aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Master of Public Administration in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Lisa Pinheiro

Managing Principal, Analysis Group

Ms. Pinheiro has an extensive background in quantitative analysis and data science, which she has applied to various practice areas, including antitrust, finance, intellectual property, and biostatistics. In the antitrust field, she has acted as an expert and supported other experts in class certification and price-fixing matters involving a wide range of industries, including online search engines, computer chips, liquid-crystal display (LCD) panels, airline ticketing services, gaming, and grocery stores.

Ms. Pinheiro has also authored expert reports and testified on questions relating to the modeling and calculation of royalties and damages.

Mitali Prasad

Lead Portfolio Manager and Research Analyst, Trillium

Mitali is the Lead Portfolio Manager on the Growth and Income strategy and a Portfolio Manager on the Small/Mid Cap Core and Large Cap Core strategies. She is also a Research Analyst covering Industrials and Materials sectors. She joined Trillium in 2016 and previously served as a portfolio manager and equity research analyst at Washington Capital Management, where she covered multiple industry sectors and managed MID and SMID GARP portfolios. She held similar portfolio manager and equity analyst roles at OFI Institutional (Oppenheimer Funds) and Babson Capital Management, where she started her career in 1994.

Mitali holds a Bachelor of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from the Delhi Institute of Technology in New Delhi, India and a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University in New York. She earned an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, India in 1991. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder and a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society Boston, serving on its SRI committee from 2008 – 2010 and as Chair of its Value Investing committee from 2009-2013.

Trillium Asset Management

Dedicated to Sustainable and Responsible Investing.

Trillium Asset Management offers investment strategies and services that advance humankind towards a global sustainable economy, a just society, and a better world. For nearly 40 years, the firm has been at the forefront of ESG thought leadership and draws from decades of experience focused exclusively on responsible investing. Devoted to aligning stakeholders’ values and objectives, Trillium combines impactful investment solutions with active ownership. The firm delivers equity, fixed income, and alternative investments to institutions, intermediaries, high net worth individuals, and other charitable and non-profit organizations with the goal to provide positive impact, long-term value, and ‘social dividends’.

Anand Rajagopal

Shareholder Assets & Private Markets Sustainability Lead, Phoenix Group

Anand Rajagopal leads Sustainability Strategy and ESG integration efforts for Shareholder Assets and Private Markets investments. The asset classes covered within his remit span various types of public markets debt as well as private market investments such as Infrastructure debt and equity, private credit/private placements, commercial real estate debt and equity, structured solutions and transition finance opportunities including blended finance efforts (involving DFIs/MDBs/ECAs etc.). Before Phoenix Group, Anand served as the Head of Public Annuity Asset Origination at Aviva (2019-2022) where he led portfolio construction and investment strategy for public assets including the development of the business’s ESG and Franchise risk framework and its integration in credit/investment processes, new asset class launches and related asset manager research. Prior to insurance asset management, Anand had worked for ~10 years in public- and private-credit investment and portfolio management/monitoring mandates at BlackRock (London) and Goldman Sachs (New York) covering asset classes such as RMBS, CMBS, Auto/Whole Loan ABS, Sovereigns/SSAs, EMD, Energy/Infra-Project Finance, CRE loans and Shipping/Aviation debt.

Shivaram Rajgopal

Kester and Byrnes Professor of Accounting and Auditing, Columbia Business School

Shiva Rajgopal is the Kester and Byrnes Professor of Accounting and Auditing at Columbia Business School. He has also been a faculty member at the Duke University, Emory University and the University of Washington. Professor Rajgopal’s research interests span financial reporting, earnings quality, fraud, executive compensation and corporate culture. His research is frequently cited in the popular press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Fortune, Forbes, Financial Times, Business Week, and the Economist. He teaches fundamental analysis of financial statements for investors, managers and entrepreneurs and a PhD seminar on accounting regulation.

Key awards include 2006 and 2016 American Accounting Association (AAA) Notable Contribution to the Literature award, 2006 and 2016 Graham and Dodd Scroll Prize given by the Financial Analysts Journal, and the 2008, 2012 and 2015 Glen McLaughlin Award for Research in Accounting Ethics.

He is the Departmental Editor of the Accounting track of Management Science. He is also an Associate Editor at the Journal of Accounting and Economics and an ex-editor at Contemporary Accounting Research. He was on the editorial board of The Accounting Review from 2003-2011.

Tracey Rembert

Associate Director, Climate Change and Environmental Justice, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility

Tracey leads our work on Paris-aligned corporate climate lobbying. With over 23 years of experience in shareholder engagement and responsible investment, Tracey has brought expertise in climate change impacts, global active ownership strategies, corporate governance, and sustainability disclosure regimes to ICCR. Prior to ICCR, she has worked for several ICCR members, including a labor pension fund, a faith-based investment manager, and a sustainable mutual fund company. Tracey also served as Director of Policy and Advocacy at USSIF, and as an Investment Team Director at Ceres. She has authored several guides on shareholder advocacy, including Leading Lobbying Practices to Drive 1.5°C Policy Action, which she co-authored with Paul Hodgson. Tracey also has experience in worker rights issues and child safety online, where her work was nominated by the UN-supported PRI for Stewardship Campaign of the Year. She began her career path as an Environmental Journalist.

Danielle Reyes

Partner, Goodwin Procter LLP

Danielle Reyes is a partner and co-chair of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) & Impact practice at Goodwin. She provides broad regulatory compliance advice with a focus on responsible investment, financial regulatory matters, human rights, corporate social responsibility programs, and non-financial reporting. Her practice consists of creating ESG disclosures, policies, and programs; drafting ESG/sustainability reports and advising on other non-financial reporting matters; conducting ESG due diligence, advising on key performance indicators, and designing remediation and oversight programs in private equity transactions, venture capital investments, and mergers and acquisitions; preparing private companies to go public; advising on fair and responsible banking, financial inclusion, and Community Reinvestment Act issues; and providing strategic advice on corporate philanthropy programs and corporate foundation issues.

Andreas Ross

Head of New Product Research and Development, ZAIS Group

Dr. Ross serves as Head of New Product Research and Development and Managing Director at ZAIS. Prior to assuming his current role in 2021, he was a member of the Structured Credit Portfolio Management Team at ZAIS responsible for trading Credit Derivatives and developing Quantitative Strategies. Before joining ZAIS in September of 2013, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher in Theoretical Physics at Carnegie Mellon University and at Yale University investigating elementary particles, cosmology and black holes. Dr. Ross holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a Masters in Physics from the University of Karlsruhe.

Samantha Ross

Founder, AssuranceMark, The Investors' Consortium for Assurance

Samantha Ross is an Affiliated Scholar with the Center for Innovation. She is the Founder of AssuranceMark, the Investors Consortium for Assurance, which she established to promote investors’ interest in high-quality, reliable reporting and assurance on material disclosures beyond the financial statements. She is also on the board of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, North America.
Previously, she was one of the founding staff of the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and helped build it from the ground up for its first 15 years. She contributed to building the world’s largest and most respected audit oversight institution and achieving long-term positive change to make audits more transparent and relevant to investors.

Among other things, she provided strategic support to the Board and its standard setting staff in connection with developing new auditing standards on a number of topics, including auditor independence, modernization of the auditor’s reporting model, and a rule on audit transparency, providing for disclosure of engagement partners and other firms that participate in audits. She was also involved in the agency’s investor outreach and interaction with the Congress, including through testimony on behalf of the PCAOB, and development of the agency’s Center for Economic Analysis to enhance study of the role of the audit in capital markets.

Prior to the PCAOB, she worked at the SEC, as special counsel to the chief accountant of the Division of Enforcement, to help implement the SEC’s financial fraud priority as well as Enron-era reforms, including the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002.

Before the SEC she practiced law at a private law firm and was a law clerk to the Hon. John E. Sprizzo in the U.S. district court for the Southern District of New York.

Steven M. Rothstein

Managing Director, Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets

The Ceres Accelerator aims to transform the practices and policies that govern capital markets in order to accelerate reduction of the worst financial impacts of the climate crisis and other sustainability threats.

Steven’s 40 years of experience will be critical to explore the most effective strategies for the Accelerator to focus on and move capital markets towards climate sustainability.

He has worked at local, state, federal and international levels of government. Steven served on many non-profit and government boards. He has spoken and written extensively and worked with partners in the corporate, non-profit, government and philanthropy sectors.

Steven has a BA with Honors in Political Science from Williams College and an MBA from Northeastern University’s D’Amore - McKim School of Management. He also studied at Duke University’s, Institute of Public Policy.

Ceres
Ceres is a nonprofit organization working with the most influential capital market leaders to solve the world’s greatest sustainability challenges. The Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets is a center of excellence within Ceres that aims to transform the practices and policies that govern capital markets to reduce the worst financial impacts of the climate crisis. It spurs action on climate change as a systemic financial risk—driving the large-scale behavior and systems change needed to achieve a net zero emissions economy through key financial actors including investors, banks, and insurers. The Ceres Accelerator also works with corporate boards of directors on improving governance of climate change and other sustainability issues.

Laurie Schoeman

Senior Advisor Climate Resilience, Executive Office of the President, CEQ

Laurie is a deeply committed to buiding and protect housing from climate risk. With 20 years of experience working in affordable housing, climate finance, community and economic development, equity and environmental justice, and federal and local policy to build the resilience of communities across the nation, Lauirie gg

Laurie has led leading-edge local, state and federal efforts to promote climate risk reduction, including the passage of the nation’s first utility-sponsored environmental justice policy in San Francisco; the construction of the nation’s first off-grid environmental justice learning center in California; and the publication of a series on Climate Resilient Housing which has led to close to $250M of investment into housing resilience. Schoeman is the co-chair of the New York State Climate assessment buildings chapter and co-facilitates Resilience21, a network of practitioners across the U.S. advancing climate risk reduction and adaptation.

Laurie Is available for speaking engagements, facilitation and advisory support on Climate Risk reduction and Housing.

Lucas Schoeppner

Manager - Sustainable Investment Stewardship, Wespath

Lucas joined Wespath in April 2023. He manages the investment stewardship and engagement activities of Wespath and its subsidiaries’ investment programs and supports their efforts to integrate material ESG risk consideration into the investment selection and decision-making process. Before Wespath, Lucas served as a director on the Catholic Responsible Investments team at Christian Brothers Investment Services. He was responsible for projects focused on quantitative ESG scoring models, screening and sub-adviser due diligence. Previously, Lucas was sector manager and lead analyst of Sustainalytics’ oil and gas research. Lucas earned a B.A. in journalism from Northeastern University. In 2013, he was selected for the Fulbright "U.S. Young Journalists" research grant.

Ned Shell

Counselor to the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, U.S. Department of Treasury

Ned Shell is a Counselor to the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the U.S. Treasury Department where he leads and supports work related to climate-related financial risk, private sector net-zero financing and investment, voluntary carbon markets, insurance, and community and household climate-related financing. Previously he was Global Head of Climate Finance Policy at Bloomberg. Prior to Bloomberg his professional experience includes working with the Biden Campaign in the 2020 election cycle, as a management consultant at Bain & Company, as a Project Leader at the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency, as a consultant at the World Bank, and as a fellow with the cities of New York and Philadelphia where he worked on economic development and equity-related issues.

He holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, an MPP from Harvard Kennedy School, and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar.

John D. Skjervem

Chief Investment Officer, Utah State Retirement Systems

John D. Skjervem is Chief Investment Officer for Utah Retirement Systems (URS) which manages a financial and real asset portfolio totaling $54 billion as of December 31, 2021 and comprises both defined benefit and defined contribution retirement programs. Prior to URS, John was Chief Executive Officer of Alan Biller and Associates, responsible for its $131 billion institutional investment advisory practice.
John also previously served as Chief Investment Officer for Oregon State Treasury where his team managed a $111 billion, globally-diversified investment program. Before his tenure in Oregon, John held a variety of portfolio management and leadership positions at Northern Trust including Chief Investment Officer for that firm’s $180 billion wealth management division.
John is a member of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation’s Investment Advisory Group, an advisor to the Retirement Board of the Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho and a member of the IEEE Foundation’s investment committee. He also serves on the Pacific Pension & Investment Institute’s Board of Directors. John holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, received his BA in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and earned an MBA with concentrations in Finance and Statistics from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Tim Smith

Senior Policy Advisor, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility

Tim currently serves as ICCR’s Senior Policy Advisor, where he supports ICCR’s work around responsible political engagement, deepening engagements with asset managers, and responding to the pushback on ESG.

Tim served as ICCR staff for 30 years including 24 years as its Executive Director. In 2000, Tim joined Boston Trust Walden where he led the organization’s shareholder engagement efforts for 22 years. In 2007, 2012, and 2013, Tim was named one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics” by Ethisphere Institute. In 2010, he received the Bavaria Award for Impact at the third annual Joan Bavaria Awards for Building Sustainability into the Capital Markets. In 2011 and 2012, he was named one of the most influential people in corporate governance by the National Association of Corporate Directors, and in 2016, Tim received ICCR’s Legacy Award for his enduring record of demonstrated influence on corporate policies.

Tara Mei Smith

ESG Integration Officer, Bureau of Asset Management, Office of New York City Comptroller

Tara Mei Smith is the ESG Integration Officer for the Bureau of Asset Management, Office of NYC Comptroller. The Office of NYC Comptroller serves as the dedicated investment advisor and custodian for New York City’s five retirement funds, totaling about 250 billion AUM. In her role, Tara Mei works to integrate considerations of material environmental, social, and governance risks and opportunities across asset classes to drive sustainable long-term, risk-adjusted returns for the benefit of the pension funds’ 700,000+ beneficiaries. She has over a decade of sustainability experience, spanning finance, supply chain management, and environmental stewardship. Tara Mei has worked on biodiversity data collection and sustainability projects with organizations such as US Fish and Wildlife and NOAA. In 2014, she was recognized as an Audubon Toyota TogetherGreen Conservation Innovation Leader. She holds a degree in Chemistry from Brown University and an MBA in Finance and Sustainable Business and Innovation from NYU Stern, where she was a Forte Fellow and Vice Dean Faculty Scholar.

Anya Solovieva

Global Commercial Lead - Climate Solutions, Morningstar Sustainalytics

As the Global Commercial Lead for Morningstar Sustainalytics’ Climate Solutions, Anya guides her team’s focus on developing and implementing commercial strategies for the firm’s climate product suite designed to meet the rapidly evolving needs of global investors. With more than six years of progressive leadership experience at Sustainalytics, the team leverages her extensive knowledge of ESG-related investment analysis in empowering clients to meet global net zero commitments and better understand the exposure of physical risks in their portfolios.

In her previous roles at Sustainalytics, she supported asset managers and asset owners with ESG integration efforts using credible research and data across asset classes to enhance the investment process. Her mandate also included training analysts and portfolio managers on interpreting ESG signals and developing strategies to facilitate internal buy-in.

Before joining Sustainalytics in 2016, Anya was the APAC Head of Sales for hybrid trading platforms at ICAP. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for One World Children’s Fund. Anya holds a bachelor’s degree in International Development and Public Policy from the College of William and Mary and a master’s degree in Sustainability from the University of Sydney.

Meagen Stack

Manager ESG Reporting, Chevron

Meagen is currently the ESG Reporting Manager in Chevron’s Strategy & Sustainability organization. This role is responsible for delivering Chevron’s voluntary ESG-related reports such as the Corporate Sustainability Report and Climate Change Resilience Report. Meagen has worked in a variety of roles across Chevron’s functions and the value chain in San Ramon and Richmond, CA and Perth, Australia. Meagen completed her B.A in Accounting and Master of Professional Accounting at the University of Texas at Austin. In her spare time, Meagen can be found taking yoga or Pilates classes or hiking with her husband and two dogs.

Georgia Stewart

CEO, Tumelo

Georgia is CEO of Tumelo, one of the UK’s fastest-growing financial technology scale-ups. Founded in 2018, Georgia and her two co-founders, Will Goodwin and Ben King, recognised a two-pronged problem with the current proxy-voting system: fund managers having little visibility over their clients' voting preferences; investors feeling disengaged from their assets and potential impact on global markets. To solve this issue, the company has built pass-through voting and expression of wish technology that empowers fund managers and their clients to engage in impactful stewardship.
Georgia studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she campaigned the university for greater transparency of their university’s £6 billion endowment fund and its investments. She has experience across the sustainable investment sector, including equity investment analysis at Jupiter, cleantech venture capital at IP Group and conservation projects at Fauna and Flora International. Georgia is also a member of Aviva’s Independent Governance Committee (IGC).

Tumelo

Tumelo is a leading-edge technology provider specializing in robust, scalable, and efficient voting choice solutions for the global investment industry. Trusted by numerous large-scale financial institutions worldwide, we are recognized for our reliable, professional service and innovative approach to enhancing stewardship with our proprietary pass-through voting and expression of wish solutions.

Since our establishment in 2018, we’ve built a robust platform that enables fund managers to offer flexible products and meet regulatory requirements. Our team of highly skilled professionals are committed to delivering a seamless experience through our technology platform and API, designed to cater to the unique needs of both institutional and retail clients.

Our platform is grounded in state-of-the-art technology that offers access to a comprehensive suite of voting policies, adaptable to the unique needs of each investor. Tumelo is characterized by flexibility, supporting clients’ desires to select voting policies or vote on individual resolutions.

Neil Stewart

Director of Corporate Outreach, ISSB / IFRS Foundation

Neil Stewart is the New York-based Director of Corporate Outreach for the IFRS Foundation, which houses the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), the SASB Standards and the Integrated Reporting Framework. Neil joined SASB in 2020, bringing more than 25 years of experience in and around investor relations and corporate governance. He was previously at Citigroup as VP IR Advisory on the ADR team, helping non-US issuers develop IR and ESG strategies.

Jérôme Tagger

Partner and Co-Founder, WhiteLabel Impact

Jerome is a Partner at WhiteLabel Impact and the CEO of Preventable Surprises, a think tank sparking difficult conversations about responsible finance. He was a founding COO of the Principles for Responsible Investment, an executive at the Global Impact Investing Network, head of research at Eurosif, Chief Revenue Officer at ImpactAlpha, is and was an advisor to many businesses and advocacy organizations in responsible finance.

Alison Taylor

Clinical Associate Professor, NYU

Alison Taylor is a clinical associate professor at NYU Stern School of Business, and the executive director at Ethical Systems. She is currently writing a book on the new landscape for business ethics, for Harvard Business Review Press. Her previous work experience includes being a Managing Director at non-profit business network Business for Social Responsibility and a Senior Managing Director at Control Risks. She holds advisory roles at sustainability non-profit Business for Social Responsibility, private equity firm KKR, and Swiss bank Pictet Group and is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Good Governance. She has expertise in strategy, sustainability, political and social risk, culture and behavior, human rights, ethics and compliance, stakeholder engagement, anti corruption and professional responsibility. Alison received her Bachelor of Arts in Modern History from Balliol College, Oxford University, her MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago, and MA in Organizations Psychology from Columbia University.

Andrew Teras

Client Strategy Lead, Sustainable Finance, ICE

Andrew Teras is the Client Strategy Lead for ICE Sustainable Finance. In this role, Andrew advises on product development efforts and works with clients to help them leverage ICE’s sustainable finance data solutions. Andrew was previously Director, Municipal Research at Breckinridge Capital Advisors and was responsible for integration of ESG and sustainability considerations into the firm’s investment research. Earlier in his career, Andrew was a bond rating analyst at Standard & Poor’s and a financial analyst with the New York City Comptroller’s Office. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as master’s degrees in business administration and city planning from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jerry Theodorou

Policy Director, Finance, Insurance and Trade, R Street

Jerry Theodorou is the Director of the Finance, Insurance and Trade Policy Program. Jerry develops and advances effective free market public policy solutions to complex issues where federal and state governments have intervened.

Since Jerry joined R Street two years ago, he has testified on insurance issues three times to the U.S. Senate Budget Committee and the full Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. Jerry’s reputation as an independent scholar has made his thought leadership in publications and presentations widely sought after. Prior to R Street Jerry was a Director of insurance research at Conning in Hartford, Connecticut. Before Conning, Jerry worked for the global insurance giant American International Group (AIG) in a variety of global underwriting, operations and strategy roles, including close to a decade of expatriate managerial assignments in Europe and the Middle East. Jerry holds a master’s degree in political science and public policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. He is an adjunct professor at Central Connecticut State University, where he has taught the Introduction to Risk Management and Insurance course.

Diana van Maasdijk

Co-Founder ＆ CEO, Equileap

Diana van Maasdijk is the Co-Founder ＆ CEO of Equileap, the leading provider of data and insights on gender equality in the corporate sector. Equileap researches and ranks 4000 public companies around the world using a unique and comprehensive Gender Equality Scorecard™ with 19 criteria, including the gender balance of the workforce, senior management and board, as well as the gender pay gap, parental leave, and sexual harassment.

Prior to launching Equileap, Diana worked as Head of Philanthropy at ABN AMRO Private Bank and Director of Development at Mama Cash, the world's oldest international women's fund.

She has a BA from Hamilton College and an MA in international development from American University.

Equileap

Equileap is the leading organisation providing data and insights on gender equality in the corporate sector. Our data enables investors to enhance responsible investing with a gender lens and to focus on the social aspect of ESG policies and practices. We research and rank public companies around the world, in both developed and emerging economies, using a unique and comprehensive Gender Equality Scorecard across 19 criteria, including the gender balance of the workforce, senior management and board of directors, as well as the pay gap and policies relating to parental leave and sexual harassment

Paul Verney

Features Writer, Responsible Investor

Paul joined RI’s editorial team in 2017 and was recently promoted to features writer, taking deeper dives into the most topical issues in the responsible investment space. He has a particular interest in shareholder engagement, climate lobbying and the emerging corporate sustainability disclosure standards. Paul holds a MA degree in Philosophy from King’s College London.

Heidi Welsh

Founding Executive Director, Sustainable Investments Institute (Si2)

Heidi Welsh, executive director of the Sustainable Investments Institute (Si2), has analyzed corporate responsibility since 1987. Si2 is supported mainly by subscriptions from large institutional investors. Starting at the Investor Responsibility Research Center, Welsh covered shareholder advocacy and for 16 years also monitored corporate compliance with a Northern Ireland fair employment code. She co-authored CDP’s 2007 S&P 500 report, worked at RiskMetrics (now MSCI), and consulted on GRI guidelines. Welsh is the lead author of several corporate political influence studies and an expert on the SEC’s shareholder proposal rules.

Courtney Wicks

Executive Director, ISAJ

Courtney Wicks has served as the Executive Director of IASJ since October 2021. Wicks is an experienced professional with proven management skills and a strong record of accomplishment in the development and implementation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategies, policies, and objectives. She assumed her duties on October 18, 2021.

Courtney Wicks has 15 years of experience in the development and implementation of strategies, policies, and practices that advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DE＆I”). She has a track record of driving transformational change and creates meaningful impact that helps attract, retain, and engage a diverse community while building DE＆I leadership capabilities across the organization.

Courtney began her career as a community organizer. She was most effective at building consensus and bridges between community organizations and institutional leadership on public policy initiatives concerning criminal justice reform, economic inclusion, environmental justice, health equity, and school equity and access. Courtney’s ability to work with diverse constituencies and translate community-based issues to government and institutional leaders landed her a Chief of Staff role within the State of New Jersey’s General Assembly.

Wirth Strine, Jessica RI USA 2023 CROPPED

Jessica Wirth Strine

Managing Partner, CEO Sustainable Governance Partners

Jessica Wirth Strine is a co-founder of Sustainable Governance Partners, an independent, practitioner-driven advisory firm that advises public companies on corporate governance, investor engagement, and ESG strategy. With nearly twenty years of experience in active equity fund management and passive fund stewardship, Jessica has unique insights into the practices and expectations of institutional investors.

Prior to forming SGP, Jessica was a senior director of Investment Stewardship at Vanguard, overseeing proxy voting decision-making and leading engagement with directors and executive team members at public companies across the U.S. While at Vanguard, Jessica also led an interdisciplinary ESG working group, focusing on the market implications of ESG issues and policies. Prior to Vanguard, Jessica worked in active equity portfolio management, at BlackRock, Putnam Investments, and Wellington Management Company. On the active buyside she directed global investments in the energy sector, managed natural resources sector funds, and oversaw a team of equity research analysts covering all industries globally.

Jessica holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and their five children.

Heather E. Wright

Vice President, World Wildlife Fund

Heather Wright currently serves as the Vice President for the Markets Program at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) where she leads work to advance sustainable supply chain initiatives with key partners to achieve positive conservation impacts in critical ecosystems. She engages corporate, finance and governmental sector stakeholders to promote and implement sustainable practices that reduce deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions and promote forest conservation, equitable livelihoods and supportive policies. Prior to WWF, Heather worked at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation where she developed and managed strategic initiatives focused on deforestation free commodity supply chains and sustainable finance. She serves on the Advisory Committee for the Kinship Conservation Fellows and previously served as Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Alumni Board Member. Heather received her B.S. in Biology and Minor in Scandinavian Literature from UCLA and her Master’s degree in Science from Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Ethan Zindler

Climate Counselor to the Secretary, U.S. Department of Treasury

Ethan Zindler serves as the Treasury Department’s Climate Counselor where he leads the Treasury’s efforts to facilitate an unlock the financing needed for investments to achieve a net-zero economy at home and abroad. Zindler most recently served as Head of Americas at BloombergNEF (BNEF), a provider of data, research and analysis on clean power, electric vehicles, carbon credit markets, commodities, and other aspects of the transition to a lower-carbon economy. In this role with BloombergNEF, Zindler managed BNEF research analysts in New York, Washington, London, and Sao Paulo.

Zindler was instrumental in the creation of Climatescope, a public resource that has detailed clean energy investment conditions annually in emerging market economies since 2012. Zindler has written extensively on finding solutions for scaling climate finance in developing nations. He has authored reports on topics pertaining to climate and clean energy with the Climate Investment Funds at the World Bank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and others.

Zindler holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from Georgetown University. He lives in Alexandria, VA with his wife and two daughters.

Thriving in the rapidly evolving US sustainable finance landscape

2023 asset owners attendees included:

Chief Counsel, ICI Global

Partner, K＆L Gates LLP

Professor, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Board Member / Managing Director and Head of Sustainable Finance, ICVCM / Institute of International Finance

Senior Director of Sustainable Finance, EDF

Sector Head for Consumer in Corporate Ratings, ISS ESG

Manager, Investments Marketing and Communications, Wespath / Communications Co-Lead, Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance

Chief Strategy Officer, The Shareholder Commons

What to expect at the forum?

Get real insight into the industry

Build a long-lasting network

Meet institutional investors

Key event themes

Apply for a complimentary asset owner pass

Connect with investors & ESG professionals

RI USA 2024 agenda coming soon.

Pre-Event Resources

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Network at America's leading responsible investment event

Meet America’s sustainability leaders

Network in-person in New York

Build valuable connections

Connect with active investors

Be recognised as driving the future of sustainable finance

Be recognised as driving the future of sustainable finance to institutional investors in the US

2023 sponsors included:

Lead Sponsor

Sponsor Level

Associate Sponsor Level

Cocktail Reception Sponsor

Media Partners

Connect with responsible investment investors

Hiroshi Komori

Senior Director, Stewardship & ESG, GPIF

Andrea Palmer

ESG Lead, PGGM

Asset owners at RI USA 2024

2023 asset owners included:

What to expect?

Network with your peers

Gain expert insights

Stay aligned to developments and opportunities

Meet with the best and brightest funds

Apply for a complimentary asset owner pass

Carolyn Allwin

Adjunct Professor, Columbia University

Ulrich Atz

Research Fellow, NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business

Antoine Begasse

Finance Counsellor, Delegation of the European Union to the United States

Vicki Benjamin

President - Co-founder, Karner Blue Capital

Sarah Bernstein

Managing Principal/ Head of Sustainability, Meketa Investment Group, Inc.

Willie Botha

Program & Technical Director, IAASB

Lisa Bozzelli

Sustainable Finance Advisor

Dan Byrd

Director - ESG Industry Practice Lead, Moody’s Analytics

Annette Capretta

Chief Counsel, ICI Global

David Carlin

Head of Risk, UNEP FI

Sabina Chatterjee

Director, Sustainable Finance & Advisory, Wells Fargo Corporate & Investment Banking

Daniel F. C. Crowley

Partner, K＆L Gates LLP

Rachel Curley