Investing for Impact

Jeremy Grantham is a co-founder of GMO, LLC, an investment management firm in Boston that currently manages approximately $71 billion, predominately for large institutions. He is the firm’s chief investment strategist, chairman of the board, an active member of its asset allocation division and the author of a quarterly letter to clients.  In addition to providing an investment outlook, the letter has covered issues of financial ethics, deficiencies in capitalism, resource limitations and problems posed by changing climate. 

In 1998 Jeremy and his wife Hannelore established the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment which seeks to protect and improve the health of the global environment.  The foundation’s grants focus on climate change and biodiversity conservation, with an emphasis on international initiatives.  Key funding programs include the establishment of research institutes at LSE and Imperial College both in London and the center at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. Jeremy is a trustee of The Nature Conservancy.  He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Sheffield (U.K.) and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and holds honorary degrees from the New School, University of Sheffield (New York) and Imperial College London.  

Mr. Grantham was invested as a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge in 2015 for his climate change related philanthropy. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.

Nancy Pfund is Founder and Managing Partner of DBL Partners, a venture capital firm whose goal is to combine top-tier financial returns with meaningful social, economic and environmental returns in the regions and sectors in which it invests. As a leading player in impact investing, DBL has helped to reveal the power of venture capital to promote social change and environmental improvement, and Ms. Pfund writes and speaks frequently on the field of impact investing.

She sponsors or sits on the board of directors of several companies,
including; Farmers Business Network, The Muse, Advanced Microgrid Solutions, Zola Electric, Andela, Bellwether Coffee, and, prior to their public offerings, Tesla Motors and Pandora. She also served on the board of SolarCity, and was on both the audit and compensation committees,
and also chair of the corporate governance committee from 2008 until its acquisition by Tesla in December 2016.

Ms. Pfund was a recipient of The Commonwealth Club 2018 Distinguished Citizen Award; and Earth Day Network 2018 Climate Visionary Award. She was also featured #17 in the 2014 FORTUNE Inaugural World's Top 25 Eco-Innovators; and appeared on Fast Company’s 2016 List of Most Creative People in Business.

Ms. Pfund serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Geographic Society; is a member and Chapter Chair of Women Corporate Directors (WCD) Foundation Silicon Valley; is a member and former chair of the Advisory Council of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University; an advisor for the UC Davis Center for Energy Efficiency; and co-chairs the Yale School of Management Program on Entrepreneurship. She has been a Lecturer in Management at the
Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Yale School of Management; and is a C3E Ambassador to the U.S. Clean Energy Education and Empowerment Program, led by the U.S. Department of Energy.

She is also a founding officer and director of ABC2, a foundation aimed
at accelerating a cure for brain cancer. Ms. Pfund received her BA and MA in anthropology from Stanford University, and her MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Katherine joined Walmart in 2013 and currently leads the company’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy, focusing on strengthening the company’s global responsibility program and demonstrating how it delivers shared value and long-term financial performance. In this capacity, she works across the enterprise to shape disclosures, close programmatic gaps and influence how investors assess Walmart’s performance. She also leads Walmart’s work on human rights.

Formerly, she was Director of Sustainability, Stakeholder Engagement, at Walmart and focused on cultivating high-impact partnerships that deliver strategic value to the business while advancing social/environmental issues. In addition, she helped determine Walmart’s response for the business, environmental and social impacts of pressing or emerging sustainability issues.

Previous to Walmart, Katherine spent six years at WWF managing one of the world’s largest corporate-NGO partnerships, a $97MM sustainability-driven initiative with The Coca-Cola Company focused on water, sustainable agriculture and climate which was active in over 45
countries.

Over the past 20 years, Katherine has worked with a wide range of corporate, government and nonprofit organizations. Weaving together her intensive business experience and commitment to social and environmental responsibility, she brings a practical ability to ground sustainability
into actionable terms. Katherine received her MBA from The Darden School at UVa and has a BA in English from Colorado College.

Tiffany Zhong is the Gen Z Decoder.

She’s 22 and one of the most sought-after youth trends and marketing experts. As the founder and CEO of Zebra IQ, she's worked with Snapchat, Levi Strauss, Turner Broadcasting, Google, and other major companies to help them reach the youth and stay relevant.

She was also the youngest VC in the world, working at a $300 million venture capital firm at age 18.

She’s been featured as Adweek’s Young Influential, Vanity Fair's Future Innovators, and TIME’s Most Influential Teen.

Tyler Cowen is Holbert L. Harris Professor of Economics at George Mason University and also Director of the Mercatus Center.  He received his Ph.d. in economics from Harvard University in 1987.  His book 'The Great Stagnation: How America Ate the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better' was a New York Times best-seller.  Several years ago Bloomberg BusinessWeek dubbed him "America's Hottest Economist," and Foreign Policy magazine named him as one of its "Top 100 Global Thinkers" of 2011.  He also co-writes a blog at Marginal Revolution.com, runs a podcast series called Conversations with Tyler, and he has co-founded an on-line economics education project, MRUniversity.com. His last book was 'Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero'.

Tensie Whelan is Clinical Professor for Business and Society and Director of NYU Stern School of Business’s Center for Sustainable Business, where she brings 25 years of experience working on local, national and international environmental and sustainability issues to engage businesses in mainstreaming sustainability.

As former President of the Rainforest Alliance, she built the organization from $4.5 million to $50 million. She also served previously as Executive Director of the NY League of Conservation Voters, VP of  National Audubon Society, and Managing Editor of Ambio, a journal of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Tensie has served on corporate advisory boards for companies such as Unilever and Nespresso and currently serves on the advisory boards of ESG investing firms, Arabesque and Inherent Group. She was recently appointed a member of the Board of Directors for Aston Martin and an Advisor to the Future Economy Project for Harvard Business Review. Tensie holds a B.A. from New York University, an M.A. from American University, and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Owner President Management (OPM) Program.

Lorenzo Bernasconi is Managing Director at The Rockefeller Foundation where he leads the Foundation's current innovative finance portfolio. This includes Zero Gap, an effort initiated in 2015 to create the next generation of financing instruments with the potential to mobilize large-scale investment towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Zero Gap includes a grant portfolio of nearly 50 investments across 28 countries, as well as a $60M catalytic investment fund -- composed of matching funding by The Rockefeller Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation -- with the aim of mobilizing more than $1 billion in new investment to address the SDGs.

Nancy Davis founded Quadratic Capital Management in 2013 and is the Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner.  Ms. Davis is the portfolio manager for The Quadratic Interest Rate Volatility and Inflation Hedge ETF (NYSE ticker: IVOL).

Ms. Davis began her career at Goldman Sachs where she spent nearly ten years, the last seven at the proprietary trading group where she rose to become the Head of Credit, Derivatives and OTC Trading. Prior to starting Quadratic, she served as a portfolio manager at Highbridge where she managed $500 million of capital in a derivatives-only portfolio. She later served in a senior executive role at AllianceBernstein.

Ms. Davis writes and speaks frequently about markets and investing. She has been published in Institutional Investor, Absolute Return and Financial News, and has contributed papers to two books. She has been profiled by Forbes and interviewed by The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, New York Magazine and Le Figaro. Ms. Davis has also appeared on CNBC, Fox, CNN, Reuters, Sina, and Bloomberg.

The President and CEO of New York City Economic Development Corporation, James Patchett has spent his career building stronger cities through investments in affordable housing, innovation, and 21st century infrastructure. In his current role overseeing job growth and economic development for the City of New York, James taps into his deep experience in real estate, finance, government, and urban planning. During his tenure, he has overseen some of the city’s most ambitious projects, including launching a citywide ferry system, developing Mayor de Blasio’s 100,000 jobs plan, and optimizing NYCEDC’s 60 million square feet of real estate.

Prior to his appointment as NYCEDC President in 2016, James served as chief of staff to Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development Alicia Glen, where he helped oversee more than 25 city agencies and played a pivotal role in preserving thousands of affordable homes. Before moving to City Hall, James was a vice president in Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group, where he spent seven years providing equity and debt to projects ranging from commercial developments to housing to charter schools.

James currently serves on the board of the Prospect Park Alliance, the non-profit organization responsible for running and maintaining one of Brooklyn’s most beloved greenspaces.

James holds a BA in Economics from Amherst College and an MBA from Stanford University. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and their two young children.

Mary Wenzel is executive vice president and head of Sustainability and
Corporate Responsibility for Wells Fargo & Co. In this role, Wenzel is
responsible for the strategic integration of sustainability and corporate
responsibility across Wells Fargo’s products and services, operations and
culture, and philanthropy. Her areas of focus include corporate responsibility strategy and reporting; ESG analyst engagement and disclosures; integration of sustainability, including human rights considerations, into the company’s environmental and social risk management, financing and lending; community development and philanthropy initiatives; and team member engagement.

Under Wenzel’s leadership, the company has announced aggressive
operational-efficiency goals to be achieved by 2020, committed to providing $200 billion in financing to environmentally beneficial businesses by 2030, committed $50 million in philanthropy over five years to address the unique social, economic and environmental needs of American Indian and Alaska Native communities, and created significant, strategic philanthropic partnerships with organizations including the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and GRID Alternatives, to help accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Prior to joining Wells Fargo in December 2004, Wenzel worked for the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 9 in San Francisco working
with tribal nations in the Western region of the U.S. Wenzel also worked for
the U.S. EPA in Washington, D.C., managing renewable energy and Energy
STAR programs. Prior experience also includes roles as director of
Government Affairs for a clean energy development company in the San
Francisco Bay Area, and manager of Environmental Affairs for Enron Corp.
in San Francisco and Houston.

Wenzel earned a B.A. degree in International Relations from Johns Hopkins
University and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Columbia
University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

The WBA is a global initiative, measuring and ranking companies on their performance on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Pauliina leads the WBA’s advocacy, engagement, policy and regulatory outreach, ensuring benchmarks reflect societal expectations and are relevant to the
external environment they seek to change. This includes the WBA’s dialogue with companies, investors, governments, civil society and multi-lateral institutions, brought together in the Alliance, which supports the WBA to measure, monitor and accelerate increased corporate action and
accountability on the SDGs.

Pauliina has a background in finance and policy, having joined the WBA from Aviva, a global insurance company and asset manager, where she was Head of International Government Engagement. At Aviva, Pauliina lead policy and advocacy campaigns on sustainable finance and trade and investment, including the establishment of the WBA, of which Pauliina continues to be a co-founder.

After a 12-year career as a consultant for C-level executives on long-term and sustainability risks, Stan Dupre founded in 2012 the 2° Investing Initiative (2°ii), a global think tank focused on aligning financial markets with climate goals. 2°ii develops new sustainable finance metrics, tools and public policies, working with stakeholders in the finance, regulatory and academic sectors. Currently Stan is leading the research program on retail investment.

Dwayne Safer is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, PA. Prior to entering academia in 2016, Dwayne was an SVP of Corporate Strategy at Citizens Financial Group (NYSE: CFG) where he played a key role in all of the banks’ strategic transactions including its $3.5 Billion IPO spinoff from The Royal Bank of Scotland. He previously spent 10 years as a Director of Investment Banking for Stifel Financial Corp. in New York City. In addition, he served as a consultant to several U.S. government agencies during the financial crisis advising on various matters pertaining to the structuring of Bank resolutions and the U.S. Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Dwayne is a CFA charterholder and a CAIA charterholder. He is also on the Board of Stewards Ministries, where he serves as a member of the Investment Committee.

Rupert Scofield is an agricultural economist with 40 years of experience in developing countries. He co-founded FINCA in 1984 with John Hatch and together they helped inspire and build the global microfinance movement. Their work was rooted in the belief that market-based principles, trust in
individuals and involving women in local business activities were critical to the economic and social well- being of communities.

Since 1994, Rupert has served as President and CEO of FINCA International, the majority-owner of 20 community-based microfinance institutions and banks across Africa, Eurasia, Latin America, the Middle
East and South Asia. Through this global network—known as FINCA Impact Finance—FINCA International is enabling access to responsible and innovative financial services for those living at the bottom of the pyramid. Under Rupert’s leadership, FINCA has grown from a credit-only, group-lending program—the original Village Banking™—with 60,000 clients and a loan portfolio of $5 million to a network of innovative microfinance institutions offering a range of financial services across five
continents with two million clients and a loan portfolio of over $1 billion.

After more than two decades of growing and scaling a global microfinance network, Rupert is now leading FINCA International on the next leg of its journey: supporting the rise of social enterprises delivering basic service and financial innovation. This work is expanding access to essential products in energy, water, and sanitation, education, health, agriculture and fintech for the world’s poor. Combined, FINCA International’s work in microfinance and social enterprise catalyzes greater resilience and
opportunity, and helps low-income families achieve a better standard of living.

Prior to FINCA, Rupert was the CEO of Rural Development Services, a consulting firm, and Country Program Director of the AFL-CIO’s Labor Program in El Salvador. He served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala, where he made his first microloans in the early 1970s.

Rupert has M.A. degrees in agricultural economics and public administration from the University of Wisconsin, a B.A. from Brown University and an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of
Roehampton in the UK.

Carol Coletta is president and CEO of the Memphis River Parks Partnership. She is leading the relaunch of a nonprofit to develop, manage and program six miles of riverfront and five park districts along the Mississippi River.

Most recently she was with The Kresge Foundation where she was a senior
fellow in the foundation’s American Cities Practice. She led a $50+ million
collaboration of national and local foundations, local nonprofits and governments to Reimagine the Civic Commons in five cities. It is the first comprehensive demonstration of how a connected set of civic assets – a civic commons – can yield increased and more widely share prosperity for cities and neighborhoods.

She was formerly vice president of Community and National Initiatives for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation where she managed a portfolio of more than $60 million annually in grants and a team of 18 in 26 communities to drive success in cities.

Carol led the two-year start-up of ArtPlace, a unique public-private collaboration to accelerate creative placemaking in communities across the U.S. and was president and CEO of CEOs for Cities for seven years.

Previously, she served as executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on City
Design, a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Conference of Mayors and American Architectural Foundation. She also ran a Memphis-based public affairs consulting firm, Coletta & Company, where she served business, foundations, nonprofits and government on the broadest range of civic issues.

For nine years, she was host and producer of the nationally syndicated weekly public radio show Smart City, where she interviewed more than 900 international leaders in business, the arts, and cities. She continues producing conversations with urban leaders as a regular podcast, “Cities Now”.

Katherine Foster is Chief Intelligence Officer of the Sustainable Digital Finance Alliance, established by the UN Environment Program and Ant Financial Services Group, and a knowledge partner of the UN Secretary General’s Task Force on Digital Financing of the SDGs. A former Canadian diplomat specialized in human security and climate, Katherine became Business Development Lead for the
EU’s Climate-KIC, a university lecturer, expert advisor to innovation programs including the UNDP Accelerate2030, Ashoka, NESTA UK, EU EIT Food, and the World Bank’s Blockchain Carbon Markets Pilot, and CSO of BLOC (MIT Solve Fellow). A Swiss-Canadian Katherine currently lives in Washington DC.

Vikram S. Gandhi is a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, where he developed and teaches HBS’s first course on impact investing. He brings 23 years of experience in investment banking to influence and inform the ways that impact investing is shaping investors’ responses to global markets. He is the founder of Asha Impact, an impact investing platform set up by socially conscious individuals to leverage combined capital, networks and expertise to address critical development challenges facing India and other emerging economies. He is also a senior advisor to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

During his previous 23-year career in investment banking at Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley, Vikram focused on advising Board of Directors and CEOs around the globe on strategic direction and the implementation of major mergers, acquisitions, and capital raising initiatives, and helped establish Morgan Stanley’s presence in India. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and a B.Com from the University of Mumbai. He is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) since 1997 and is a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss. Ms. Beschloss is the founder and CEO of RockCreek, a leading global investment firm that applies technology and innovation to investments and is a leader in impact investing. RockCreek has investments in clean energy, as well as in payment systems in Africa for financial inclusion, technology, health and EdTech in the US, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Previously, she was Managing Director and Partner at the Carlyle Group, Treasurer and Chief Investment Officer of the World Bank, and worked at Shell International and J.P. Morgan.

She led the World Bank’s energy investments and policy work on sustainable investing in renewable and clean energy and power projects to reduce carbon emissions. She founded its Natural Gas Group to invest in natural gas as a transitional fuel and power projects to replace coal and reduce carbon footprint.

Ms. Beschloss is on the boards of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Resources Institute, and the National Geographic Society. She chairs the World Resources Institute and the National Geographic Investment Committees.

She is a recipient of the Institutional Investor Lifetime Achievement Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award. She was recognized as one of American Banker’s Most Powerful Women in Banking.

Ms. Beschloss holds an MPhil (Honors) in Economics from the University of Oxford, where she taught international trade and economic development. She is the co-author of The Economics of Natural Gas and author of numerous journal articles on energy and finance.

Megan Starr is a Principal and Head of Impact for The Carlyle Group. She is based in New York.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Megan 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, Megan was Chief of Staff of The JPB Foundation, a $3.8 billion private family foundation based in New York City.

She received an MBA 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 AB in environmental science and public policy from Harvard College, where she graduated magna cum laude.

Mindy S. Lubber is the CEO and President and an early board member of Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit organization working with the most influential investors and companies to build leadership and drive solutions throughout the economy.  Under her leadership, Ceres has launched visionary and practical guides, including The Ceres Blueprint for Sustainable Investing and The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability, for investors and companies to succeed in the 21st century global economy.

Mindy leads negotiating teams of institutional investors, Fortune 500 CEOs and sustainability advocates who have taken far-reaching positions on corporate practices to tackle climate change, water scarcity and pollution, and inequitable workplaces. She briefs powerful corporate boards and directors on how climate change affects shareholder value, and regularly speaks about sustainability issues to high-level leaders at the New York Stock Exchange, United Nations, World Economic Forum, Clinton Global Initiative, American Accounting Association and the American Bar Association.

Mindy is a recognized thought leader and has received numerous awards for her leadership in helping to build a sustainable future. In 2016, she received the Climate Visionary Award from the Earth Day Network, and the William K. Reilly Award for Environmental Leadership from American University’s Center for Environmental Policy. She was honored by the United Nations and the Foundation for Social Change as one of the World’s Top Leaders of Change, and is a recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Change. Vogue Magazine recently named her a Climate Warrior for her contributions in mobilizing business support for the historic Paris Climate Agreement, and Directorship Magazine named her one of The 100 Most Influential People in Corporate Governance.

Mindy is often featured in top media outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Financial Times, and has appeared on CNBC.com, National Public Radio, and other broadcasting outlets. She regularly pens blogs for Forbes, Huffington Post, and other popular news sites. In 2014, Mindy presented at TEDx Lake Geneva in Switzerland, highlighting the role of the private sector in solving climate change.

Prior to Ceres, Mindy held various leadership positions in government, financial services and the nonprofit sector. Mindy joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1995 as a Deputy Regional Administrator and was named Regional Administrator under President Bill Clinton in 2000. As Regional Administrator, she was responsible for the administration and management of the EPA’s New England Regional Office and its then $450 million annual budget. She organized aggressive cleanups of hazardous waste sites with a goal of redevelopment, job creation and urban revitalization, ensuring the protection of drinking water supplies and children’s health.

Mindy was also the Founder, CEO and President of Green Century Capital Management, a family of environmentally responsible mutual funds. She also served as Director of the Mass Public Interest Research Group.

Mindy holds a master’s in business administration from SUNY Buffalo and earned a law degree from Suffolk University. She resides in Brookline, Mass., with her husband and has two grown children.

A sought after investor and advisor for companies at the intersection of technology and sustainability, Temple brings more than 20 years of experience investing in clean energy and sustainable innovations. Temple founded and operated three companies that secured investments from New Enterprise Associates, Oak Investment Partners, Pearson Education and others. Previously, he served as a full-time strategic advisor for Flagship Ventures, a technology firm that develops technology

companies to solve global problems and transform large markets in the energy, water, food and human health sectors. Temple is on the board of Keller Enterprises, a single-family office that is an active investor in late-stage venture and project finance deals in the renewable energy, sustainable food/agriculture and waste-to-value sectors. He began his career as a Management Consultant at KMPG in New York and as an analyst for leveraged buy-out firm, Clinton Capital Corporation.

Temple is the co-founder and co-director of the World Economic Forum/Harvard education program “Impact Investing for the Next Generation” at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. The program educates family office members on how to consider impact investments as part of their direct investment strategy. Temple also helps lead MIT’s “Visionary Investing” workshops, conducted in China, England and the U.S., and is a member of MIT’s Sustainable Finance Group.

Temple holds a B.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia, and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he was an MIT Sloan Fellow.

As a journalist and practitioner, Matthew Bishop has helped focus attention on how to create positive social and environmental impact. He wrote some of the earliest articles about impact investing in The Economist, where he spent 25 years as a writer and editor, chairing its first conferences on investing for impact. He was official report author for the G8 Taskforce on Social Impact Investing, and highlighted how philanthropists can harness the power of business and finance to drive social innovation in his book, “Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World”. He co-founded the Social Progress Index, to help decision makers move beyond a narrow focus on income and GDP as a measure of performance, and the #givingtuesday campaign. He is increasingly focused on how to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, writing an influential report, “Getting to the Global Goals”, for the Rockefeller Foundation, where he led the work of the Bellagio Center. In the mid-1990s, as chair of the  pension fund committee of the London Borough of Sutton, he adopted a pioneering green investment policy.

Chris Donohue is the Managing Director of the GARP Benchmarking Initiative, a data analysis utility for financial services companies to aggregate and analyze sensitive data. Previously, Chris led GARP’s Educational and Research Programs, where he was responsible for overseeing all of GARP’s educational and research programs, including the Financial Risk Manager (FRM®) and Energy Risk Professional (ERP®) programs. Previously, Chris was partner at a hedge fund, where he was responsible for the development of asset allocation tools for pension funds and automated trading systems. Prior to that, Chris was a Director in the Global Research Center at Deutsche Asset Management, where he led product research and development in the areas of asset liability management, asset allocation and consumption optimization for endowments and optimal portfolio management with transaction costs. As Director of Optimization Technology at Alphatech, a leading-edge technology and research defense contractor, he led algorithm development for intelligence aircraft path planning and sensor scheduling systems.

Gary Retelny is President and CEO of Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. (ISS).  He is responsible for overall leadership of the business spanning 30 offices in 13 countries while leading teams across seven discrete business lines: ISS Governance Solutions; ISS ESG; ISS Market Intelligence; ISS LiquidMetrix; ISS FWW; ISS Media; and ISS Corporate Solutions.

Gary directs client-driven innovation across all facets of the business. He leads initiatives to enhance and expand ISS’ industry leading research through investment in research staff around the globe, and, separately, investment in technology to ensure that ISS platforms, infrastructure, and security protocols are the industry’s gold standard.

With more than 30 years of experience in senior roles at both leading investment management and private equity firms, Gary is also responsible for expanding ISS’ range of solutions through acquisitions.  Most recently, these include Incentive Lab (2014), Ethix SRI Advisors (2015), iiWisdom (2016), IW Financial (2017), the Investment Climate Data Division of South Pole Group (2017), EVA Dimensions (2018), oekom research AG (2018), Strategic Insight (2019), and CAER (2019).

Prior to leading ISS, Gary was Chief Administrative Officer, Corporate Secretary, and Head of Strategy and Business Development at MSCI Inc. (ISS’ former parent) where he spearheaded major strategic initiatives including the $290 million IPO of MSCI on the NYSE in November 2007, the acquisition of Barra in 2004 for more than $800 million, and the $1.6 billion acquisition and financing of RiskMetrics Group in 2010.

As a speaker on matters of import to the financial community, Gary has appeared before corporate board members, investor bodies, and other audiences seeking ISS’ perspective on the state of, and shifts in, the global responsible investment and corporate governance landscape. He is also a member of ISS’ Global Policy Board, which is responsible for formulating ISS’ benchmark voting policies.

Gary received a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from Stanford University as well as an M.B.A. from Stanford Business School.

Vijay Vaitheeswaran is the United States business editor of The Economist. He joined the editorial staff in 1992 as the newspaper’s London-based Latin America writer, and opened its first regional bureau in Mexico City.

As an award-winning senior correspondent, Mr Vaitheeswaran opened the magazine’s Shanghai bureau in 2012, and he was the China business editor and bureau chief until mid-2017. He also serves as chairman of The Economist Innovation Summit, a provocative series of global conferences on innovation held annually in Chicago, Berlin and Hong Kong.

His latest book (published by HarperCollins) is Need, Speed and Greed: How the New Rules of Innovation Can Transform Businesses, Propel Nations to Greatness, and Tame the World’s Most Wicked Problems. He previously co-wrote ZOOM, with Iain Carson, and Power to the People, two award-winning books about the future of cars and energy.

Mr Vaitheeswaran is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an adviser on sustainability and innovation to the World Economic Forum. His commentary has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and New York Times. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Andrew Palmer is the executive editor at The Economist, where he has responsibility for the newspaper’s business, finance and science coverage. Among other roles he was previously the newspaper’s finance editor and Americas editor. He has authored special reports on international banking, property and financial innovation. Before joining The Economist in 2007 he held a variety of editorial and management positions at The Economist Intelligence Unit. Before joining The Economist Group, he monitored media coverage of elections in Eastern Europe on behalf of the European Union. He has degrees from Oxford University and the London School of Economics.

Helen Joyce became editor of The Economist’s Economics and Finance section in February 2018. For the previous four years, she edited the International section. She joined the paper in 2005 on the Britain section, as education correspondent, and between 2010 and 2013 was the Brazil correspondent, based in Sao Paulo. Previous jobs include editor of Plus, an online magazine about maths published by the University of Cambridge, and founding editor for the Royal Statistical Society’s magazine, Significance.