Contributors


Fredrick Alexander

Frederick Alexander

Frederick Alexander is the Founding Partner and Chief Executive Officer of The Shareholder Commons (TSC).

Rick practiced law for 26 years at a leading Delaware-based firm, including four years as managing partner. During that time, he was selected as one of the ten most highly regarded corporate governance lawyers worldwide and as one of the 500 leading U.S. lawyers. In 2015, Rick became Head of Legal Policy at B Lab, where he worked to create sustainable corporate governance structures around the globe. He left that position in 2019 to develop the concepts behind TSC as a B Lab Fellow. 

Read article: Beta Activism: Benefit Corporations and External Cost Disclosure

 
Vanessa Bain

Vanessa Bain

Vanessa Bain is a former educator from Silicon Valley that began working full-time as an Instacart Shopper in 2016. She has been grassroots organizing Instacart Shoppers for over four years and has organized several national walkouts, boycotts, and direct actions over labor grievances and workplace safety in the grocery gig economy. Organizing successes include securing PPE for hundreds of thousands of essential gig workers, the repayment of millions of dollars of misappropriated tips, and the reinstatement of in-app tipping. In January, Bain cofounded Gig Workers’ Collective, a worker collective that fosters worker-led worker organizing and advocacy in the gig economy. Bain is passionate about building worker power, policy, intersectional organizing, social and economic justice. 

Bain has recorded segments with Working People, The Run-Up, Socialist Alternative, Human Rights Watch, Good Morning America, NPR, Al Jazeera English, NBC, CNN, PBS, ABC, and KQED among others.

Read article: Corporations Should Invest in Community – Not Policing

 
Andrew Behar

Andrew Behar

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

Read article: Say On Climate: Net-Zero with Annual Shareholder Votes – A Global Movement

 
Meredith Benton

Meredith Benton

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

Read article: Investors Demand Proof of Effective Diversity and Inclusion Programs

 
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Matthew Stark Blumin

Matthew Stark Blumin is General Counsel for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Matt Blumin has over a decade of experience as an attorney advocating for the rights of working people to achieve dignity, respect, and just compensation.  As General Counsel of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), Matt advises CIW in all legal matters, including its award-winning Fair Food Program, which protects farmworkers’ human rights through legally-binding Fair Food Agreements with major food retailers such as McDonald’s and Wal-Mart. Previously, Matt was Associate General Counsel of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME), where his work focused on defending union members’ rights in constitutional litigation and government financial restructurings (including the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and City of Detroit), as well as supporting new organizing initiatives.  Matt began his practice of law as a legal services lawyer representing Pennsylvania farmworkers and food processing workers, with an emphasis on representing survivors of workplace sexual harassment and assault.  He received his law degree from Stanford Law School, and is fluent in Spanish.

Read article: Human Rights Protections for Workers in Food Supply Chains Vulnerable to COVID-19

 
Dan Carroll

Dan Carroll

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

Read article: Business and Political Spending: An Epiphany?

 
Laura Devenney

Laura Devenney

Laura Devenney is a Senior ESG Research Analyst at Boston Trust Walden. She is responsible for evaluating current and potential portfolio investments and engaging companies to advance sustainable business practices. She contributes to the firm’s leadership in shareholder engagement, specifically on climate change, through company dialogues, shareholder resolutions, and public policy advocacy.

Read article: Climate Lobbying: A Critical Way to Address the Climate Crisis

 
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Thomas DiNapoli

Thomas P. DiNapoli is the 54th Comptroller of the State of New York. He is known for his integrity, independence and steadfast leadership. Since taking office in 2007, Tom DiNapoli has aggressively fought misuse of public resources, strengthened one of the nation’s top public pension funds, and consistently spoken out against fiscal gimmicks and government inefficiency.

Comptroller DiNapoli has changed the way the $184.5 billion state pension fund operates to increase transparency and establish strong internal controls, ensuring the strongest investment performance and ethical operations. He barred investment firms contributing to his campaign from doing business with the state pension fund. He was also a leading voice in getting the Securities and Exchange Commission to impose tough new rules on “pay to play” to prevent improper influence on investment decisions.

Protecting public funds from waste, fraud and abuse is part of Comptroller DiNapoli’s core responsibilities. His audits and efforts have identified billions in misuse, waste and savings. He has also been relied on to examine public finances and provide an independent, credible analysis of government finances. In January 2013, his office launched a Fiscal Monitoring System to score localities on their fiscal condition, sending an early warning to those in trouble. He has consistently advocated for budget and debt reform to give New York State a more secure fiscal future.

Read article: Clean Energy Advocacy is Key to NY State Investment Strategy

 
Rachel Fagiano

Rachel Fagiano

Rachel Fagiano joined the Nathan Cummings Foundation in January 2017 and brings more than 10 years of experience in social justice work. As an Associate Program Officer on the Racial and Economic Justice Team, Rachel works to integrate grantmaking and shareholder activities with a deep racial and social justice lens. Currently, she co-facilitates the Bail Reform Strategy Group at Funders for Justice and serves on the leadership team for the Racial Justice Investing Group.

Read article: Corporations Should Invest in Community – Not Policing

 
Bruce Freed

Bruce Freed

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

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

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

Read article: Business and Political Spending: An Epiphany?

 
Danielle Fugure

Danielle Fugere

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

Read article: Climate Change: Follow The Money

 
Mary Beth Gallagher

Mary Beth Gallagher

Mary Beth Gallagher is the Executive Director of Investor Advocates for Social Justice (formerly the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment), whose mission is to advocate on behalf of a community of investors whose faith-based values promote human rights, climate justice, racial equity and the common good. Mary Beth represents institutional investors in shareholder engagements with their portfolio companies on Environmental, Social, and Governance issues. Mary Beth addresses human rights, climate justice, racial justice, and responsible financial practices.  Mary Beth received a B.S. in Environmental Science from Boston College and a J.D. from American University Washington College of Law.

Read article: Increased Oversight of Surveillance Technology Can Reduce Systemic Racism

 
Michael Garland

Michael Garland

Michael Garland is Assistant Comptroller for Corporate Governance and Responsible Investment for New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer. The Comptroller serves as investment advisor, custodian and a trustee to the New York City Pension Funds, which have approximately $240 billion in assets under management and a long history of active ownership on issues of corporate governance and sustainability. Michael and his team are responsible for developing and implementing the Funds’ active ownership programs for public equities, including voting proxies at approximately 11,000 portfolio companies around the world; engaging portfolio companies on their environmental, social and governance policies and practices; and advocating for regulatory reforms to protect investors and promote sustainable capital markets. Recent initiatives include spearheading the Boardroom Accountability Project launched in fall 2014, which has helped to establish proxy access as a fundamental right at hundreds of U.S. companies. Michael serves on the Council of Institutional Investors’ Board of Directors, where he is Public Fund CoChair, and the Grant & Eisenhofer ESG Institute Oversight Board. He also serves as Comptroller Stringer’s designated representative to the board of directors of CERES, a non-profit that works with investors, companies and capital market influencers to take stronger action on the world’s biggest sustainability challenges. 

Read article: New York City Launches Campaign for Company Diversity Disclosure

 
Chris Hohn

Sir Christopher Hohn

Christopher Hohn is the founder of a hedge fund called The Children's Investment Fund based in London. Through donation of the hedge fund's profits he endowed the Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), which today has over $5 billion in assets. CIFF is focused on improving the lives of children in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and India. Key areas of focus include climate change, family planning, malnutrition, neglected tropical diseases and anti-human trafficking work. He has an MBA (high distinction) from Harvard Business School. Areas of Giving: Environment, Health and Global Development.

Read article: Say On Climate: Net-Zero with Annual Shareholder Votes – A Global Movement

 
Lila Holzman

Lila Holzman

Lila Holzman is the Senior Energy Program Manager at As You Sow, where she engages companies on issues related to climate change and associated harms. Lila's previous experience includes working in the residential solar industry, serving as a sustainable agriculture volunteer in Panama with the Peace Corps, implementing a clean cookstove pilot in Ghana, and interning with the United Nations Global Compact. She currently serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Northern California Peace Corps Association. In 2020, Lila was named one of the Peace Corps Community's top 40-under-40. Lila holds an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania with a focus on Environmental & Risk Management as well as an undergraduate degree from Rice University where she double majored in Environmental Engineering and Policy Studies.

Read article: Plastic: The New Stranded Asset Risk Facing Big Oil

 
Kristin Hull

Kristin Hull

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

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

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

Read article: Investors Demand Proof of Effective Diversity and Inclusion Programs

 
John Keenan

John Keenan

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

Read article: Capitol Riot, Bribes and Astroturfing: Dark Money Lobbying Requires Transparency

 
Olivia Knight

Olivia Knight

Olivia Knight leads As You Sow’s Racial Justice Initiative which researches corporate actions on racial justice to create data-based Scorecards. The Scorecards serve as an evaluation tool to help motivate companies to end their complicit relationship with systematic racism. Olivia earned a Masters with Distinction in Environment, Development and Policy from the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK where her research focused on African American participation in mainstream environmental movements in the United States, investigations into the PIC, examinations of racialized landscapes in California’s transit and urban policies, and post-colonial West African environmental policies and impacts. At Pitzer College, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Analysis and African Studies. Olivia previously worked for a Bay Area non-profit organization that provides health care to children with Autism and has always been passionate about advocating for quality health care for communities of color. 

Read article: Corporate Racial Justice Statements Prompt a Reckoning

 
Jonas Kron

Jonas Kron

Jonas Kron is Trillium's Chief Advocacy Officer. With over twenty years of experience in shareholder advocacy, Jonas is responsible for leading and coordinating Trillium’s extensive advocacy program, which works to engage companies on their environmental and social performance. His advocacy work includes direct communications with company leadership, investor education and awareness, shareholder proposals, and public policy advocacy at the municipal, state, and federal levels.

As a recognized legal expert in the field and a leader in shareholder advocacy, Jonas regularly represents Trillium in the media, at public events, and with clients. Jonas currently serves as the Secretary of the US SIF board and as co-chair of the organization’s public policy committee. Prior to joining Trillium, Jonas was an environmental attorney and public defender as well as outside counsel to many socially responsible investment organizations. Jonas holds J.D. and masters degrees from Vermont Law School.

Read article: Racial Justice Audits: Holding Companies Accountable for Their Role in System Racism

 
Morgan LaManna

Morgan LaManna

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

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

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

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

Read article: Investor Climate Support for Climate Action 100+ Net Zero Benchmark

 
Natasha Lamb

Natasha Lamb

Natasha Lamb is Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Arjuna Capital.

A leader in impact investing, Natasha works with high-net-worth individuals, families, and institutions to integrate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors into their investments, while engaging major corporations to improve their performance through shareholder activism. Named by Bloomberg Businessweek as one of the “Bloomberg 50” most influential people who defined global business in 2017, Natasha was also featured on the cover of the magazine in June 2017. In 2018, she was named to InStyle magazine’s ‘The Badass 50: women who are changing the world” list and in 2019 she was honored by the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus with the Abigail Adams Award. Natasha has been profiled in Forbes, Fast Company, and the Boston Globe, while her work has been featured in Rolling Stone, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, as well as on NPR and CNN. In 2016, Natasha received the Upstart Business Journal Upstart 100 Award and the Aiming High Award from Legal Momentum for pioneering a shareholder campaign on gender pay equity. Her 2014 landmark negotiation with Exxon Mobil led to the company’s first public report on global warming and carbon asset risk. Natasha is a trustee of The Food Project and Chairman of the Intentional Endowments Network. She holds an M.B.A in Sustainable Business from Presidio Graduate School, where she taught sustainable investing for 5 years. Natasha received her B.A. cum laude from Mount Holyoke College.

Read article: Can Insurance Companies Help Prevent Racist Police Brutality?

 
Conrad MacKerron

Conrad MacKerron

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

Read article: Plastic Pollution – The Transition from Recycling to Using Less

 
Renaye Manley

Renaye Manley

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 Union, Strategic Initiatives department.  In this position, she works with pension trustees, union leaders, elected officials and investment professionals 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 serves as co-chair of the advocacy committee of the Council of Institutional Investors which convenes the largest groups of investors and asset owners in the United States and also serves on the board of the 30% Percent Coalition which works on gender and racial equity issues in the world of 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 engaged in political and worker organizing. She is a graduate of Indiana University and has a MBA from Western Governors University.  Renaye is married to Richard is mom to Cameron, Cayla, Calvin and Kizzy and a host of adorable grandkids. She also operates Renaye Manley, Mobile Notary, a small business started earlier this year.

Read article: Racial Justice Audits: Holding Companies Accountable for Their Role in System Racism

 
Katie McCloskey

Katie McCloskey

Katie McCloskey is the vice president of social responsibility for Mercy Investment Services, a ministry of the Sisters of Mercy. Prior to her role here, she served as the director of social responsibility for United Church Funds, a financial ministry of the United Church of Christ. She has served on the board of the Interfaith Center of Corporate Responsibility.

Read article: Is Blackrock Finally Aligning Climate Policy And Proxy Voting?

 
Sara Murphy

Sara E. Murphy

Sara E. Murphy is Chief Strategy Officer of The Shareholder Commons (TSC).

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

Read article: Beta Activism: Benefit Corporations and External Cost Disclosure

 
Sister Gloria Oehl

Sister Gloria Oehl

Sr. Gloria Oehl, OSF is a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany NY, and has served as General Treasurer.  Sr. Oehl currently serves on the Finance Committee of the Congregation and is Congregational Liaison to Investor Advocates for Social Justice (IASJ) in the area of corporate responsibility.

Read article: Human Rights Protections for Workers in Food Supply Chains Vulnerable to COVID-19

 
Michael Passoff

Michael Passoff

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

Read article: Facebook's Encryption Plan Will Hide Online Child Sexual Exploitation

 
Tejal Patel

Tejal Patel

Tejal Patel is Corporate Governance Director of CtW Investment Group.

Tejal joined CtW in 2016, where she has focused on corporate accountability and shareholder advocacy.  Prior to CtW, Tejal was a Senior Associate at Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), where she worked with asset owners and asset managers in the development and implementation of their proxy voting guidelines.  Before ISS, Tejal was an Associate at a Connecticut-based law firm, where she represented institutional lenders in a variety of commercial finance transactions and advised public and private companies on securities law related matters.  She currently serves on the U.S. Asset Owners Advisory Council for the Council of Institutional Investors.  She holds a J.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Law and a MSc. from the London School of Economics.  

Read article: Racial Justice Audits: Holding Companies Accountable for Their Role in System Racism

 
Paul Rissman

Paul Rissman

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

Read article: Investor Climate Support for Climate Action 100+ Net Zero Benchmark

 
Cathy Rowan

Cathy Rowan

Since 2003, Cathy Rowan has been the Director of Socially Responsible Investments for Trinity Health, one of the largest Catholic health care systems in the nation and a member of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. Cathy leads Trinity Health’s shareholder advocacy work on health equity, food and nutrition, tobacco control, environmental health and gun violence issues.   She also serves as a consultant for the Maryknoll Sisters, representing them in shareholder engagements on issues such as global health, climate change, responsible lending, water and eliminating child sexual exploitation online.

Read article: Public Funding, Drug Pricing, and Equal Access for COVID-19 Vaccines

 
Tim Smith

Tim Smith

Tim Smith is Director of ESG Shareowner Engagement at Boston Trust Walden, leading the firm’s shareholder engagement program to promote greater corporate leadership on ESG issues. This includes company dialogues, shareholder proposals, proxy voting, and public policy advocacy. He is actively involved in representing the firm at public events and in fostering long-term client relationships.

Read article: Climate Lobbying: A Critical Way to Address the Climate Crisis

 
Willy Solis

Willy Solis

Willy Solis is a Shipt Shopper from the Dallas Texas Metroplex. Willy has a background in construction and has run his own business since 2008. In 2019, Willy began working as a Shipt Shopper and began grassroots organizing his fellow Shipt Shoppers in January 2020 when Shipt implemented a devastating pay cut. In February, he formalized a relationship with Gig Workers Collective where he has functioned as the lead organizer for Shipt Shoppers nationally. Willy has partnered with organizations such as Human Rights Watch, MIT, and Coworker on generative worker-centric research and data about the gig economy. Willy is passionate about building worker power, policy, social and economic justice. In the past year, Willy’s work has been covered by Time Magazine, Dallas Morning News, NY Times, LA Times, BBC, Boston Globe, and Thomson Reuters. He has been profiled by NPR and The Hill.

Read article: Corporations Should Invest in Community – Not Policing

 
Christy Spees

Christy Spees

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

Read article: McDonald’s to Get “Forever Chemicals” Out of Food Packaging

 
Daniel Stewart

Daniel Stewart

Daniel Stewart is a Senior Research Associate at As You Sow.

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

Read article: Building Sector Electrification: Taking Fossil Fuels Out of Our Homes

 
Jessye Waxman

Jessye Waxman

Jessye Waxman is a shareholder advocate at Green Century Capital Management, leading the firm’s work to protect forests. Using the firm’s leverage as a shareholder, she presses companies to adopt more environmentally-responsible policies and practices. Prior to joining Green Century, Jessye worked as a research associate at several nonprofits – where her research focused on environmental law, policy, and environmental security – and as an organizer on a sustainable agriculture campaign. In 2019, Jessye was named to the inaugural SRI Conference 30 Under 30 list. She holds a BA in Environmental Sciences and Policy from Duke University.

Read article: Investors Recognize Link Between Deforestation and Climate Risk

 
Heidi Welsh

Heidi Welsh

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

Read article: U.S. Companies Face Scrutiny Over Partisan Spending

 
Lisa Woll

Lisa Woll

Lisa Woll is the CEO of US SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, the leading US organization advancing sustainable and impact investing across all asset classes.

Prior to US SIF, Lisa was executive director of the International Women's Media Foundation, director of the first international study of the impact of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and directed the Washington, DC office of Save the Children. Lisa's career began as an Urban Fellow in the New York City Human Resources Administration.  She has written and spoken widely on sustainable investment, public policy, human rights and development, as well as leadership.

Lisa was included in Barron's list of “The 20 Most Influential People in ESG Investing and received the inaugural Forbes Impact Award. Lisa holds a BA in political science from the University of IL, an MA in public policy and women's studies from George Washington University and was a Fulbright Fellow in Melbourne, Australia.

Read article: What Shareholders Can Expect From a Biden SEC