Emily Kreps leads CDP’s global investor initiatives program which works with over 525 of the world’s largest institutional investors to advocate for disclosure and transparency around environmental business practices.  She is experienced in defining and leading sustainable and responsible businesses, including a period as head of corporate development for a renewable and alternative energy company, as well as various start-up CFO positions.  In her previous career, Emily spent over a decade as an investment banker and an equity salesperson for Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse. She received her degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University

Michael Wherley has been at FMC Corporation for seven years, with the last four in investor relations. Prior to joining FMC, Michael was an equities analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott, covering industrials, electrical components and biotech stocks. Earlier in his career, Michael worked at Dow Jones as a programmer for its Factiva division.

Michael earned a Master’s in Financial Economics from University of Oxford in 2008 and has a BA in History and Journalism from the University of Minnesota. He is a 2-time Olympian and 3-time World Champion in the sport of rowing, and he is currently President at Penn AC Rowing Association on Philadelphia’s historic Boathouse Row.

Sharon Basel is the senior manager of global sustainability and ESG at General Motors. She is responsible for developing the company’s sustainability strategy, ensuring alignment with its business model and identifying key performance indicators and goals for business planning. Sharon leads the global reporting and non-financial disclosure strategy for the company’s sustainability and ESG initiatives worldwide, including development of the company’s annual sustainability report and its investor rating, ranking and assessment responses. In addition, she is responsible for cultivating the company’s internal and external community around sustainability to embed and integrate sustainability into business processes in all the various internal functions and leading General Motors’ stakeholder engagement process through its partnership with Ceres and managing other stakeholder relationships globally.

Sharon has built her expertise by working in a variety of functions at GM in her 38 years with the company including manufacturing, product development, vehicle safety, and product and sustainability communications. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Management and Engineering from Purdue University in 1981.

Hope Mehlman joined Regions in 2006 and serves as the Chief Governance Officer and Assistant Corporate Secretary. In her position as Chief Governance Officer, Mehlman advises the Board of Directors and executive management on emerging and leading governance practices, as well as matters related to Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG). She manages the company’s corporate governance framework and is responsible for engaging with institutional investors and proxy advisory firms on corporate governance policies and practices, including ESG. Mehlman is also responsible for preparing the proxy statement and other accompanying materials for the Annual Meeting, the ESG Report, and other regulatory and voluntary disclosures and advising on and preparing filings for the company’s reporting obligations under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Federal Reserve.

Mehlman previously served as Regions’ senior compliance manager responsible for consumer compliance, BSA/AML, wealth management compliance, and enterprise monitoring and testing. From 2006 to 2010, she served as Assistant General Counsel responsible for advising lines of business on a full range of legal, regulatory, and compliance matters necessary to operate in a highly regulated industry. Prior to joining Regions, Mehlman was a partner in the Corporate/Securities and Banking/Financial Services practices at the law firm of Adams and Reese, LLP.

Mehlman received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. She earned her Juris Doctorate from Seton Hall University School of Law and her Master of Laws in Taxation from New York University School of Law. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of Institutional Investors (CII) and serves on its Policies Committee. CII is a nonprofit, nonpartisan association of pension and other employee benefit funds, endowments, and foundations (combined assets of $4 trillion) and asset management firms ($35 trillion under management) and is a leading voice for effective corporate governance. Additionally, she is a member of Broadridge Financial Solutions’ Independent Steering Committee and a member of the Board of Directors of Regions Foundation ($100 MM) and sits on its Audit and Finance Committee. Furthermore, Mehlman serves as Vice President and Program Chair for the Southeastern Chapter of the Society for Corporate Governance. She is a graduate of the Momentum Women’s Leadership Program and a member of the Alabama, District of Columbia, New Jersey, and New York state bars, as well as various civic, charitable, and professional organizations and councils.

Max Messervy joined Mercer in February 2018 and is a Responsible Investment Consultant in the North American Responsible Investment team. Max provides advice on sustainable investment strategies, integration of ESG factors, and sustainability trends throughout investment processes. Max is responsible for advising institutional investors and provides advice to a broad range of clients, including pension funds, endowments, insurers and other stakeholders in the investment value chain. Max was a lead co-author of recent papers on increasing institutional investors’ allocations to African infrastructure, as well as a guide for integrating responsible investment approaches into corporate retirement plans in a project with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

Prior to joining Mercer, Max spent nearly four years working in the Insurance practice at Ceres in Boston, a leading non-profit sustainability advocacy organization. In that role, he worked with a range of stakeholders across the industry in making the business case for the sector to address climate and ESG risks and opportunities both as underwriters of weather risk and investors in physical infrastructure. This involved engagement with re/insurers, regulators, non-re/insurer investors and NGOs. Previously, Max worked in various capacities with Canadian federal and provincial governments, and with other environmental and sustainability entities as an independent consultant.

Max holds a Master of Public Policy from the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA, and an Honors Religious Studies degree from McGill University.

As Research Director of the Strategic Investor Initiative at Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP), Brian develops leading research to help reorient our capital markets toward the long-term. Through research and collaboration, with organizations such as FCLTGlobal and KKS Advisors, he helps develop decision-relevant, practical tools for both investors and corporations (across both Investor Relations and Corporate Sustainability). Brian’s work on sustainable business and investment has been published by Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, the World Economic Forum, Top 1000 Funds, and the Huffington Post among others. Brian is an expert on investor Fiduciary Duty having published reports on capital markets in the US, UK, Canada and Japan. Brian has a decade of experience as a corporate finance attorney and worked in the business turnaround group of an investment bank. Brian also served as the Managing Director of the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism. Brian has an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School and a degree in politics, philosophy and economics from the University of Oxford.

Jennifer Motles, Director Social Impact & Sustainability
Jennifer is an International and Human Rights lawyer. She is helping to advance PMI’s transformation goal of becoming a smoke-free company, with an emphasis on stakeholder engagement and social impact.
Previously, Jennifer worked for international organizations including UNCITRAL, UNODC, UNCTAD/ITC, and as Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs Officer at the United Nations and other international organizations. Jennifer holds a JD degree from Universidad de Chile; an LLM from University of California, Berkeley; as well as specialized diplomas in women’s rights, sustainable finance, corporate social responsibility, risk communications, and political affairs from IHEID, Harvard Business School, the Harvard School of Public Health, and Stanford University.

PMI is leading a transformation in the tobacco industry to create a smoke-free future and ultimately replace cigarettes. We are focused on creating long-term value while minimizing the negative externalities associated with our products, operations and value chain. As PMI transforms its business, it knows that one of its key challenges is, and will continue to be, earning the trust of its stakeholders and society as a whole. PMI believes that to have any credibility or legitimacy, its purpose must be none other than to use its resources and creativity to develop and commercialize better alternatives for society and the environment, and ultimately to stop making and selling cigarettes as soon as possible. This is what PMI is doing: because it can, because it should, and because it is the right thing to do.

Amy oversees the firm’s ESG integration and active ownership strategies. She manages the team responsible for evaluating current and potential portfolio investments relative to ESG factors and guides Boston Trust Walden’s shareholder engagement initiatives to promote greater corporate accountability, including company dialogues, shareholder proposals, and proxy voting. Amy contributes to the firm’s client communications efforts and is a member of the ESG Research & Engagement Committee.

Amy began her career in 1997 and joined the firm in 2019. Previously, Amy was Senior Director for the Company Network at Ceres. At Ceres, she regularly advised high-level executives at corporations on integrating sustainability into business strategies and decision-making and led a team bringing together companies, investors, and civil society experts in face-to-face dialogues to find smart business solutions to sustainability challenges. Amy also co-authored several reports and sustainability frameworks, including Turning Point: Corporate Progress on the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability; Hidden in Plain Sight: Forced Labor in Supply Chains; and the Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaire. Prior to Ceres, Amy worked at Calvert Investments for more than a decade leading and managing diversity and international labor relations research, advocacy, and policy initiatives. She helped develop the Calvert Women’s Principles, the first global code of conduct focused on empowering, advancing, and investing in women worldwide, and its companion Gender Equality Principles’ Initiative.

Amy recently served on the board of the Global Compact Network USA where she chaired the Nominating and Governance Committee and previously chaired the steering committee of the Sustainable Investment Research Analyst Network (SIRAN). She earned a BA from the University of Kansas. Amy is also a member of the Finance Committee of Old South Church in Boston.

Chuck Melko is the chief accounting officer and head of ESG for Hannon Armstrong (NYSE:HASI), a leading investor in climate change solutions. Mr. Melko leads the accounting function and is responsible for driving ESG strategy and stewardship for the company – including oversight of reporting, policies, stakeholder engagement, and communications activities that support Hannon Armstrong’s commitment to enabling the transition to a more sustainable and resilient future.

Prior to joining Hannon Armstrong in 2016, he served in a number of roles at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP since 2005, including as a senior manager in the National Professional Services Group where he focused on complex financial instruments accounting issues for energy clients. Mr. Melko received a Bachelor of Science degree in accountancy in 2002, a Master of Business Administration degree in 2005 and a Master of Science degree in accountancy from Wheeling Jesuit University in 2005. He holds a CPA license in West Virginia and Maryland.

Mr. Riesenberg is the Director of Legal Policy at SASB. He is the former Deputy General Counsel of Ernst & Young LLP responsible for regulatory matters, primarily involving the SEC and the PCAOB. Mr. Riesenberg worked at EY for more than 20 years. Previously he served for seven years as an Assistant General Counsel at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, where he handled court of appeals and Supreme Court cases involving issues such as insider trading, broker-dealer regulation, and investor fraud. While at the SEC he received the Manuel Cohen Outstanding Younger Lawyer Award. He also worked as a law clerk for a federal district court judge in Washington, D.C., as a litigator on environmental matters at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as an associate at a major Washington, D.C. law firm.

Mr. Riesenberg graduated from the New York University School of Law, where he was a member of the Law Review and a Root-Tilden Scholar, and received a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College, where he graduated with honors and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He is a former chair of the Law and Accounting Committee of the American Bar Association, former president of the Association of SEC Alumni, former treasurer of the SEC Historical Society, and a current member of the Advisory Board of the BNA Securities Regulation and Law Report. For seven years he was an adjunct professor of securities law at the Georgetown University Law Center. He serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, including the D.C. Jewish Community Relations Council, the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area, and the Washington Tennis & Education Foundation.

Mr. Riesenberg’s position with SASB is funded through an arrangement with Ernst & Young.

Helle Bank Jorgensen is a renowned sustainability, climate change, and ESG advisor. She has close to 30 years of experience helping global companies and investors turn sustainability into strong financial results. Helle has worked with hundreds of world-leading companies.

She developed the Competent Boards Certificate Program. The program helps board members, executives and those who advise them to confidently act upon the most material environmental, social and governance aspects of their business. The program has engaged several world-class business leaders like Paul Polman, former Unilever CEO, who calls it an “Incredible initiative.”
Helle serves on His Royal Highness Prince of Wales A4S Global Expert Panel, the Cornerstone Capital Global Advisory Council, the WBCSD Governance & Internal Oversight High-Level Advisory Group and is a judge for Ethical Corporation awards. Helle is a Board Facilitator for the UN Global Compact Board Program and a regular keynote speaker and author of many thought-leading articles and books.

Helle was the creator of the world’s first Green Account based on life-cycle assessment, as well as the world’s first Integrated Report, the first holistic supply chain program, and was the principal organizer for the CEO/Investor-network for Business Ethics and Non-Financial Reporting. She led the Improvement of DJSI and CDP ranking and investor communication for global companies and has worked on Natural Capital Accounting for IFC/World Bank. She has built the Canadian chapter of the UN Global Compact and received the 2019 Clean50 award.

Helle was a Partner with PwC for 11 years, building and leading sustainability and climate change practices in Europe and the US. She has extensive experience providing strategic and operational guidance to all functions within an organization, including advising at the C-suite and board level.

Helle is a State Authorized Public Accountant and Business Lawyer by training.

Ray A. Cameron, Managing Director, is the Head of BlackRock’s Investment Stewardship team for the Americas region based in New York. In this role, Ray leads a team of specialists responsible for engagement and proxy voting activities in relation to the companies in which BlackRock invests on behalf of clients. Through direct engagement with companies, the team encourages corporate governance practices that support sustainable financial performance over the long-term.

Prior to joining BlackRock, Ray most recently managed the corporate access engagement practice at several investment banking firms, including Stifel and Cowen. In these capacities, he oversaw teams that established and enhanced constructive dialogue with hundreds of portfolio companies’ boards and management teams.

Ray started his Wall Street career at Morgan Stanley on the institutional equity sales desk. After spending several years as a generalist, he became a technology specialist. It was in that capacity, he recognized the potential of corporate access as a stand-alone business opportunity. Ray is credited for creating and managing the first fully integrated corporate access team on Wall Street. His team included a diverse group of sector specialists who were responsible for driving engagements in their respective industries and enhancing relationships with corporate boards and management and with internal investment professionals within the firm.

He was subsequently recruited to re-engineer the corporate access engagement practice at Lehman Brothers. There he successfully maintained the entire team through the Lehman bankruptcy filing and the eventual acquisition of equity assets by Barclays.

Ray earned his Masters of Business Administration degree from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas and his Bachelors of Business Administration degree from The University of Texas at Austin.

Henrik joined Carbon Tracker in June of 2017 as Head of Investor Outreach for North America. His mandate is to develop the organization’s capabilities in North America, building awareness and understanding of carbon and stranded asset risk among institutional investors and broadening the distribution and usage of Carbon Tracker’s proprietary research.

Henrik brings more than 20 years of experience in the energy and financial services sectors most recently as the founder of VikingInsight, an independent consultancy providing thematic fundamental research and corporate access services to US institutional investors. Henrik was previously a European equity research sales person and a sell-side equity research analyst covering the traditional and renewable energy, consumer goods, transportation and materials and healthcare sectors for SEB Enskilda in their New York, Copenhagen and London offices. Henrik began his career as a buy-side equity portfolio manager for Nykredit Asset Management in Copenhagen.

Henrik holds a M.Sc. in Finance and Accounting and a B.Sc. in Economics and Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School, where he also served as an external lecturer on capital markets and the IPO process. Henrik holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Certificate of Investment Performance Measurement (CIPM) and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designations as well as SASB’s Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting (FSA) Credential. He is a member of the CFA Society of New York.

Samantha Hill is a senior member of CPPIB’s Sustainable Investing team, where she leads activities to consider material environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters in engagements with public companies, primarily on climate change, water and human rights, and works alongside investment colleagues to integrate ESG matters into investment activities. This includes leading ESG diligence efforts globally for direct equity investments across asset classes. Samantha is also one of several individuals contributing to enhancing CPPIB’s efforts to embed climate change-related considerations in investment and asset management activities and better understand the potential impacts across the Fund.

Prior to joining CPPIB in 2007, Samantha worked in multiple roles within CIBC’s Commercial Banking division related to senior debt financing for national accounts and real estate.

Samantha holds an MBA from Dalhousie University in Halifax, where she completed a double major in Finance and Environmental Management.

Bruno Sarda is the President of CDP North America. He works to grow the organization and increase environmental disclosure and action among companies and local governments, as well as manages the North American team and operations. Previously he served as Chief Sustainability Officer for NRG, a leading integrated power company, and has also worked at Dell and Charles Schwab. Bruno is a faculty member and Senior Sustainability Scholar at Arizona State University.

As the Vice President of Initiatives and Campaigns, Deb Markowitz oversees Ceres’ Climate and Energy, Water, Food and Forests and Capital Market System programs. These programs engage investors and companies to tackle the world’s most serious sustainability challenges, and work to accelerate the transition to a sustainable economy.

Prior to joining Ceres, Deb served as the director of policy outreach at the University of Vermont, Gund Institute of Environment, and as a visiting professor of environmental policy and leadership where she was well known as a thought leader and expert in the intersection between natural resource and financial risks.

Deb spent most of her career in public service. She was elected Vermont’s Secretary of State six times, serving from 1999-2011. In 2010, Deb helped Vermont pass a Benefit Corporation law, making it the second state in the nation to recognize a new class of corporations dedicated to creating public benefits as well as shareholder value.

Deb ran for Governor of Vermont in 2010. After narrowly losing the primary election, in 2011, she was appointed Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (ANR), where she served until 2017. At ANR, Deb shaped the state’s environmental agenda, focusing on climate change, forest health, and integrity, and water quality. She is a sought-after speaker both nationally and internationally, and served on the boards of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the Transportation Climate Initiative, and she represented Vermont on the White House Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, and at the United Nations’ Conference of the Parties on Climate Change in Paris and Marrakech.

Deb currently serves as a commentator on Vermont Public Radio. She is a Vermont Trustee of the Nature Conservancy, and on the Boards of Advisors for the Georgetown Climate Center and Antioch’s Center for Climate Preparedness and Community Resilience. She founded Vermont Parks Forever, the foundation for the state’s parks and the Women’s Leadership Initiative, an organization dedicated to getting more women into public office. Deb has been recognized nationally by being awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Environmental Protection Agency, Region 1, as well as an Aspen Institute Rodel Fellowship and the Kennedy School of Governments’ Cahn Fellowship in Public Leadership.

Deb graduated from the University of Vermont and Georgetown University Law Center, magna cum laude, and she received a Certificate in Public Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Anton leads research and standards development for the Financials sector at SASB. This involves keeping abreast of regulatory developments and emerging trends in the sector, as well as maintaining strong relationships with corporate issuers, investors, and other stakeholders that inform the content of SASB standards. He also contributes to standards development by spearheading various projects that involve quantitative data analysis.

Anton joined SASB in 2013 after completing an internship as an equity analyst at Allianz Global Investors in San Francisco, where he conducted quantitative and fundamental research and valuation on selected financial services companies. He has an MBA in Capital Markets from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and a Bachelor’s degree in Real Estate Management from St. Petersburg State University of Engineering and Economics in Russia. Anton has a genuine passion for finance and analytics and continues his professional development by participating in the CFA institute program.

Erika Karp, Founder and Chief Executive Offer, brings both pragmatism and intensity to driving forward the discipline of sustainable and impact investing. The urgency to leverage the capital markets to move investments towards social impact was the driver to her founding Cornerstone. Having spent decades on Wall Street, most recently as Managing Director and Head of Global Sector Research at UBS Investment Bank where she Chaired the Investment Review Committee, Erika came to the conclusion that systematically incorporating ESG factors investment analysis yields superior predictive insight and is essential to any investment process. In partnering with and advising organizations including the UN Global Compact, the Clinton Global Initiative, the SASB, and the World Economic Forum, Erika’s leadership has driven the movement to capture profit and purpose together.

As Director, Strategic Partnerships for CECP’s Strategic Investor Initiative (SII), Michael ensures that SII has the relationships, partnerships and resources necessary to deliver its mission of re-orienting the capital markets towards the long term. He also educates both institutional investors and corporate issuers on the value proposition of CECP’s Strategic Investor Initiative.

Michael comes to CECP from the sell side where he was most recently a Director of Investor Access at UBS Investment Bank. In this role, he advised Investor Relations Officers (IROs) on the development and implementation of high ROI investor marketing programs as well as broader industry trends including MiFID II and the mainstream shift by active investors toward integrating financially material ESG factors into their investment processes. Prior to joining UBS, Michael held various positions on both the buy side and sell side including J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Morgan Joseph TriArtisan Group, and Citi Global Markets.

Michael has an MBA from Temple University’s Fox School of Business, a BA in Political Science and Spanish from the University of Michigan and is a member of the New York Chapter of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI).