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Speakers 2019
About HWW
February 3, 2017Symposium 2018
September 7, 20192019 Symposium Speakers
Anne Amanda Bangasser
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Anne Amanda Bangasser
Managing Director, Treehouse Investments — Anne Amanda Bangasser has been with Treehouse Investments and Aspenall Energies since 2011 when she built out and directed Aspenall’s renewable energy development engineering team. A civil engineer by training, Anne Amanda designed Treehouse’s due diligence framework for evaluating the engineering-related aspects of investments, including project feasibility and impact, and oversees the design of renewable energy projects acquired and developed by Aspenall.
As a female engineer, Anne Amanda is keenly aware of issues of gender diversity and has devoted a lot of time to studying gender inequality and integrating women’s empowerment into impact investments. She directs Treehouse’ gender-targeted investment strategy. Anne Amanda has worked previously in water and wastewater treatment design and construction in the US and the UK and as engineering support to the UN peacekeeping mission in Côte d’Ivoire. She has undergraduate degrees from Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology and an MSc from the University of Wales.
Drianne Benner
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Drianne Benner
Managing Director, Appomattox, Impact Committee, Co-Chair Content, High Water Women — Joined in 2010. She has over 30 years’ experience in investment management. She is responsible for business development and client service.Previously, she was Global Marketing Director at Cadogan Management where she was responsible for overseeing firm-wide marketing and client communications for institutional and family office clients.
Prior to joining Cadogan, she spent ten years, most recently as a Managing Director, at U.S. Trust Company, where she developed and led client and marketing initiatives focused on investment communications, initiated an institutional consultant relations program and serviced large institutional clients. Before that she worked at Paribas Asset Management, a global asset management firm, in a variety of roles including institutional and consultant relations to some of the largest U.S. pension funds and as a manager of portfolios in an enhanced quantitative strategy. She earned a BA from Pennsylvania State University and attended graduate studies in regional planning in international development at Cornell University.
Drianne is a CFA charter holder and is a former board member of the CFA Society New York. Drianne is on the board and Finance/Investment Committee of the New York City Audubon Society; chairs the Investment Committee of the American Friends Service Committee and is on the Finance/Investment Committee of the Oysterponds Historical Society.
Aisha Benson
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Aisha Benson
Executive Vice President, TruFund Financial Services; Director NMTC, Empowerment Reinvestment Fund, LLC — Aisha Benson, Executive Vice President for TruFund Financial Services, is a formally credit trained and seasoned community development professional with substantial background in business lending, program development, strategic operations, and compliance. She is responsible for directing, managing, and integrating multi-disciplined team functions related to the delivery of lending services, tax credit deployment and TA programs. She also oversees program design and implementation, resource partner selection and management, and the coordination of outreach and business development efforts for TruFund’s programs. During her tenure, numerous multi-million-dollar capital access, guaranty and grant programs have fallen under her direct management.
Prior to TruFund, Ms. Benson served as VP of Business Lending at Carver Federal Savings, and as VP of Commercial Lending at JP Morgan Chase. She has 24 years’ experience deploying capital to Low Income Communities, including acquisition, construction and permanent finance projects. She has deployed nearly $90 million in New Market Tax Credits and $172 million of capital to low income communities, including $72 million in loans to small businesses and non-profits financed through TruFund’s Small Business Loan Fund. Based on her vast experience, Ms. Benson serves on several key industry Boards, including the NMTC Coalition (Executive Committee member) and NY CDFI Coalition (founding member). She also serves on the Advisory Boards of the Community Development Entities of US Bank and Coastal Enterprises. Ms. Benson holds a B.A. in Psychology, Cum Laude from Columbia University and a certificate through a Citi/OFN Sponsored Leadership Training Program for CDFI Executives at Wharton University.
Catherine Berman
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Catherine Berman
CEO and Co-founder, CNote — Catherine Berman is the CEO and Co-founder of CNote, an impact investment platform delivering competitive returns by investing in women, minorities and low-income communities across America. CNote was named "Top Innovation in Fintech" by South by Southwest and has won accolades across the United States for reimagining what finance can do and who finance can serve. Prior to CNote, Catherine served as Managing Director at financial services firm Charles Schwab and Senior Vice President at Venture Capital firm, Astia. Her last startup, Global Brigades, grew to a multi-million dollar enterprise in a few short years and is now the global category leader. At the vanguard of impact investing, Catherine has spoken at events hosted by Stanford, Oxford, Google, The Economist, SoCap, Coinbase, and others to challenge conventional thinking about money and meaning. She was recently featured by MasterCard as a pioneering female entrepreneur in a campaign that appeared in the New York Times.
Dana K. Bezerra
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Dana Bezerra
President, F.B Heron Foundation — Dana K. Bezerra is the president of Heron. Bezerra joined Heron in 2006 as a program officer, which allowed her to engage directly with nonprofit and community leaders who were operationalizing Heron’s mission. It became clear in that role that Heron’s responsibility was to feed the agency of local leaders by supporting them and their enterprises.
Over the next 10 years, Bezerra played a key role in rotating Heron’s entire portfolio (including debt, equity, and grants) to better reflect Heron’s mission. Bezerra became responsible for sourcing deals, identifying and developing relationships across a spectrum of investors, syndicating capital when possible, and cultivating opportunities to deploy the full range of Heron’s philanthropic and market-rate toolkit. As president, Bezerra hopes to build on Heron’s history and leverage the lessons it has learned over the past 25 years — both on the ground in communities and within the capital markets.
In addition to her role at Heron, Dana has been active in several national and local philanthropic organizations over the last two decades, including Capital Impact Partners, Mission Investors’ Exchange, the Nature Conservancy, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenge Exploration Program, and the Weantinoge Land Trust.
Before Heron, Bezerra began her career in agriculture in California. She also worked at Merrill Lynch in the Private Banking & Investment Group, where she specialized in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Management. Bezerra has a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Business and Public Policy from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.
Sasha Brown
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Sasha Brown
Partner, The Ecosystem Integrity Fund (EIF) — Sasha Brown is a Partner at EIF. Her responsibilities include investment due diligence, strategy development, process management, deal sourcing, and portfolio management. She assists with system and sector analysis, firm operations, and financial structuring. Sasha serves as a Board Director at Opti RTC, Upflex, and TREX and is an Observer on the board of Bluon.
Prior to joining EIF, Sasha was a Principal at NewWorld Capital Group, where she co-led investments of more than $100M into growth-oriented companies in residential solar, diesel pollution reduction, and power electronics. In her role, she focused on origination, diligence, closing, portfolio management, board activities, and fundraising. Her deals included SolarEdge Technologies, which had a successful IPO in 2015, and Astrum Solar, which was sold to Direct Energy.
Drawing on her industry background, Sasha has developed specialized expertise with respect to residential solar, the built environment, HVAC, and environmental consulting and engineering.
Before joining NewWorld, Sasha worked in J.P. Morgan’s Natural Resources Group, and previously for Environmental Capital Partners, a private equity firm investing in middle market companies in the environmental industry. Prior to Environmental Capital Partners, Sasha worked at Atelier Ten, where she focused on building energy models to optimize the energy cost and consumption patterns of buildings. She also worked on general environmental design consulting, including systems performance analysis, benchmarking, and strategic sustainability planning.
Sasha serves as Board Director at PosiGen Solar Solutions, a provider of integrated solar and energy efficiency services to low-to-middle income homeowners in Louisiana, Connecticut, and New York. She also co-founded the Discovery Circle, a network of family and friends of children and adults with disabilities.
Sasha received a BSc in Environmental Engineering from Yale University and holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management. While at Yale, she co-chaired the university’s Private Equity Conference and completed a research thesis evaluating sustainability metric systems for the built environment.
Shay Chan Hodges
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Shay Chan Hodges
Co-Organizer of the Maui ESG Investment Project and Ahupua`a Investment Summit — Shay Chan Hodges is a writer and community advocate from Maui, Hawaii where she serves as co-organizer of the Maui ESG Project and Ahupua`a Investment Summit.
Hawaii’s isolated island geography, abundant renewable energy resources and high costs for imported fossil fuels make it an ideal location for the effective deployment of ESG capital. Yet, while Maui residents recognize the need for long-term investment to address social and environmental crises, they are wary of the impacts of highly resourced economic actors. One of the objectives of the Maui ESG Project is to address this global challenge.
Shay also serves as Chair of the Maui County Water Board, which is working to protect environmental health, native rights and water as a public trust while a private equity fund seeks to gain control over significant water resources on Maui.
Shay has worked with local, state and national advocacy groups to support policies that meet the needs of women and families, including efforts to pass childcare and paid leave legislation. She is the author of Lean On and Lead, Mothering and Work in the 21st Century Economy which examines what it takes to participate in the 21st century economy while raising children through the lens of 30 first-person narratives, including a venture capitalist, teachers, a studio executive, nurse and U.S. Senator. Lean On and Lead also introduces Family-Centered Design℠ thinking, a conceptual framework for designing society and the economy around the real needs of families, rather than the other way around.
In 2016, Shay ran for Congress against current presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.
Ian A Chan Hodges
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Ian A Chan Hodges
Co-Founder, Responsible Markets — Ian Chan Hodges is managing member of Hawaii based Responsible Markets, which he co-founded in 2000 to leverage market imbalances profitably for long-term good.
Ian’s local work at Responsible Markets has included organizing Hawaii’s first multiple bottom-line investment summit, which was held at the state capitol; playing an instrumental role in the community focused buyout of a Hawaiian hotel; leading the effort to pass Hawaii’s benefit corporation law with its unique patent provisions; serving as the Hawaii lead in the development of the state of Hawaii’s Clean Energy Innovation Plan; and consulting with the state on integrating ESG standards into the review of corporate transactions.
Ian’s national/international work at Responsible Markets has included engagement by a national labor federation to develop partnerships with inventors to champion innovation as a sustainable source of competitive advantage as well as an enforceable framework for social and environmental benefits. In 2017, Ian co-organized a global summit of engineers unions and collaborated with participants to design a strategy to reinvent the role of unions in a new world of work. Recently, Responsible Markets was retained by an investor group engaged in acquiring electric utilities through a public benefit corporation governance structure to proactively accelerate the adoption of customer facing clean energy technologies with utility scale grid resources.
In 2013, Ian founded Ingenuity Underwriters pursuant to the “ingenuity section” of Hawaii’s benefit corporation law to proactively address a number of the fundamental causes of economic inequality and environmental instability. Ingenuity Underwriters‘ strategy leverages the right to exclude in patents and other types of intellectual property for the purpose of creating and retaining good jobs, addressing climate change and upholding labor and environmental standards while augmenting the value of the underlying intellectual assets. Ian earned a BA in Sociology from Eastern University.
Paige Chapel
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Paige Chapel
President and CEO, Aeris — Paige Chapel is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Aeris, an independent information service that provides ratings, data, due diligence, and consulting services to support investor research on the social impact and financial performance of a range of investment vehicles. Launched in 2004, Aeris has grown into a respected, independent ratings and information service under Paige’s leadership.
Paige has worked in community impact investing for more than three decades. Her early work centered on sustainable food systems, and expanded in the following decade to financing commercial real estate in urban food deserts. In 1987, she joined Shorebank Corporation as one of the founders of Shorebank Advisory Services (SAS, now Enclude), serving as CEO beginning in 1991. During her tenure at SAS, she led assignments to design, assess, and raise capital for de novo development banks in multiple US markets. Paige was one of the founders of ShoreBank Pacific (now Beneficial Bank), a federally regulated environmental development bank, and served on the Bank’s management team and board of directors. In 1999, Paige launched a national consulting practice focused on innovations in community investing. Her clients included both large and small financial institutions, foundations, public entities, nongovernmental organizations, and corporations. In 2007 she assumed the leadership of Aeris.
Richard Chirls
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Richard Chirls
Partner, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP — Richard Chirls, a New York tax partner, focuses his practice on the tax aspects of public finance transactions. He has served as the head of Orrick’s nationally recognized Public Finance Tax Group.
With over 30 years of experience, Richard is widely recognized as one of the nation’s foremost authorities, having broad experience with tax exempt financings and related transactions involving governmental and not-for-profit entities. His expertise and stature in the public finance community was recognized by the National Association of Bond Lawyers’ highest award for his career of distinguished service in public finance.
Richard focuses on new products, including the development of new and creative financing techniques for governments, non-profits and investment bankers. He regularly works on transactions throughout the country. However, in his home office in New York City, he leads the relationship with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, serving as counsel on well over 100 transactions over a period of more than 20 years and has headed the tax work in connection with every financing of a cultural facility relating to museums and performing arts in New York City over this same period. Richard has worked on the tax aspects of several of the largest and most complex public private partnership (P3) transactions in recent years. He frequently acts as special tax counsel to issuers and underwriters of municipal finance issues.
Alissa Desmarais
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Alissa Desmarais
Executive Director, High Water Women — Alissa Desmarais brings over 20 years of leadership experience in nonprofit and human resources management both globally and locally. She has worked with some of the best New York City organizations. Her accomplishments include closing six-figure revenue deals and managing a budget of over $5M at the City Parks Foundation, securing $1.5M in unrestricted gifts for Synergos, and increasing service revenues at Creative Alternatives by 42%. She has successfully organized and managed top tier events working with international figures such as David Rockefeller, Kofi Annan and Queen Rania of Jordan. Under her leadership the New York Public Radio gala grew by 32%. Her honest, practical, can do attitude, coupled with her strategic approach will help us guide HWW into a new phase of growth.
Ariane de Vienne
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Ariane de Vienne
Global Head of Asset Owner Strategy, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), Board President, High Water Women — Ariane de Vienne is Global Head of Asset Owner Strategy at Institutional Shareholder Services. She is leading a global mandate to deepen ISS’ relationships with asset owners and consultants across ISS. Before that, Ariane was Head of ESG Strategy Americas, and part of the leadership team establishing ISS ESG as the leader and gold-standard in the responsible investment industry. Ariane joined ISS via oekom research in May of 2016. Having begun her banking career in Germany, Ariane gained extensive experience with her own impact and ESG consulting businesses in Hong Kong and New York.
Prior to that she was Managing Director at Guggenheim Investment Advisors LLC and served as Senior Vice President at David J. Greene and Company as well as in several Managing Director roles at JPMorgan Chase, leading multi-disciplinary teams. Ariane serves on the Board of Directors of several non-profit organizations focusing on social impact as well as ecological issues, including the US Board of The Climate Group. She is also an Ambassador to TBLI, a Dutch-based organization dedicated to raising awareness about the benefits and opportunities of ESG and impact investing.
Jessica Droste Yagan
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Jessica Droste Yagan
Chief Executive Officer, Impact Engine — Jessica Droste Yagan is the CEO of Impact Engine, an impact investing firm that manages venture capital and private equity funds. Jessica also serves as Managing Partner of Impact Engine Ventures. Prior to Impact Engine, she led the creation of McDonald’s Corporation’s global and U.S. sustainable sourcing strategies and worked in the field of urban economic development at the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City. Jessica is currently on the boards of Metropolitan Planning Council, OneGoal Chicago, The Honeycomb Project, the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation at Chicago Booth, and Fixer. Crain’s Chicago Business named her to its list of 40-Under-40 in 2013 and she served as a 2014 Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow. She is also extensively engaged personally in impact investing and evangelizing on behalf of the impact investing field. Jessica holds a BA from Haverford College, an MBA from Stanford University, and an MPA from Harvard University. She lives in Chicago with her husband and three children.
Emily Dwyer
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Emily Dwyer
ESG Equity Research Analyst, Brown Advisory — Emily Dwyer has been with Brown Advisory for over 5 years. As an ESG equity research analyst tasked with managing the firm-wide ESG research efforts, Emily has helped grow Brown Advisory’s Sustainable Investing business into a $5+ billion endeavor for the firm. She was the firm's first ESG research analyst, and today leads a team of ESG analysts herself, was named a Principal in 2018, and helps to develop, incubate and manage Brown Advisory’s ESG investment processes and strategies. Most recently, in 2018, she was named Associate Portfolio Manager of Brown Advisory’s new suite of five Active ESG portfolios.
A graduate of Smith College, Emily came to Brown Advisory with a breadth of experience in the Sustainable Investing space, having spent time at Parnassus Investments, Sustainalytics, and the United Nations Environmental Programme Finance Initiative. She is an active member in WISE (women investing in a sustainable economy) and other local sustainability groups in Boston. Emily was recently included on the inaugural list of 30 Under 30 sustainable investing professionals by the SRI conference.
Ita Ekpoudom
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Ita Ekpoudom
Partner, GingerBread Capital — Ita is a Partner at GingerBread Capital. Her mission is to engage, educate, and elevate the next generation of successful women business leaders and investors. In 2014, Ita founded Tigress Ventures, an advisory and consulting firm that tapped her considerable network to bring together visionary entrepreneurs with seasoned professionals to help women scale their businesses and hone their leadership skills.
Ita also served as Venture Partner at Plum Alley Investments, where she oversaw investment opportunities and pipeline for high-growth female-founded and gender-diverse startups. Previously, Ita held product management roles at TravelClick and American Express. She began her career at Goldman Sachs as an analyst in Credit Capital Markets and an institutional trader of preferred stock.
Ita holds an MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurial Management from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; and earned a Bachelor’s degree, cum laude, in Psychology, with a certificate in Finance, from Princeton University.
Kate Frucher
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Kate Frucher
Managing Director, New Energy Nexus New York — Kate Frucher is Managing Director of New Energy Nexus New York, which supports and invests in growth stage cleantech companies and is working to develop a broader innovation ecosystem to help grow the region’s clean energy economy. She recently entered this space for mission reasons, after having spent years as an entrepreneur building and scaling companies and social enterprises in other industries. Highlights include launching the AmeriCorps National Service Program from the White House, driving reform at the New York City Fire Department after the attacks of 9/11, helping to build companies Axiom Law and ideeli from startup to $100m+, and co-founding Imprint, a digital tool to spark acts of kindness and pioneer a many-to-one communication platform. She’s a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School.
Brinda Ganguly
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Brinda Ganguly
Managing Director, Catalyst Loan Funds, Living Cities — Brinda Ganguly is the Managing Director of the Catalyst Family of Funds at Living Cities, an economic and racial justice organization based in the U.S. She oversees the management of two domestically-focused investment funds. This includes setting investment strategy; origination, structuring, and execution of new transactions; portfolio and fund management; and investor relations. As a seasoned transactor and thought leader in the impact investing space, Brinda is passionate about using finance as a tool to improve the lives of low-income and vulnerable people.
Prior to joining Living Cities, Brinda was with The Rockefeller Foundation for 9 years. There, she managed the Foundation’s Program Related Investments (PRI) portfolio, which included different types of investments - equity, loans, and guarantees – across different sectors and geographies.
Earlier in her career, Ms. Ganguly was a Vice President in Citigroup’s Corporate Bank, where she addressed corporate finance issues for healthcare clients; worked at the Soros Foundation, originating and executing PRIs on behalf of the Soros Economic Development Fund; and at Charles River Associates as an economic consultant.
Brinda serves on the Senior Leadership Team for PS321, a public elementary school in Brooklyn, New York. She received a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Spanish from Bryn Mawr College and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Brinda lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.
Lisa Hammann
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Lisa Hammann
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Rhia Ventures — Lisa Hammann is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Rhia Ventures and most recently was the Chief Operating Officer of the Tara Health Foundation. In both roles, she has led teams focused on bringing capital and enterprise to the reproductive health field in the United States. Lisa joined the reproductive health community after a 16-year career at Genentech/Roche, where she held P&L accountability for Genentech’s $400M+ cystic fibrosis business, and was the head of the North American supply chain region, accountable for $20B+ of medicine across the United States and Canada. Prior to these roles, Lisa led Genentech’s patient access services, serving over 100,000 patients annually, and led the company’s strategic marketing function for managed care organizations. She has also worked in health services research and strategic consulting.
Lisa is a board observer for Cadence Health, and is a member of the board for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, the largest Planned Parenthood affiliate in the country. She holds an English degree from Yale University and a Master of Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
Sarah Howe
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Sarah Howe
Sarah Howe is an Assistant Vice President within the Sustainable Investments group of DWS, Deutsche Bank’s asset management firm, which has a mandate to develop private debt and equity strategies with social and environmental outcomes. Since joining the firm in 2015, Sarah has focused on managing and originating developing-world assets for microfinance and social investment funds. She has also supported the team’s social performance approach, working to incorporate industry best-practice within social performance measurement and reporting.
Prior to DWS, Sarah worked in international development agencies in Latin America and Europe to support small enterprise development. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Colombia University and a BS from Cornell University.
Josh Huffard
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Josh Huffard
Principal, Douglass Winthrop Advisors, LLC — Josh is a Principal at Douglass Winthrop Advisors, LLC, a NYC based Investment Advisor with approximately $3bn of assets under management. Josh is a member of the firm’s investment committee and is also the portfolio manager for the Douglass Winthrop Environment Strategy.
Between 1994 and 2012 Josh was a venture capital investor based in San Francisco specializing in consumer-oriented companies, first as a Principal at Sterling Payot Company and then as the Founder of Consor Capital LLC. He began his career in the Merchant Banking Group at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in New York City focused on media and consumer products.
Josh is the Co-Chairman of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) Advisory Council and a co-sponsor of its annual Headlands Scholarship. He is also a board member of the non-profit foundation One-Revolution. Josh received his BA from Yale in 1992 and is a graduate of a semester NOLS program in Patagonia.
Kate Huntington
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Kate Huntington
Managing Director, Research, Athena Capital Advisors — Kate Huntington is a Managing Director at Athena Capital Advisors where she is co-head of Athena’s research and manager selection team. Kate focuses on private equity and private real estate investments as well as impact investments across asset classes.
Kate previously worked as a Consulting Associate at Cambridge Associates where she supported consultants in managing, advising on, and reporting on a variety of institutional clients’ investment portfolios. Kate started her career as a Research Analyst at Stonebridge Associates, a real estate investment and advisory firm, and then transitioned to economic consulting with both Capital Economics and LECG, where she was an Economist/Consultant providing economic analysis and market research to support high-profile anti-trust litigation. She has also interned in the global equity research group at Fiduciary Trust.
Kate holds a Master of Business Administration from Yale School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Virginia. Kate has co-authored a number of papers while at Athena Capital including "Investing in Gender Equality", January 2018; "Impact Investing: History & Opportunity", January 2017; and "Social Finance and the Postmodern Portfolio: Theory & Practice", Journal of Wealth Management, Spring 2016.
Meredith J. Joly
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Meredith J. Joly
Fixed Income Investment Specialist, Wellington Management — As an Investment Specialist on Wellington’s impact team, Meredith is focused on developing the firm's public fixed income impact investing capabilities. She works closely with portfolio managers on thematic and entity level impact research and impact measurement. Meredith also helps to ensure the integrity of client portfolios by overseeing positioning, performance, and risk exposures. She meets regularly with clients, prospects and consultants to communicate the team’s investment philosophy and strategy. Meredith joined Wellington Management in 2012, and before that she worked as an analyst in the securitized products group at Citi. Meredith earned her BS in management, magna cum laude, from Boston College, with concentrations in finance and economics.
Tracy Kartye
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Tracy Kartye
Director, Social Investments, Annie E. Casey Foundation — As Director of Social Investments, Tracy Kartye leads the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s social investment portfolio for which Casey has allocated 4% of its endowment to projects that achieve financial returns — as well as social benefits — to build a brighter future for children, families and communities in the United States.
Since joining Casey in 2005, Kartye has managed investments of more than $150 million in projects and nonprofit organizations across the country. These efforts have leveraged more than $1 billion for thousands of new jobs, affordable housing units and community facilities in local communities.
Kartye has a strong background in community and economic development, working for the Local Initiatives Support Corp. in Houston, Texas, and the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corp. in Brooklyn, New York, before joining the Foundation.
She sits on the boards of Episcopal Housing Corporation and Healthy Neighborhoods in Baltimore. She is a graduate of Hendrix College and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.
Joan Larrea
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Joan Larrea
Chief Executive Officer, Convergence — As CEO of Convergence, Joan leads the world’s first institution dedicated to increasing private sector investment in emerging markets by helping investors execute blended finance deals. Joan is an expert in catalyzing investment in places that need it most and brings with her over 20 years of experience in emerging markets investing.
Prior to joining Convergence, she served as U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation's (OPIC) Managing Director for Business Development and Partnerships, leading efforts to partner with philanthropic and private investors to increase capital flows to OPIC's target markets. Before OPIC, Joan served as a managing director on the emerging markets team at Global Environment Fund, a privately held asset manager with $1 billion in assets under management, dedicated to the energy, environmental, and natural resource sectors. She began her career as an investment officer at the International Finance Corporation, where she concluded pioneering transactions in diverse infrastructure and manufacturing sectors across Asia.
Albert Lee
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Albert Lee
Director of Investments, Real Assets, University of California, Office of the Chief Investment Officer — Albert Lee is a senior investment professional who joined the University of California (UC) Regents Investment Office in 2015. The UC manages a portfolio of investments totaling $125 billion, which includes endowment, pension, retirement, and cash assets. Mr. Lee manages the $2bn+ Real Assets portfolio which includes funds, co-investments and select direct investments in infrastructure, energy, metals & mining, and agriculture. Prior to joining the UC, Mr. Lee was an investment banking Director in the Global Natural Resources Group at Barclays / Lehman Brothers. He earned his M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and B.S. in Engineering at Columbia University.
Andrew Lee
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Andrew Lee
Head of Sustainable and Impact Investing Americas, Chief Investment Office, UBS Global Wealth Management — Andrew joined UBS Global Wealth Management's Chief Investment Office in July 2012 and is Head of Sustainable and Impact Investing Americas, supporting clients with advice, strategy and thought leadership on incorporating sustainability considerations into investments. He also oversees the thematic investing team.
Prior to this, he was Deputy Global Head of the CIO Ultra High Net Worth / Alternatives / Sustainable and Impact Investing group, with specific responsibility for the impact investing and private markets teams. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has been quoted in various publications including Barron’s Bloomberg, Reuters, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Andrew is a Managing Director based in New York.
Prior to joining UBS, Andrew was Managing Director overseeing investments for a private New York based single family office. In this capacity, he was responsible for managing asset allocation, theme development, due diligence and execution of all direct and indirect investments for the family investment vehicles. Previously, Andrew was part of a long/short equity hedge fund team at Deutsche Asset Management. Before this, he worked at Lazard in the generalist banking (M&A) and real estate private equity groups. Andrew has a MBA from the Wharton School and an AB from Harvard College.
Christina Leijonhufvud
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Christina Leijonhufvud
Managing Partner, Tideline — Christina Leijonhufvud is a Managing Partner at Tideline and co-leads the growth and strategy of the firm. She focuses particularly on investment structuring and strategy, due diligence of investment opportunities and products, and risk analysis.
Prior to Tideline, Christina was Managing Director at J.P. Morgan where she worked for over 15 years. At J.P. Morgan, she created the firm’s Social Finance business to elevate impact investments as a credible new approach for investors. Under her leadership, Social Finance published seminal research, made proprietary investments in impact funds, structured and distributed impact investments to clients (such as the Global Health Investment Fund), and engaged J.P. Morgan employees worldwide in both voluntary and fee-based impact investment programs.
Before founding the Social Finance unit, Christina led various risk management and advisory teams at J.P. Morgan including Sovereign Risk & Advisory. She also oversaw Credit Portfolio Risk Management and Market Risk Management for Emerging Markets.
Christina served as Country Officer at the World Bank covering Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, immediately following those countries’ independence from the Soviet Union. Preceding that, she worked for the inaugural Economic Reform Committee for the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan.
Christina has consulted for Ashoka (2006-07), served on the Advisory Board for the Center for Financial Inclusion, and currently sits on the Boards of BRAC USA and the CASE i3 Initiative on Impact Investing at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She earned a MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics, a MA in International Affairs from George Washington University, and a BA in Sociology from University of California, Los Angeles. Christina lives in New York with her partner, Josh, and her daughter.
Tony Lent
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Tony Lent
Co-Founder, Capital for Climate — Tony Lent is a serial platform builder in financial services with 25 years of experience as an innovator in investment in sustainability and climate-change mitigation. He has mobilized more than $2 billion into the low-carbon transition.
Co-founder of Capital for Climate, a new platform in development, helping large asset owners target capital at scale to profitable climate investment opportunities that are on the path to achieving 1.5C.
Founder and Partner of Swift Current Energy (2016-present), a leading development investor in utility-scale wind and solar projects in the US and that has developed 750MW of wind in operations and construction of wind 1.5GW of solar and wind in development.
Co-founder, Senior Advisor, to Javelin Capital (2014-present), a boutique investment bank serving companies in the US and LatAm driving the low carbon transition in energy and sustainability in agriculture and food.
Formerly Senior Managing Director, Wolfensohn Fund Management (2010-2014) an emerging market private equity fund focused on financial inclusion and low carbon energy in Brazil, India, and Eastern Europe.
Co-founder of US Renewables group (2003-2009), $800M AUM, one of the first institutional private equity fund platforms investing in renewable energy development and renewables technology commercialization in North America.
Co-founder of EA Capital, 1994-2002, one of the first financial advisory firms focused on designing innovative funds and financial instruments building the double bottom line business case for sustainable forestry, biodiversity management and conservation and renewable energy investment.
Ann MacDougall
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Ann MacDougall
Co-Founder and CEO, Dunollie Fund — Ann MacDougall is Co-Founder and CEO of Dunollie Fund, a family fund that provides grants and makes impact investments across multiple sectors. Ms. MacDougall is also Senior Advisor (former President) of Encore.org, which promotes second chapter careers for the greater good through thought leadership, programming and movement building. She is the co-founder of the Encore Public Voices Fellowship. She also sits on the boards of Opiant Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (a NASDAQ-traded specialty pharmaceutical company) and Atmos XR (a technology and logistics company). In her volunteer capacity, she sits on the board of Strong Minds, the Audit Committee of the Lycée Français de New York and the Advisory Boards of Equality Now and Global Citizen Year. She was recently a Ford Foundation Public Voices Fellow, and is an occasional OpEd contributor.
Ms. MacDougall is the former Chief Operating Officer of Acumen Fund, a global venture capital fund focused on goods and services for low-income customers. Before joining Acumen, Ms. MacDougall had a long career as a manager/lawyer. She was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers where she rose through the ranks to become General Counsel of PwC-US and a member of Management Committee. She later moved to Paris to become PwC’s Global Deputy General Counsel. She was a 2013 Fellow at the Harvard
Advanced Leadership Initiative, a year-long program to prepare experienced business leaders for public service.
Ms. MacDougall holds a B.A. from Tufts University and a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School. She lives in New York City and in Gardiner NY with her husband Jules, a rescue dog and (occasionally) her two 20-something daughters. She is an avid theatre and opera-goer and also enjoys hiking, cycling, white-water rafting and cross-country skiing.
Patience Marime-Ball
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Patience Marime-Ball
Founder, Women of the World Endowment — Patience Marime-Ball is the Founder of Women of the World Endowment. She is Lead of the Impact Terms Project at Toniic Institute and a member of Golden Seeds LLC, investing in early and growth stage gender diverse/led companies.
Patience was previously a Principal Investment staff at the International Finance Corporation working on investments in infrastructure, non-performing assets, and into commercial banks, debt and equity funds. In 2010, Patience developed the Banking on Women investment platform to drive access to capital for women entrepreneurs. Patience co-led the issuance of the first Banking on Women Bond and led the structuring, with Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women, of a global $600M debt fund to invest in women entrepreneurs. Patience was previously Vice President Project Finance, at Mizuho Bank working across the US and Mexico.
Patience is Vice Chair of the International Center for Research on Women’s Board, she serves on the Advisory Boards of two companies, including Emerging Sun LLC, a company she co-founded 2005. She has an MBA and a JD from Northwestern University.
Irene Mastelli
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Irene Mastelli
Director, Phenix Capital — Irene Mastelli is Director of advisory team at Phenix Capital. She has a background in investment advisory, having worked at Cambridge Associates, an institutional investment consultancy, in London, and at Nordea Wealth Management in Stockholm. At Cambridge Associates, Irene was an investment director advising families and foundations alongside other institutional clients. In her role she acted as discretionary manager, as an extension of the client’s investment office, or with project work. At Nordea, Irene spearheaded the project to transform the bank's advisory model to include sustainability and impact investments.
Irene started her career in the institutional asset management division of Julius Baer (now GAM) and Aviva Investors in business development and relationship management roles. Irene holds a BA in economics from Università Bocconi in Milan, Italy, and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.
Jack Meyercord
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Jack Meyercord
Founder, Conscious Endeavors LP — Jack D. Meyercord, CFA, is the Founder of Conscious Endeavors LP and the Chief Investment Officer of Impower Impact Equity Fund LP. Prior to his current role, Jack worked at Bienville Capital, where he served as the Head of Impact Investing, helping clients to develop their investment strategy and allocate to impact investing portfolios. Prior to his time at Bienville Capital, Jack served as Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Straight Wharf Asia Master Fund, managing an Asia-focused long/short equity strategy. He also was responsible for managing Asia-focused funds at Kelusa Capital, Avenue Capital Group, and Banyan Fund Management, LLC.
Jack graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of the Arts degree, double majoring in History and Political Science. He received his MBA from Columbia Business School with Beta Gamma Sigma Honors. Jack is a Chartered Financial Analyst and is also one of the first designees of the Financial Sustainability Analyst credential granted from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).
Ravi Mikkelsen
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Ravi Mikkelsen
Co-Founder and CEO, ClimateLink Bank, Co-Founder and Board Member, ClimateLink Charitable — Ravi is the co-founder of ClimateLink Bank and ClimateLink Charitable, a blended finance system to ensure that all can participate in the rapid decarbonization of the economy.
For the last 4 years, Ravi has been developing the ClimateLink network in the San Francisco Bay Area, connecting ClimateTech companies with capital providers, helping everything from pre-seed startups with angel investors all the way up to GigaWatt scale renewable energy projects raising billions of dollars. After the IPCC released their SR1.5 report last October, he reevaluated the trajectory of ClimateLink and saw that only the nationally chartered banks could deploy the trillions of dollars required to minimize temperature rise.
ClimateLink Bank, wholly focused on decarbonization will shift deposits from those banks that are funding fossil fuel extraction and use them to lower the cost for electrification and solarization. ClimateLink Charitable will hold funds as a loan-loss reserve, allowing the bank to safely lend to subprime homeowners, and to cover any delta between what a low-income borrower can safely pay and what the bank can safely lend.
Ravi has been fighting climate change since he first heard about a research program in renewable energy at his freshman orientation at the University of Washington and knew from that moment that his life’s mission was to help the planet transition away from fossil fuels.
Andrew Miller
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Andrew Miller
Senior Client Advisor, Head of Business Development, Kepos Capital L.P. — Andrew Miller joined Kepos in May 2013. His responsibilities include the firm’s fundraising, relationship management and product development efforts. Prior to joining the firm, Andrew worked at Värde Partners, where he most recently served as Senior Institutional Investor Relations Manager. Prior to this, Andrew worked at Satellite Asset Management where he was responsible for both client service and new business development to a range of US, European and Asian institutional clients. Andrew’s career began in 1997 with Invesco Asset Management, where he held various marketing roles over seven years in Europe, returning to the US in 2003 to work with the firm’s Global Structured Products, Fixed Income and distressed-debt manager, WL Ross & Co. Andrew is a CFA Charterholder and earned a B.A. from Lawrence University.
Mike Muldoon
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Mike Muldoon
Director, The Rockefeller Foundation — Mike Muldoon joined The Rockefeller Foundation in 2017. Mike brings a unique perspective to the Foundation’s Innovative Finance portfolio having worked in the development finance space for public and private sector entities. As a Director, he leads the Foundation’s Program Related Investment (PRI) work, which consists of a growing portfolio of investments (debt, equity, guarantees) that support the Foundation’s philanthropic goals.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Mike was a Director at Latitude Capital, a private equity firm focused on utility scale power in emerging markets. Prior to Latitude, Mike was a Senior Investment Officer at USAID’s loan guarantee program, the Development Credit Authority, where he was responsible for developing loan guarantees to facilitate lending for local businesses and infrastructure, primarily in Africa. Mike began his career in consulting in Washington, DC where he also received a degree from The George Washington University in International Affairs.
Asdrubal Negrete
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Asdrubal Negrete
Chief of Party, USAID's Colombia Rural Finance Initiative, Implemented by Chemonics International — Mr. Negrete has over 25 years of experience in microfinance, credit risk analysis, and financial inclusion. As chief of party of the USAID Colombia Rural Finance Initiative, Mr. Negrete works with banks, anchor firms, and producers to design and pilot innovative finance mechanisms to help producers access credit. Previously, Mr. Negrete spearheaded business operations and portfolio development in the financial sector. Mr. Negrete holds a degree in Engineering Systems from the Universidad Piloto de Colombia.
Gloria Nelund
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Gloria Nelund
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, TriLinc Global — Gloria Nelund founded TriLinc after a rewarding career in the international asset management industry. She is responsible for leading the Company’s high-level strategy and directing its growth since its founding in 2008. Gloria brings to TriLinc Global more than 30 years of experience in executive management of multi-billion dollar financial institutions, as well as deep expertise in the creation, sales and distribution of investment products.
Most recently, Gloria was the CEO of the U.S. Private Wealth Management Division at Deutsche Bank, the world’s fifth largest financial institution. In this capacity, she held fiduciary responsibility for more than $50 billion in investment assets, including more than $20 billion in emerging markets and credit instruments. In addition to her role as divisional CEO, Gloria served as the only female member of the Global Private Wealth Management Executive Committee. Gloria has been a pioneer in the development of social impact products. She was instrumental in making Deutsche Bank a leading institutional supporter of microcredit, creating multiple programs to help Private Wealth Management clients learn about and invest in the sector. Gloria also served on the Board of the Deutsche Bank Americas Community Development Group, with responsibility for providing loans, investments and grants to targeted organizations throughout the U.S. and Latin America. Gloria also was the Managing Director of Scudder Kemper Investments prior to its purchase by Deutsche Bank. While at Scudder, she supported the development and growth of one of the industry’s first socially-responsible investment (SRI) products.
Prior to her tenure at Deutsche Bank, Gloria spent 16 years as an executive at Bank of America/Security Pacific Bank, most notably as President and CEO of BofA Capital Management, Inc., an investment management subsidiary managing $35 billion in assets for both retail and institutional investors. In addition to managing fixed-income and equity mutual funds in the U.S. and internationally, Gloria’s division was responsible for managing assets on behalf of public funds, common trust funds and corporate funds.
In addition to her activities with TriLinc, Gloria is an Independent Trustee of the Victory Funds, a mutual fund complex with more than $32.9 billion in assets under management. She is a life-long supporter of development-oriented philanthropic causes. She has volunteered as a teacher of at-risk youth in the Los Angeles Unified School District and the YMCA of Los Angeles. Gloria currently sits on the board of multiple not-for-profit organizations and actively supports entrepreneurship research and education. She is an active speaker and guest lecturer on Impact Investing at conferences and several top business schools, including Columbia, Georgetown, Wheaton, Kellogg, Stanford and MIT.
Carrie Norton
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Carrie Norton
Founder and CEO, Green Business BASE CAMP — From cleantech to impact investing, Carrie has spent the last two decades at the forefront of sustainability. She honed her expertise in sustainable business, entrepreneurship and venture capital with organizations including World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Garage.com and Idealab. She held a leadership role at Idealab’s first solar power company, making her one of the first female executives in the industry. In that role, she served key early adopters such as Google, Sony and British Telecom. As founder and CEO of Green Business BASE CAMP, she leads a team committed to providing early-stage entrepreneurs and corporate intrapreneurs with the tools needed to achieve sustainability and profitability.
Carrie continues to shape the business landscape as an executive coach and consultant serving impact leaders from a systems perspective, and through her own thought leadership. She is a co-founder of the Sustainable Business Council of Los Angeles, and has served in seminal advisory roles for organizations including CALinnovates, Grid Alternatives, the Clean Economy Network and Net Impact. Carrie is a Catto Fellow of the Aspen Institute, Class of 2010, a 2018 Academy Fellow of the Academy for Systems Change, and a 2018-2019 Senior Fellow with USC Marshall's Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab. She serves as an adjunct faculty member at the Graziadio School of Management at Pepperdine University.
Carrie holds an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and credentials in Laser Coaching, Shamata meditation instruction, and the KonMari Method of organizing.
Amie Patel
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Amie Patel
Director, Elevar Equity, Impact Committee, High Water Women — Amie Patel is a Director with ElevarEquity and manages and cultivates Elevar’sglobal partnerships including LP and co-investor relationships. Amie was previously a Vice President with Goldman Sachs Asset Management which she joined through the acquisition of Imprint Capital. Amie focused on the firm’s ESG and Impact Investing capabilities within the emerging markets.
Prior to Imprint, she was with the Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF) where she concentrated her efforts on early to growth stage investments. She managed SEDF's investments in Haiti and worked on several other investment opportunities in Palestine, India and parts of Africa. Amie also was with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation as a Presidential Management Fellow in the Investment Funds department responsible for developing and evaluating top-quartile and first-time emerging market private equity fund managers.
Amie began her career as an M&A analyst with Merrill Lynch and First Union Securities. She also volunteered in Nepal with Students Partnership Worldwide as a Program Manager working on environmental education and women’s issues. She holds an MBA from Georgetown University and a BS in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis, MO undergraduate degree in Economics from Smith College.
K. Shelly Porges
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
K. Shelly Porges
Co-Founder, Managing Partner of The Billion Dollar Fund for Women — K. Shelly Porges is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, a global consortium of venture funds pledged to invest in female-founded firms. She is also a Board Member of the Financial Alliance for Women and on the Advisory Board for Cornerstone Capital, Mindshift Capital, Different Funds and Global Invest Her.
Ms. Porges also served as President of the North American Jury for the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards and as the former Senior Advisor, Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP) at the U.S. State Department, a program she expanded to almost 150 countries, un-der Secretary Hillary Clinton. Before joining the State Department, she had a distinguished career in the private sector, including both corporate and entrepreneurial ventures. She served as executive head of marketing for American Express Canada and as chief market-ing officer for Bank of America during a historic turn-around. Ms. Porges co-founded sev-eral start-up ventures including Porges/Hudson Marketing; Scudder Weisel Capital LLC, a joint venture between Thomas Weisel Partners and Zurich Scudder Investments; and Glob-al Payments Experts LLC, a payments industry advisory firm.
Ms. Porges is a compelling speaker inspiring audiences globally at events such as the Fi-nancial Alliance for Women Annual Summit (Paris), Politico’s WomenRule (NY), Gender Smart Investing Summit (London), High Water Women Investing for Impact Symposium (NY), the World Bank THK Blended Finance Forum (Bali),Web Summit (Lisbon), In-spirefest (Dublin), WOMEN UP/McKinsey (Stockholm), The Global Entrepreneurship Summit (Istanbul, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur), Disrupt Conference (Athens), The Women's Forum (Deauville), WEConnect International (London), UnConference (Israel) and at uni-versities such as American, Babson, Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, George Washington and Harvard in the U.S. and others outside the U.S.
Ms. Porges holds both a BS with Honors and MPS degree from Cornell University.
Ellen Remmer
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Ellen Remmer
Senior Partner, The Philanthropic Initiative — Ellen Remmer is a champion for philanthropy, impact investing and social change. She is a Senior Partner at The Philanthropic Initiative (TPI), the philanthropic advisory firm that pioneered the field of strategy philanthropy advising and works around the globe to help donors achieve lasting social and environmental change. She has over 25 years of experience helping philanthropists create transformational results and served as President and CEO of TPI from 2007- 2012. Ellen is currently focused on lifting up the opportunity of impact investing as a powerful tool for social change. She leads Invest for Better, http://www.investforbetter.org an initiative aimed at mobilizing women to activate their investment capital for good.
Ellen serves as the President of her family's foundation, which supports girls’ empowerment programs and sustainable fisheries. She chairs the Board of Prosperity Catalyst, a nonprofit organization that launches women-led businesses in conflict-ridden countries, and is a member of the Oxfam Leadership Council.
Paul Rissman
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Paul Rissman
Co-Founder, Rights CoLab, Board Member, Sierra Club Foundation — Paul Rissman is an anthropologist, investment executive, and the Co-Founder of Rights CoLab, a startup human rights organization. For two decades, Rissman worked at AllianceBernstein, where he served in various roles, including portfolio manager, executive vice president, CIO of Alliance Growth Equities, and director of global growth research. He was also board chairman of Cinetic Rights Management, a film distribution company, and is currently on the board of the Sierra Club Foundation, where he sits on the Investment Committee. He is also a 2019 Open Society Foundations Fellow, researching shareholder advocacy regarding economic inequality, grounded in financially material disclosure standards. He received his doctorate in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, where his research concerned pastoralists in Bronze Age South Asia.
Imogen Rose-Smith
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Imogen Rose-Smith
Journalist, Co-Chair Content, Impact Committee, High Water Women — An award winning journalist, Imogen Rose-Smith is an expert on institutional investment and sustainable asset management. She is a contributing editor to Impact Alpha, the leading publication on impact investing, and is a regular commentator on the popular Impact Alpha podcast, Returns on Investment.
Imogen was a 2017 to 2019 investment fellow at the University of California in the Office of the Chief Investment Officer to the University of California Regents. She helped design, implement and oversee the $120 billion asset owner’s award winning sustainable investment strategy. Prior to joining the UC, Imogen was a Senior Writer with Institutional Investor Magazine, where she founded and lead the publications award winning sustainable investment coverage.
From 2012 to 2015 Imogen served as an advisor to the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights foundation on their program concerning institutional asset owners, ESG and human rights. In 2015, Imogen was part of a delegation that worked successfully with the Obama White House and the Department of Labor to achieve changes to the DOL’s guidance for corporate and union pension plans concerning the consideration of ESG factors (the environment, social responsibility and corporate governance) in investment decision making.
Imogen has a BA in American Studies from the University of East Anglia, including a year abroad at UC Berkeley, and an MA in American Studies from Columbia University. She serves on the advisory committee of Girls Who Invest, a not-for-profit focused on increasing the pipeline of women investment professionals, and is a trustee of ALTSO UK, a not-for-profit which helps disabled children in developing market countries. She is the co-founder of Combinate Capital, a diversity focused venture capital initiative, and a principal of and impact investment advisor to Gravity Exists, an impact investment and advisory business. She lives in Brooklyn and Orient, NY with her husband.
Delilah Rothenberg
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Delilah Rothenberg
Executive Director, Predistribution Initiative (PDI) — Delilah Rothenberg is Executive Director of the Predistribution Initiative, a multi-stakeholder project to co-create investment structures, beginning with the private equity asset class and focused on mainstream markets with risk-adjusted returns, that share more economics with workers, have stronger ESG integration, and narrow the wealth gap. Underpinning this work is research on how to more adequately pay people for the value that they create throughout the "capital markets supply chain," from workers, middle management, and senior management in portfolio companies, to individuals within the asset manager, to the asset owner.
Since 2009, Delilah has also advised private equity investors, lenders, and project developers on ESG integration and impact investing strategy through her firm, Development Capital Strategies (DCS). Prior to DCS, Delilah worked in institutional equities at Bear Stearns and investment research with Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG). Delilah has been an active contributor to USAID’s Responsible Land-Based Investments initiatives, the UN PRI Supply Chains Working Group, the GIIN HoldCo Working Group (focused on structuring investment vehicles for long-term strategies and less liquid markets), and recently served on the Board of Directors of Business Council for Peace (Bpeace), a non-profit that provides pro-bono consulting to entrepreneurs in conflict-affected countries. She currently serves as a Board Director of Invest Africa US and is a Member of the SASB Standards Advisory Group.
Clara Sanchez
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Clara Sanchez
Investment Manager, PG Impact Investments — Clara Sanchez is an Investment Manager at PG Impact Investments, where she leads the Latin America debt investment team. Prior to joining PG Impact Investments, she worked on the Sustainable Investments team at Deutsche Asset Management, where managed private debt transactions across a number of social enterprise and financial inclusion funds. She has also worked at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development and at HSBC in various investment research and advisory roles. She is a CFA charterholder and holds a BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MPA from the London School of Economics.
Eva Kathleen Schulte
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Eva Kathleen Schulte
Vice President for Economic Opportunity, Travois — Eva Kathleen Schulte, Vice President for Economic Opportunity at Travois, leads organization-wide impact investing that focuses exclusively on the priority fund needs of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian communities. As a proven community organizer, executive, and social change leader, Eva regularly secures economic and policy solutions to move human dignity to the center of public life.
In her career, Eva directly leveraged major investments for housing stabilization, public health, and community resilience. She founded and grew non-profit and public policy organizations. Eva leads the Travois impact measurement including recent recognition of Travois as a Certified B Corporation that will be recognized by B Lab as one of the top ten percent of businesses that are ‘Best for the World.’ As Vice President, Eva builds on the $1.4 billion of value Travois has brought to Native Communities, connecting new impact investors and foundations to Indian Country to advance Social Infrastructure financing for affordable housing, small businesses, Indigenous energy access and climate resilience.
Eva began her career supporting migrant farm workers in Iowa and wrote her master’s thesis on women’s cooperatives in Mayan Indigenous Communities of Mexico. Accomplishments include supporting the co-founding of an NGO in Rwanda, building new loan models for community credit, leading one of the largest nonpartisan civic engagement campaigns in metro Kansas City, and convening hundreds of impact investors to prioritize the need and opportunity of Indigenous Communities and the American Heartland. Eva lives in Kansas City as a pescatarian with her spouse Brock, kindergarten daughter Nicha, and Portuguese Water Dog Chewie. She serves in volunteer civic leadership roles supporting the Healthy Democracy Coalition, Girls to School, and the Investors and Indigenous Peoples Working Group.
Kim Leslie Shafer
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Kim Leslie Shafer
Board Chair, Aeris, Impact Committee, High Water Women — Board Chair of Aeris, a social enterprise that accelerates the flow of capital to good by driving accountability and transparency into impact investing. She also works as an expert witness in litigation, consults in financial services and fin-tech and serves on the Advisory Committee of a credit hedge fund. She was a Senior Managing Director in Strategic Finance at Bear Stearns until its 2008 merger, working with alternative asset managers and various structured fixed income products. Subsequently, she assisted the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in DC create its (bestselling) report and archives. In earlier professional chapters, Kim was a public finance investment banker, served as Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Banking Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee, worked on the national staffs of two Presidential campaigns and practiced corporate law at White & Case. Her policy work in Washington engendered a lifelong interest in the beneficial power of finance and the challenge of effective regulation. Having recently joined the board of Princeton’s Center for Jewish Life, Kim’s prior board service includes the Council for Economic Education, Financial Women’s Association, Women in Housing & Finance (DC) and the Alumni Association of each of her alma maters. Kim has a J.D. from Columbia Law School and a B.A. from Vanderbilt University. Post-graduate she was awarded a Corning World Travel Fellowship to explore foreign private investment and economic development issues in Asia and Africa. She resides with her husband in New York City and they have two (spectacular) teenaged children.
Lisa Shalett
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Lisa Shalett
CIO and Head of Wealth Management Investment Resources, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management — Lisa Shalett is Chief Investment Officer and Head of Wealth Management Investment Resources for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and a member of both the Global Investment Committee and the Wealth Management Operating Committee. She works to develop portfolio solutions that leverage the firm's strategic and tactical asset allocation advice to meet client goals delivered through both scaled and customized solutions. As part of her role, Lisa leads the development of all asset allocation models, global investment due diligence and portfolio analytics. She also has responsibility for managing the Global Investment Committee's models and Outsourced Custom Investment Office mandates, which collectively have more than $100 billion in assets under management. In addition, Lisa is responsible for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management thought leadership and publishes special reports on topics of importance for practitioners and clients.
Prior to joining the firm in September 2013, Lisa served as chief investment officer of Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management. Previously, she held several senior roles at AllianceBernstein during her 18-year tenure with the firm, including chairman and chief executive officer of Sanford C. Bernstein, LLC, and served as chief investment officer and head of Alliance Growth Equities. Lisa holds a dual Sc.B. degree in applied mathematics and economics from Brown University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is a Henry Crown fellow of the Aspen Institute and a founding member of the Financial Fellowship.
Anna K. Snider
2019 Symposium Speaker
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Anna K. Snider
Managing Director, Head of Due Diligence, Bank of America, Board Chair, High Water Women — Anna Snider is Managing Director and Head of Due Diligence for the Chief Investment Office within Global Wealth & Investment Management, Bank of America. In this role, Anna is responsible for manager research across all asset classes for the wealth management businesses. She also defines and executes investment strategies focusing on impact strategy research, thought leadership and investment implementation. Prior to this role, Anna was part of the alternative investments group where she advised clients on hedge fund and private assets portfolio construction and became head of research for externally managed alternative investment fund of funds. She was also a senior analyst in the risk management division at U.S. Trust. Anna offers many years of investment and risk analysis experience, having held positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, JP Morgan and UBS focusing on market, credit and operational risk management. Anna graduated from Connecticut College. She holds the Chartered Alternative Investment AnalystSM(CAIASM) designation. Anna serves as chair of the board for High Water Women, a foundation based in New York City.
Megan Starr
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Megan Starr
Principal and Head of Impact, The Carlyle Group — Megan Starr is a Principal and Head of Impact for The Carlyle Group. She is based in New York. Prior to joining Carlyle, Ms. Starr was a Vice President within Goldman Sachs’ Investment Management Division, where she helped build the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and impact investing business. Previously, Ms. Starr was Chief of Staff of The JPB Foundation, a $3.8B private family foundation based in New York City.
Ms. Starr received an M.B.A. and a certificate in public management and social innovation from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where she was an Arbuckle Leadership Fellow, and an A.B. in environmental science and public policy from Harvard College, where she graduated magna cum laude with highest honors in field of concentration.
Eric Stephenson, CAIA
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Eric Stephenson, CAIA
Director of Client Services, Align Impact — Eric Stephenson is Director of Client Services at Align Impact and member of its investment committee, advancing the firm’s work helping investors and their advisors form and implement effective impact investing and philanthropic strategies. For five years prior to joining Align Impact, Eric was the Portfolio Director at the Cordes Foundation, tasked with assessing, proposing and implementing a strategic plan towards 100% mission alignment across asset classes, and overseeing the Foundation’s philanthropic initiatives. He was previously part of the fund investments team at Hamilton Lane and started his finance career with the global leasing group at Xerox.
Eric serves as co-chair of the Cordes Foundation, member of the advisory board for Duke University's CASE i3 Initiative on Impact Investing, and is a due diligence mentor at Harvard University's Initiative for Responsible Investment. He earned his BBA from Temple University, MA from University of the Pacific and is an active CAIA charterholder and alumnus of the SEO Career Program.
Nathan Taft
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Nathan D. Taft
Partner and Managing Director Acquisitions, Jonathan Rose Companies — Nathan joined Jonathan Rose Companies in 2004 where he oversees the acquisition and preservation of affordable and mixed-income multifamily housing in transit-oriented locations nationally. At Rose, he has led the investment of seven equity funds, helping Rose grow into one of the country’s leading developers and investors in the field, with a portfolio of 15,000 units. As a mission-driven firm, Rose improves the economic and environmental performance of its properties and works to enhance the lives of its residents with social services.
Nathan’s prior experience includes working for a double-bottom line private equity fund at J.P. Morgan and leading public-private economic development partnerships for Yale University. Nathan is a member of the Pension Real Estate Association, the Urban Land Institute and its Affordable Workforce Housing Council, and the board of trustees for the Yale-China Association. Nathan has an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management and a B.A. in History from Yale University. He lives with his wife and two kids in New York City.
Samantha Taylor
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Samantha Taylor
President and Founder, Reputation Dynamics — Born in London, Samantha 'Sam' grew up in Kenya, East Africa where she learned the challenges of poverty and community development.
Sam founded Reputation Dynamics in 2005 to provide for-profit and NGO/social enterprise organizations with local and global citizenship development. RD mobilizes collective action to address critical social justice, humanitarian and conservation issues with a focus on inclusive partnership development and investments in building resilient communities for the long-term.
An advocate for ‘Aligning Profits with Purpose,’ Sam advises a diverse range of organizations on long-term approaches for sustainability solutions to help improve the wellbeing of underserved communities. Key sectors span environmental conservation, youth education and empowerment and women’s economic security. Sam is an early innovator in business and social innovation development.
Formerly, Sam was the Chief Marketing Officer of GMHC, the nation’s oldest non-profit HIV/AIDS care services provider where she spearheaded a once-in-27-year rebranding initiative. Prior agency posts included, Managing Director at Bozell Worldwide, and Director at Kreab Gavin Anderson corporate financial services practices. Sam started her career at The Press Association in London.
Sam's has spoken at diverse industry forums such as The American Marketing Association, The Corporate Council on Africa, PRSA, InterAction, ExecuNet, The CMO Club, Diversity Best Practices, Texas Christian University and UN Youth Assembly. In partnership with Working Mother Media, she co-chaired an educational symposium - ‘Corporate Social Responsibility and Women’ - convening more than 120 representatives from the corporate, NGO and academic sectors. ‘Building Meaningful Partnerships for Impact’ for Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship. Most recently, ‘Private-Public Partnerships to Increase Women’s Economic Security’ at Sustainable Brands 2018 conference.
Sam is also the creator of Elephant Art Shop, whose T-Shirts, watercolor paintings and greetings cards are designed to inspire community prosperity.
Rekha Unnithan
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Rekha Unnithan
CFA, CIMA®, Portfolio Manager, Impact Investing, Nuveen — Rekha Unnithan is a Managing Director and the Impact Investing Portfolio Manager for Nuveen Real Assets. Rekha is responsible for determining Nuveen’s Impact Investment strategy across sectors, asset classes, and regions. She originates and underwrites new deals and manages impact investments to execute Nuveen’s commitment across thematic areas of Affordable Housing, Inclusive Growth & Resource Efficiency. She oversees a multi-asset class impact investing portfolio which includes private equity, private real estate, mortgages and fund investments.
Prior to joining Nuveen in 2012, she worked for Bank of America Merrill Lynch as a vice president in their Institutional Investment Group. She has also held various positions at Merrill Lynch in Institutional Investments, and Investment Oversight and Risk Management. Rekha holds a BA in economics from Yale University and an MBA with a specialization in financial instruments & markets, and social innovation & impact from New York University’s Stern School of Business. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder, and a Certified Investment Management analyst (CIMA®). Rekha is a board member of Aeris, a non-profit organization that helps investors make and monitor mission investments, and she also serves on several company boards as part of her portfolio management role.
Brian Walsh
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Brian Walsh
Head of Impact, Liquidnet — Brian Walsh is head of impact for the global capital markets fintech firm Liquidnet, where he focuses on mobilizing private capital for public good. He established and chairs the Liquidnet for Good Fund, making early-stage investments in companies either offering scalable solutions to social and environmental challenges or accelerating the practice of impact investing, including the media company ImpactAlpha.
Brian also oversees opportunities for Liquidnet’s global employees to make a meaningful impact, both in the local communities where they work and live, and through a unique partnership with the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV). This innovative nonprofit provides orphaned and vulnerable Rwandan teenagers four years of living, learning, and healing in a supportive family environment. ASYV graduates are empowered to build lives of dignity and contribute to a better world. Liquidnet incubated the project and Brian continues to oversee the company’s engagement, including leading annual skills-based volunteer trips to Rwanda with employees from around the world.
Brian serves on the board of the ASYV; is Vice Chair of the board of GlobalGiving, the largest nonprofit crowdfunding platform; Chairs the board of INCO US, a nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs launch social and environmental startups; and serves on the board of the Bridges Impact Foundation. He serves on the Steering Committee for the MBA Impact Investing Network & Training (MIINT) and the Ubuntu Advisory Council for the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project. He is a senior advisor to ImpactAlpha and hosts its "Returns on Investing" podcast. He publishes “All Things Impact”, a newsletter on how private capital affects the public good, and is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, where he created the “Financing Social Impact” graduate course. Before launching Liquidnet for Good, Brian worked as a strategy consultant to companies and philanthropic organizations. He graduated from Georgetown University.
Melissa Weigel
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Melissa Weigel
Director, Investment Fundraising, The Nature Conservancy — As the Director of Investment Fundraising, Melissa’s primary role is to work with product leads and colleagues across The Nature Conservancy to source the capital for NatureVest’s conservation impact investment products. Melissa also works with investors to identify areas of collaboration with The Nature Conservancy in order to co- create investable products that aim to achieve both financial returns and conservation impact.
Before joining NatureVest, Melissa spent 4 years working as a member of TNC’s development teams in Pennsylvania and New York, where she successfully stewarded major donors in support of TNC’s global work. Prior to TNC, she worked at Schultz & Williams, a management and marketing consulting firm that specializes in nonprofits. There, she worked with clients ranging from the Wildlife Conservation Society to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and The Planetary Society.
Jamil Wyne
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Jamil Wyne
Head of Asset Management, 17 Asset Management — Jamil Wyne is the head of asset management at 17 Asset Management, a privately-owned, global asset management company that designs, implements, and manages investments for a broad spectrum of clients, in support of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. At 17AM he oversees the company’s investment and research agendas.
Throughout his career he has specialized in emerging market development and investment, with a concentration on tech startups and social enterprises. Jamil has worked with the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, Ashoka, and Mercy Corps and has advised multiple governments, impact investment funds, and tech startups on strategy, partnerships, and research. He also founded the Wamda Research Lab, a research program for entrepreneurship in MENA, and a part of Wamda Capital, the region’s largest VC fund.
He is a Fellow at New America Foundation, served as a Fulbright Fellow in Syria and Jordan, and sits on a committee for the Stevens Initiative at the Aspen Institute, and is on the advisory committees for several tech startups and social enterprises. Jamil publishes often on the topics of emerging market entrepreneurship, social innovation, and impact investment, which have been featured or cited in Stanford Social Innovation Review, WEF, McKinsey, Brookings, World Bank and Wharton publications, as well as university curricula. He has an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS, an MBA from INSEAD, and a BA from Bowdoin College.
Caroline Yarborough
2019 Symposium Speaker
HWW SYMPOSIUM SPEAKER
Caroline Yarborough
Analyst, Syndications and Strategy, Calvert Impact Capital — Caroline Yarborough is an analyst on the Syndications and Strategy team at Calvert Impact Capital, a nonprofit investment firm that has enabled thousands of individuals and institutions to channel over $2 billion in impact investments throughout the U.S. and around the world. She works to accelerate capital flows into communities through loan structuring and private loan syndications. Caroline focuses on helping Calvert Impact Capital’s borrowers raise and administer capital more efficiently, and on creating easier on-ramps for lenders seeking high-impact private debt opportunities.
Prior to Calvert Impact Capital, Caroline spent time serving as a Fulbright Fellow in Argentina and working in international public affairs at Edelman. Caroline graduated from Duke University with a B.A. in Public Policy and Spanish & Latin American studies.
