Aaron Acosta is a Program Director at Investor Advocates for Social Justice, where he leads work on human rights in value chains, racial justice and immigrants' rights, and peace and demilitarization. Prior to his time at IASJ, Aaron worked in Latin America at the intersection of transitional justice and business and human rights and brings a global perspective and a critical approach to fighting against corporate abuse and injustices. Aaron earned his J.D. from UCLA School of Law and is a member of the State Bar of California.

Read article: Technology Should Never Be Used to Violate Human Rights

Caroline Boden is a director of shareholder advocacy with Mercy Investment Services, covering portfolio issues such as the protection of human rights, safer chemical management, sustainable agriculture, and nutrition security. Prior to joining Mercy Investment Services in 2016, Caroline was a research associate in the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Caroline holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and international studies from Illinois Wesleyan University and a Master of Science in European politics from the University of Glasgow.

Read article: Food and Beverage Industry Slow to Respond to Human Rights Abuse in Sugarcane Plantations

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: Growing Corporate Support for Political Spending Disclosure and Accountability

Andrew Collier is the Director for Ceres' Freedom to Invest initiative. He leads the organization’s internal and external coordination of the initiative, including stakeholder engagement and collaboration with a variety of groups.   

Andrew comes to Ceres from the National Public Pension Coalition, having worked for almost seven years in a variety of roles protecting the pensions of public employees across the country. He has worked to pass legislation that benefits working and retired employees, while also defeating various harmful bills to retirement security.   

Prior to NPPC, Andrew worked for candidates, national campaigns, and non-profits helping to advance their organizational goals and candidacies. Andrew has a master’s in public administration from Fairfield University, and he and his family live outside of Albany, New York. He is an avid hiker, runner, enjoys exploring the Adirondacks, and he is the First Vice President of the Board of Trustees at the Saratoga County History Center. 

Read article: Shareholder Proposals Deliver Results While Under Attack

Giovanna Eichner is a Green Century shareholder advocate, using the Funds’ position and influence as a shareholder to compel companies to adopt more environmentally sustainable policies and practices. Eichner joined Green Century in 2024. She holds a B.A. in History and German from Boston College and recently taught English in Hamburg, Germany, on a Fulbright grant.

Read article: Climate Roadmaps Give Investors Transparency in Transition

Khadija Foda is Associate Counsel at Shareholder Rights Group, where she advises investors on shareholder proposals, shareholder rights, and strategies to strengthen corporate disclosure and accountability on environmental and social issues. 

She is a public interest lawyer whose work focuses on corporate accountability, human rights, and the role of the private sector in addressing systemic social and environmental risks. Her experience includes supporting legal strategies and advocacy on corporate accountability and human rights issues, as well as serving as a public defender in New York, where she represented parents in family court. Earlier in her career, she practiced antitrust law at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. 

Khadija received her J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and her B.A. in English Literature and Literary Arts from Brown University. 

Read article: A Proxy Season Defined by Upheaval and Existential Threats to SEC Shareholder
Proposal Rule 14A-8

Sister Susan Francois has served on the Congregation Leadership Team of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace since 2015 and presently serves as Assistant Congregation Leader and Treasurer. She is Chair of the Board of Trustees of Investor Advocates for Social Justice and Secretary of the Board of All Africa Conference: Sister to Sister.  She also serves on the Boards of Holy Name Medical Center and Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace Charitable Incorporated Organisation in the United Kingdom. She has been named a Faith Leadership Circle Envoy by UNICEF. She worked for the City of Portland, Oregon as City Elections Officer prior to entering religious life (1995-2006). Sister Susan holds a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Lewis and Clark College and a Master’s in Theological Ethics from Catholic Theological Union.

Read article: Technology Should Never Be Used to Violate Human Rights

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

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

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

Read article: Growing Corporate Support for Political Spending Disclosure and Accountability

Michael Garland is Assistant Comptroller for Corporate Governance and Responsible Investment for New York City Comptroller Mark Levine. The Comptroller serves as investment advisor, custodian and a trustee to the New York City Pension Funds, which have approximately $316 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. Michael spearheaded shareholder initiatives that helped to establish proxy access as a fundamental right at hundreds of U.S. companies, and that established EEO-1 Report disclosure as a standard for disclosing workforce racial and ethnic demographics among the largest U.S. companies.

Michael serves on the Grant & Eisenhofer ESG Institute Oversight Board and previously served as Public Fund Co-Chair on the Council of Institutional Investors’ Board of Directors. He also serves as Comptroller Levine’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: NYC Pension Funds and Investors Urge Starbucks Shareholders to Hold Board Accountable

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 childcare workers. John serves on the board of the Council of Institutional Investors, where he previously co-chaired its Shareholder Advocacy Committee. Before joining AFSCME, he was a proxy voting analyst at Institutional Shareholder Services and a paralegal in Washington, DC. He is a graduate of Brown University.

Read article: Revised Lobbying Proposal Awaits SEC Test 

Jonas 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 served on the board of US SIF - the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment from 2017 through 2023. Prior to joining Trillium, Jonas was an environmental attorney and public defender as well as outside counsel to many socially responsible investment organizations. Jonas holds J.D. and master’s degrees from Vermont Law School. 

Read article: Evaluating the Risks and Effectiveness of Expressly Partisan Political Contributions 

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

Read article: How Market Engagement is Transforming the Avocado Industry

Sanford Lewis is an attorney with more than 40 years of experience in public policy, environmental law, securities law, and shareholder advocacy. He directs the Shareholder Rights Group and is a nationally recognized expert on shareholder proposals and corporate disclosure of environmental and social issues.

Previously, Sanford founded and led the Good Neighbor Project for Sustainable Industries, supporting community‑corporate negotiations on environmental and economic impacts, and taught Environmental Law at Tufts University and UCLA.

Sanford is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and holds a B.S. in Environmental Science and Urban Communications from Rutgers University.

Read article: A Proxy Season Defined by Upheaval and Existential Threats to SEC Shareholder
Proposal Rule 14a-8 

Kelly specializes in plastic pollution prevention and leads corporate research and engagement on improving circular economy operations, including limiting natural resource extraction and use and design for reuse, repair, and recycling. Kelly is the author of As You Sow’s 2024 Plastic Promises Scorecard: Are Corporations Following Through on Commitments to Act? ranking 225 of the world's largest companies on both ambition and action to tackle plastic packaging pollution. Additionally, Kelly manages As You Sow’s Plastic Solutions Investor Alliance, an international coalition of more than 50 institutional investors with more than $2.6 trillion in combined assets, working to engage publicly traded consumer goods companies on the threats posed by plastic pollution and waste. Prior to joining As You Sow, Kelly worked to pass circular economy policies for the state of California. Kelly received her B.A. from University of California Davis, where she studied global and environmental health.

Read article: Microplastics in the Human Body, At What Risk?

Nell Minow has worked in the field of corporate governance and shareholder advocacy since 1986. She is Chair of ValueEdge Advisors, which advises institutional shareholders on corporate governance issues.

She was co-founder and board member of GMI Ratings (formerly The Corporate Library), which was sold to MSCI in 2014. Earlier she was a principal in the governance investment firm LENS (where Business Week online called her “the queen of good corporate governance”) and general counsel and president of Institutional Shareholder Services. Earlier, she was an attorney at EPA, OMB, and DOJ.

She is co-author with Robert A.G. Monks of three books, including five editions an MBA textbook, and author of numerous articles and book chapters. She has been recognized with Lifetime Achievement Awards from the International Corporate Governance Network and from Corporate Secretary Magazine.

Ms. Minow is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Chicago Law School.

Read article: Shareholder Initiatives in A Hostile Environment

Whitney Nguyen, CFA is the Director of Impact Research at NorthStar Asset Management, a pioneer in socially responsible investing with a 30-year track record of using shareholder proposals to demand corporate accountability on critical social issues. Whitney leads NorthStar’s shareholder activism and corporate engagement program, working directly with portfolio companies across the firm’s six core focus areas: human rights, racial equity, gender equity, environmental justice, economic equality, and corporate governance. 

Whitney was the lead author of “Drinking From An Empty Cup: An Investor Toolkit for Addressing AI’s Growing Water Demands,” which equips investors with practical tools to engage tech companies on responsible water use and its impacts on frontline communities. She holds a B.S.B.A from Northeastern University, where she studied Finance and Entrepreneurship, and is a CFA charterholder. 

Read article: Running Dry: Water Stressed Communities Forced to Fuel AI’s Thirsty Appetite 

Michael Passoff is the founder and CEO of Proxy Impact, a shareholder advocacy and proxy voting service for sustainable investors. Michael has over 25 years of experience in corporate social responsibility and shareholder advocacy. For more than a decade Michael served as the Senior Program Director for the As You Sow Corporate Social Responsibility Program. In 2005 he founded the Proxy Preview to alert foundations, sustainable investors, 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 400 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 achieved the first majority vote for a climate resolution.

Read article: The Need to Link Executive Pay to Child Safety

Marcela Pinilla serves as Director of Sustainable Investing at Zevin Asset Management and leads their in-house ESG research and corporate engagement. Collaborating with diverse stakeholders Marcela challenges companies to advance their long-term thinking on environmental, social, and governance issues and supports public policy-making that fosters more equitable outcomes. Marcela also channels her expertise on various boards and committees: the New York Foundation, the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management (Mass PRIM), Climate Finance Action, and The Mobility, Climate Adaptation and Finance Working Group (MCAF). She is honored to guest lecture and contribute to panels on various topics across different audiences.

Read article: Your Portfolio Is Watching You: Surveillance, Data Privacy, and Unpriced Risk 

Kelly is a climate activist with passion for corporate accountability. As a member of As You Sow’s Climate Team, she engages heavy industry and power utility companies on their transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Previously, Kelly worked as an ESG analyst for a private wealth management firm where she helped develop the firm’s first environmental fund.

Kelly holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Read article: Data Center Energy Demands Undermine Corporate Climate Commitments

Natalia Renta is the Associate Director for Corporate Governance and Power at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF), where she works to change the structures of corporate decision-making to build a more equitable and sustainable economy. Prior to joining AFREF, Natalia was a Senior Policy Strategist at the Center for Popular Democracy, where she provided policy and legal counsel to several campaigns, including those related to Puerto Rico’s debt crisis. Prior to that, Natalia was an attorney at Make the Road New York, an organization that builds the power of immigrant and working-class communities to achieve dignity and justice. She earned her J.D. from Stanford Law School and her B.A. from Harvard University

Read article: Public Or Private? Legal & Regulatory Changes Making Public Companies More Like
Private Companies

Leslie Samuelrich leads Green Century, and the three funds have about $1 billion in managed assets and has grown significantly since she took the helm in 2012. An economics major at Boston College, Leslie’s career began in the nonprofit world where she gained more than 25 years of experience in corporate engagement, environmental and public health advocacy.

Leslie has been an articulate and powerful voice in promoting environmentally and sustainable investing as the leader of Green Century Funds.

In August 2024, she was selected for the esteemed Forbes’ 50 Over 50 list, which celebrates women who are pioneers in their fields and are leveraging their age and experience as tools for success. In April 2024, she was named to the prestigious Barron’s 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance, joining the ranks of prominent and influential women leaders, for the second consecutive year.

Read article: Climate Roadmaps Give Investors Transparency in Transition 

With a diverse background spanning sustainable agriculture, environmental education, and academic research, Kendyl Van Dyck brings a multidisciplinary approach to her role as an associate for the Environmental Health and Biodiversity programs at As You Sow. Within As You Sow, she writes, conducts research, and engages companies on pesticide reduction and regenerative agriculture in food supply chains, as well as biodiversity protection.

Kendyl holds a Master of Science degree in Environmental Studies with an emphasis on agroecology and food systems from the University of Montana, where she also taught undergraduate composition. Her experience includes farming on family-owned, small-scale, organic vegetable farms in Western Washington, providing USDA organic certification assistance, teaching environmental education, and managing the Alpine Lakes Collaborative in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service.

Read article: Can A Species That Survived Five Mass Extinctions Survive the Pharmaceutical Industry? 

Anayana White is Head of Communications at the American Sustainable Business Network (ASBN) and principal of Anayana White LLC, a communications consultancy serving networks, environmental health organizations, and advocacy campaigns. She brings 15+ years of experience developing narratives that shift policy for clients working across a diverse range of issues. A Next Economy MBA alum from LIFT Economy, she is based in Homer, Alaska.

Read article: When Politicians Try to Pick Winners: The Texas Anti-ESG Law That Cost Taxpayers
Hundreds of Millions  

Mary is a sustainable business advocate with expertise in corporate engagement and strategic communications. As a member of As You Sow’s Climate and Energy team, she engages banks and insurance companies to collaboratively develop business practices that reduce climate risk and bring about positive environmental change. Previously, Mary has developed briefings for climate fund investors and worked with government and business leaders to facilitate international trade.

Read article: Who Should Pay for Climate Related Insurance Claims