Report Authors
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 provided detailed coverage of shareholder advocacy and monitored corporate compliance with a fair employment code in Northern Ireland for 16 years. In addition, she co-authored CDP’s S&P 500 report in 2007, headed up sustainability research within a unit of what is now MSCI, and consulted on Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. Welsh is the lead author of several 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.
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 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 and prompted greenhouse gas emission reductions and renewable energy development at public utilities.