Conference Speakers
Legal Issues in Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing—In the US and Beyond: June 6-7, 2023
Luke S. Bassis
Deputy Director of Procurement, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Luke S. Bassis, Esq. is the deputy director of Procurement at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. In his current position, he provides leadership and guidance on a range of procurement matters across all spend categories in all methods of project delivery. His career has included roles overseeing vendor integrity, compliance, and contract review and as primary buyer on priority procurements.
Bassis serves on the inaugural GSA Acquisition Policy Federal Advisory Committee (GAP FAC). The GAP FAC serves as an advisory body to GSA’s administrator on how GSA can use its acquisition tools and authorities to target the highest-priority federal acquisition challenges. The GAP FAC advises on emerging acquisition issues, challenges, and opportunities to support its role as America’s buyer. The initial focus for the GAP FAC is on driving regulatory, policy, and process changes required to embed climate and sustainability considerations in federal acquisition. Bassis serves as co-chair of the GAP FAC’s Policy and Practice Subcommittee.
He obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, his law degree from the University at Buffalo School of Law, and a master’s degree in business administration from the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College.
Amélie Baudot
Conference Co-Chair; Chief Operating Officer, International Fund for Public Interest Media
Amélie Baudot is the chief operating officer at the International Fund for Public Interest Media. She oversees fund strategy, operations, finance, legal, governance, and talent. Baudot has over a decade of experience in managing global multi-donor impact funds.
She joined IFPIM after six years at the Global Innovation Fund, including as chief strategy and chief legal officer. In 2013, she pivoted from a career as a restructuring lawyer at Allen & Overy LLP into impact investing and international development when she joined AgDevCo Limited as its first in-house counsel.
Baudot is admitted to practice in New York State and is a solicitor in England and Wales. She holds a JD from New York University School of Law, a master’s degree from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, and a bachelor’s degree in international relations and economics from Connecticut College.
Megan Bell
Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Megan Bell advises clients in the tax-exempt sector on a wide range of issues, including formation and restructuring; general tax compliance and corporate governance; fundraising; complex gifts and collaborative funding arrangements; internal and regulatory inquiries; domestic and international grantmaking and partnerships; investments (both generally and impact-focused); lobbying and political campaign activities; and structuring and ongoing maintenance of multi-vehicle initiatives.
She holds an LLM from New York University School of Law, a JD from Northwestern University School of Law, and a BA from Mount Holyoke College, and is admitted to the New York Bar.
Michael Bennett
Head of Market Solutions and Structured Finance, World Bank Treasury
Michael Bennett leads the team that is responsible for structured note issuance, all derivatives related to funding, structure finance transactions for the World Bank and its clients (including catastrophe bonds and swaps, carbon emission rights linked bonds, sukuk (Islamic bonds) for IFFIm, and project linked bonds), as well as monetization of certified emissions reductions as agent for the United Nations’ Adaptation Fund.
He has spent 16 years with the Bank, including five years (2006-2010) in the Bank’s Paris office. Prior to joining the Bank, he worked for Chase and Lehman Brothers in structured finance and two international law firms in New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.
Bennett holds a doctoral degree in law, with a specialization in international and comparative law, from Columbia University in and is admitted to the New York and DC Bars.
Amy Bergstraesser
Head of Legal, Symbiotics Group SA
Amy Bergstraesser is the head of Legal for Symbiotics Group SA, a leading Swiss impact investor and the parent company for 11 global subsidiaries. Currently overseeing the legal, governance, and impact (ESG and sustainability) matters of the firm, she has been with Symbiotics for more than five years. She also manages the implementation of certain regulations that affect the greater group of Symbiotics companies. In her free time, she gives guest lectures at several universities in Switzerland and the US. Bergstraesser earned her JD from the University of Michigan Law School and her BA from Skidmore College. Symbiotics has been a client of NYU School of Law’s International Transactions Clinic, benefiting from the pro bono legal services provided by the students and their attorney supervisors since 2017.
Samantha Biggio
Legal Officer, TrustLaw, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Samantha Biggio joined the Thomson Reuters Foundation in December 2022. As a legal officer for North America, she handles legal pro bono projects from TrustLaw’s community of NGOs and social enterprises and supports strategic legal research programs on regional and cross-border issues. She also develops TrustLaw’s relationships with legal members.
Before joining the foundation, Biggio built and operated a boutique consulting company specializing in helping nonprofits and other mission-oriented organizations. She focused on providing operational and legal assistance and offering support to policy and legislative initiatives. While in law school, she co-founded CrowdLobby, an online platform that gives everyday people access to professional lobbyists through crowdfunded campaigns.
Biggio is a qualified lawyer in the US. She holds a JD from the University of Richmond, a BA in international studies, and a BS in anthropology from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Joseph Blasi
J. Robert Beyster Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University
Director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, Rutgers University
Joseph Blasi is the J. Robert Beyster Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University and director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers. The institute is the world’s largest academic institute addressing all forms of capital shares for employees and citizens, including broad-based equity compensation plans, ESOPs, worker cooperatives, citizen dividend programs, profit sharing, and gain sharing. It sponsors empirical research, a competitive fellowship program, academic conferences, a Shares Laboratory, a curriculum library, and a policy analysis unit.
Blasi is author of The Citizens Share (Yale University Press, 2014), Shared Capitalism at Work (NBER and University of Chicago Press, 2010), In the Company of Owners (2003, Basic Books), and The New Owners: Employee Ownership in Publicly-traded Companies (1990, HarperCollins), with colleagues, among other books and articles. He was a visiting professor at Princeton University (2014-2015) and Yale University (1997-1998) and a member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study. During 2022, he served full-time as the advisor on employee-owned entities to the US Department of Treasury. He is a faculty member in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers and is an economic sociologist with an EdD from Harvard University.
Lauren Boccardi
Senior Attorney, The Nature Conservancy
Lauren Boccardi is a senior attorney responsible for advising The Nature Conservancy on its impact investment portfolio. Before joining the conservancy, she served at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), where she most recently served as deputy assistant general counsel for USAID’s Bureau for Food Security and for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance. Her work at USAID covered private-sector engagement, impact investing, legislation and policy, and Middle East issues.
Prior to USAID, Boccardi worked on a wide range of corporate transactions as a corporate lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton, focusing in particular on energy and environmental work. She has worked with various nonprofts, including a women’s group in Oaxaca, Mexico, and was the manager of Communications and Research for an internet software company in New York. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and earned her master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She received her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University.
Aaron Bourke
Senior Counsel, RPCK
Aaron Bourke is a senior counsel at RPCK and leads the firm’s Fund Formation practice. In this role, he advises a wide range of impact fund sponsors on all aspects of fund formation and advises institutional investors in connection with investments in impact funds. He also serves as outside general counsel to asset managers.
Prior to joining RPCK, Bourke was a counsel in the Private Fund Formation practice at Reed Smith LLP, where he also co-founded the firm’s Social Impact Finance Group. He is widely recognized for his deep and diverse experience in social impact fund formation, having represented a broad array of private equity, venture capital, and hedge fund sponsors (both impact and non-impact focused) in connection with the formation of a variety of private funds and related investment vehicles, while working tirelessly to build his practice around impact investing and social enterprise clients.
Bourke’s prior experiences include serving as chair of the New York Regional Board of Indego Africa, a nonprofit enterprise that provides artisan women in Rwanda and Ghana with a global market for their handmade products and invests in their education; working for People’s Watch, a human rights organization in Tamil Nadu, India, as a New York University School of Law Center for Human Rights and Global Justice Fellow; and serving as an international development volunteer for the Foundation for Sustainable Development in Rajasthan, India. He obtained his JD from New York University School of Law and his bachelor’s degree from the College of William & Mary.
Dana Brakman Reiser
Centennial Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Dana Brakman Reiser holds a chair as Centennial Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, where she also served as vice dean. She teaches courses in Corporations, Nonprofit Law, Social Enterprise, Property, and Trusts and Estates. With a globally recognized expertise in the law at the intersection of business and charity, her work on the law of social enterprises—firms that pursue profits for owners and social good—defined the field. She has also written extensively on law and finance for philanthropic organizations and on sustainable investing.
Professor Brakman Reiser’s books, For-Profit Philanthropy: Elite Power and the Threat of Limited Liability Companies, Donor-Advised Funds, & Strategic Corporate Giving (2023) and Social Enterprise Law: Trust, Public Benefit, and Capital Markets (2017), both with Professor Steven A. Dean, were published by Oxford University Press. Her scholarship has also appeared in edited volumes and law journals, including Boston College Law Review, Emory Law Journal, and Notre Dame Law Review. She is a member of the American Law Institute and was an associate reporter for its project on the Principles of the Law of Nonprofit Organizations, as well as a past-chair of the Section on Nonprofit and Philanthropy Law of the American Association of Law Schools and a former member of the Executive Board of its Section on Business Law. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School.
Ed Briscoe
Managing Director, Weave Finance
Ed Briscoe is the founder of Weave Social Finance and oversees the firm’s overall strategy and operations, bringing over 25 years of experience in community investment. He founded Weave Social Finance in 2012 after eight years with Greenline Ventures (formerly a division of GMAC Commercial Holdings and Capmark Finance Inc.), an investor, lender, and community development entity. He participated in some of the earliest deals funded by the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program in early 2004. Briscoe has deep experience building capital stacks and sourcing, underwriting, structuring, and closing real estate and project finance transactions, and in evaluating impact. He has facilitated over $400 million in mission-driven investments.
In late 2014, Briscoe founded Impact Charitable, a 501c3 nonprofit offering donor advised funds that are 100% invested for impact. In 2020, he helped found the Left Behind Workers Fund under Impact Charitable, which raised over $25 million to provide assistance to workers impacted by the COVID pandemic but ineligible for federal aid. In 2020, he seed-funded and launched the Colorado Housing Accelerator Fund (CHAI), for which Weave serves as sponsor and investment manager.
Briscoe has a BS in business administration from Samford University and an MBA from Vanderbilt University. He currently serves on the board and as the chair of the credit committee for the Colorado Enterprise Fund.
Mary Rose Brusewitz
Member, Clark Hill
Mary Rose Brusewitz is member in charge of Clark Hill’s New York office. She concentrates her practice on international transactions involving Latin America, Africa, Asia, India, Europe and the US. She has substantial experience in emerging markets development and finance and is active in impact investing, sustainability, accountability, ESG/SDG compliance, and corporate governance. She represents a provider of currency hedging to the impact space, as well as several funds and other clients that are active in investing debt and equity, including in financial inclusion, renewable energy, sanitation and housing. Brusewitz’ expertise includes structuring, implementing administering, and exiting impact debt and equity investments, coordinating groups of investors, including DFIs, privately managed funds, commercial banks, for profits and nonprofits, blended capital structures, project and structured financing, private equity, cross-border investments, joint ventures, restructurings, workouts, insolvencies, dispute resolution, and mediation.
Brusewitz was a compliance panel member and panel chair of the independent accountability mechanism of the Inter-American Development Bank. She is a pro bono supervising attorney at the International Transactions Clinic at NYU School of Law.
She earned her BA in anthropology and her JD at UCLA. She is a member of the New York State Bar.
Deborah Burand
Professor of Clinical Law, NYU Law
Deborah Burand is a professor of clinical law at NYU School of Law, where she directs the International Transactions Clinic and serves as a faculty director of the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship.
Her career spans, in nearly equal parts, academia (NYU and University of Michigan), private sector (global law firm), nonprofit sector (microfinance and conservation), and public sector (US Federal Reserve Board, US Treasury Department, and the US government’s development finance institution-DFC (then called OPIC) where she served as general counsel).
Professor Burand currently serves as chair of the Investment Committee and also as an independent Board director of the MicroBuild fund (a proof-of-concept impact investment fund launched by Habitat for Humanity International aimed at growing the housing microfinance sector). She also sits on the Board of Calvert Impact Capital and serves on its Audit and Finance Committee. She also is on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Applied Sustainable Transition Law (CASTL). And she is a co-founder and director of the Library of the Great Lakes.
Professor Burand is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (and former International Affairs Fellow of the Council) and the Bretton Woods Committee.
She graduated from Georgetown University with a joint degree combining a law degree with a master’s degree from the Walsh School of Foreign Service (JD/MSFS with honors). She is admitted to the New York and the District of Columbia Bars.
Alice Decker Burke
Associate General Counsel, United States International Development Finance Corporation
Alice Decker Burke is the associate general counsel for Special Assets at the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the US government’s development finance institution (formerly known as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation). She has worked in DFC’s Office of General Counsel for seven years. Her work encompasses a variety of projects, evenly divided between secured lending and restructuring, across the DFC portfolio. Her projects have included sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, healthcare, and housing, among others.
Prior to joining DFC/OPIC in 2015, she worked in private practice for 10 years, with a combined practice of middle market secured lending and creditor-side restructuring, and clerked for the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She holds a BA in economics from Swarthmore College and a JD from Northwestern University.
Tim Burke
CEO, Mill Town Capital
Tim Burke is CEO of Mill Town Capital, an impact investment platform based in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. He joined Mill Town upon the company’s formation in 2016. He is responsible for the overall management of the firm and team. He sources and leads business and real estate investments and partners with entrepreneurs on concept exploration and company formation. Burke works closely with Mill Town’s operating businesses and portfolio companies. He also oversees the strategy and efforts of the company’s philanthropic entity, Mill Town Foundation, and works with nonprofit organizations to support the firm’s extensive community development efforts. He has over 15 years of financial, operational, and management experience. Prior to Mill Town, he spent nearly a decade in the biotech industry in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a variety of finance, planning, and operational roles, most recently with Biogen. He began his career in the Financial Leadership Program at United Technologies Corporation.
Burke holds a BS in corporate finance and accounting from Bentley University and an MBA from Bentley’s Graduate School of Business. He is a trustee of Berkshire Health Systems, the largest healthcare provider in Berkshire County, and is a director of the Brien Center, Berkshire County’s largest provider of behavioral health and addiction services.
Sammy Burton
JD Student, Class of 2024, New York University School of Law
Sammy Burton received his BA in psychology from Yale University and is currently a rising 3L at New York University School of Law. In college, he enrolled in a year-long course called Social Enterprise in Developing Economies, which was paired with a three-month internship in Nairobi, Kenya. at the education social enterprise “Bridge International Academies.” Additionally, while in college, he worked for two socially driven education companies—one on the South Side of Chicago and the other in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.
At NYU Law, Burton became involved with similar efforts on campus, including participating in NYU’s Entrepreneurship Clinic and leading the law school’s Social Enterprise and Startup Law Group (SE-SL). As part of a Grunin Center-sponsored SE-SL trip, he traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina. with 11 other NYU Law students to learn more about the region’s bustling startup and social enterprise economy. After his 1L year, Burton received the Grunin Center’s White & Case Social Entrepreneurship Summer Internship to work with the general counsel at the impact investing organization, MCE Social Capital. This summer, he is a summer associate at Gunderson Dettmer, a law firm that primarily works with startups and venture capital firms.
Christina Cahill
Shareholder, Polsinelli Law Firm
Christina N. Cahill focuses on advising on the tax aspects of charitable giving, philanthropy, and representation of domestic and international nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations. She is a member of the Strategic Nonprofit Solutions team, which helps nonprofits and other social impact-oriented organizations and individuals solve their most crucial strategic, administrative, and development challenges. She provides counsel and education on qualifications for tax-exempt status, board governance practices. and policies for financial and legal compliance. With deep experience in tax-exempt organization issues and management, state regulatory compliance requirements, and donor advised fund (DAF) legal administration, Cahill is passionate about providing a personalized approach to organizations and individuals to allow clients to focus on maximizing philanthropic impact.
She also leverages her background in mergers and acquisitions, litigation, and complex government matters to provide strategic counsel to clients regarding corporate transactions and entity structuring.
She has also worked with individual clients on estate planning, tax and property law aspects of trusts and estates, and estate administration.
Cahill earned her BA, summa cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania; her MS in education from Hunter College; and her JD from the University of Chicago Law School. She also obtained an Advanced Professional Certificate in Taxation from NYU School of Law. Before attending law school, Cahill was a Teach for America corps member in New York City, where she taught fourth grade in the South Bronx.
Tim Cleary
Partner, Clifford Chance
Timothy Cleary specializes in structured finance and bank capital management. He has a particular focus on synthetic securitization and other credit risk mitigation and risk transfer transactions, acting for banks and investors across Europe, North America, and Asia.
He also has broad experience in all aspects of OTC derivatives, in particular in connection with asset-backed securitization, whole business securitization, project and asset finance, and real estate finance, as well as the repackaging of derivative exposures and securities financing transactions. He regularly advises industry bodies, such as the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) and Prime Collateralised Securities (PCS), in relation to the evolving regulatory landscape for securitization in the EU.
Cleary received his LLB and BA degrees at the University of Melbourne, his MSt in legal research from Harris Manchester College, Oxford in 2010, and is admitted as a solicitor in both Australia and England and Wales.
Connie Connolly
Co-Founder, Keidos Legal Impact
Connie Connolly is co-founder and director of Keidos Legal Impact, a consultancy focused on generating, facilitating, and/or escalating the impact of organizations seeking to make sustainability central to their DNA; on building the impact market in Latin America; and on developing public policies for the new impact economy.
She is specialized in commercial and corporate law. She has a vast experience in business seeking social and environmental positive impact. She specialized in sustainable value chains and complex structures for the creation of solutions for non-traditional figures, including organizations with nonprofit and for-profit “hybrid-structures.” She advises on the design and development of impact funds aimed at boosting sustainable finance and focusing on ESG (environmental social governance).
Connolly has been appointed vice president of GAIL Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers. She is also a board member of Argentina NAB-GSG Impact Investment Task Force. She actively participates in the “Latin America Payment by Result Network.” She is the academic director of the International Impact Law Programme at Universidad Austral, Argentina. She teaches at several universities on impact issues, including sustainable public procurement, corporate governance, sustainable integrity, companies with purpose, and impact business.
She earned her law degree at Universidad de Buenos Aires and she obtained her master’s degree in corporate law from Universidad Austral.
Larcy Cooper
Counsel, Paul Weiss
Larcy Cooper is founding counsel in the Sustainability and ESG Advisory Practice group of Paul, Weiss, where she works on a variety of environmental, social, and governance issues for a variety of private equity and corporate clients. In her practice, she advises companies across industries on ESG programmatic strategy, public disclosures, corporate governance practices, and diversity equity and inclusion initiatives. In September 2020, she was awarded an Aspen Institute First Movers Fellowship for her contribution to launching the ESG Advisory Practice.
Before joining Paul, Weiss, Cooper worked as a corporate attorney focused on capital access for public and private companies and served as general counsel to a Silicon Valley-backed green technology start-up. Prior to law school, she worked as an investment banking analyst focused on public finance infrastructure for UBS Investment Bank and served as a program manager for the Social Enterprise Program (endowed as the Tamer Center) at Columbia Business School. She is co-creating an externship course called Corporate Sustainability and ESG for Columbia Law School that will debut this fall.
Cooper received her BA in economics from Smith College and her JD from Columbia Law School, where she served as president of the Columbia Black Law Students Association.
Krysta C. Copeland
Managing Director and Associate General Counsel, The Rockefeller Foundation
Krysta Copeland serves as a managing director and associate general counsel at The Rockefeller Foundation, which she joined in early 2019.
Copeland is the lead lawyer for the foundation’s Innovative Finance team, and in this capacity, she facilitates the foundation’s charitable impact through advising on and structuring all program-related investments, including debt and equity, and onshore and cross-border transactions. Additionally, she is the lead lawyer for Rockefeller Foundation Impact Investment Management, the foundation’s fund formation and investment advisory arm. Copeland strengthens the foundation’s work in energy, food, health, equity and economic opportunity, and climate and resilience by collaborating with staff to implement other innovative investment tools, including recoverable grants, convertible grants, and guarantees. She also actively supports the foundation’s endowment office and serves as secretary of the Investment Committee and PRI Committee.
Prior to joining the foundation, Copeland spent nine years as a corporate attorney at Latham & Watkins LLP, based in their London and Washington, DC, offices. As a member of the firm’s Investment Funds group, she represented private equity and venture capital funds, as well as institutional investors, leading every legal aspect of fund formation, fundraising, governance, and securities compliance matters. As a member of the firm’s Capital Markets group, she represented issuers, sponsors and investment banks in international debt and equity securities offerings.
She is admitted to practice in New York State and the District of Columbia and is a member of the National Bar Association and American Bar Association. She earned her JD from Howard University School of Law and her BA in political science and Africana studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
Greg Curtis
Executive Director, Holdfast Collective
Greg Curtis is the executive director of Holdfast Collective, Patagonia’s new nonprofit shareholder. Previously, he served as deputy general counsel for Patagonia for more than eight years and led the company through its recent ownership transition. Prior to Patagonia, he was in-house counsel at a large multinational corporation and also worked for a number of years in private practice as a corporate lawyer. Curtisserves as a Board member for 1% for the Planet and is a graduate of Brown University and University of Connecticut School of Law.
Christian Díaz-Ordóñez
Legal Counsel, IDB Invest
Christian Díaz-Ordóñez is an international legal counsel with IDB Invest, the private branch of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), specifically working for IDB Lab, the IDB’s innovation laboratory. The IDB is the leading source of development finance and expertise for improving lives in Latin America and the Caribbean. IDB Lab promotes early-stage entrepreneurial innovations by focusing on two development priorities in the region: (i) benefiting poor and vulnerable populations, and (ii) activating new engines of sustainable growth. Díaz-Ordóñez has experience in leading and supporting cross-border transactional work, including equity and lending, with a heavy emphasis in sustainability components. Before joining the IDB, he worked as a corporate transactional attorney with Colombian and New York law firms.
Díaz-Ordóñez holds an LLB from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cali, Colombia, and an LLM from New York University School of Law. He alternates his professional activities with his academic interests by participating as an adjunct professor in several Colombian universities at the undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education levels. He is licensed to practice law in Colombia and in the State of New York. He speaks Spanish, English, and French.
Sasha Dichter
Co-Founder and CEO, 60 Decibels
Sasha Dichter is the co-founder of 60 Decibels, an impact measurement company that helps organizations around the world better understand their customers, suppliers, and beneficiaries. Its proprietary approach, Lean DataSM, makes it easy to listen to the people who matter most, bringing customer-centricity, speed, and responsiveness to impact measurement.
Prior to co-founding 60 Decibels, Dichter worked for 12 years at Acumen, most recently as chief innovation officer. In this role, he spearheaded the creation and growth of Lean Data and of +Acumen, the world’s school for social change, as well as overseeing the Acumen Fellows Program. In his prior role as Acumen’s director of Business Development, he led global capital raising, including executing a successful $100M capital raise.
Dichter is also a noted speaker and blogger on generosity, philanthropy, and social change, the author of the Manifesto for Nonprofit CEOs and the creator of Generosity Day. His talks have been featured on TED.com and the Aspen IDEAS Festival, and he has been recognized as an Innovation Agent by Fast Company magazine.
He holds a BA from Harvard College, a master’s degree in public administration in international development from Harvard’s Kennedy School and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Sarah Dobson
Executive Director of the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL)
Sarah Dobson is the executive director of the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (formerly esela–the legal network for social impact), a community of legal leaders using their careers to have a positive impact on people and the planet, and to accelerate the just transition. She runs GAIL from the offices of Bates Wells, the first UK law firm to become a B Corp, where she was previously impact economy manager.
Dobson is named one of the top 100 Women in Social Enterprise in the UK and a finalist for the Rising Star award in 2023. She is a Fellow of On Purpose, the profit-with-purpose leadership program, and her career has spanned impact investment at Big Society Capital, as well as improving access to justice in the UK as head of Trusts at Support Through Court, and in Kenya and Uganda at African Prisons Project.
She has been called to the Bar of England and Wales and holds qualifications in Law and English. Outside work, Sarah is chair of trustees of KDC Theatre, a central London arts charity.
Simon Duffield
Lead, Legal—COVAX
Simon Duffield is the legal director for COVAX, the global risk-sharing pooled procurement mechanism created in 2020 alongside CEPI, WHO, and UNICEF to equitably deliver COVID-19 vaccines globally. COVAX is administered by Gavi Alliance, the Swiss public-private partnership. In his current role, Duffield leads a team of seven senior lawyers advising on all aspects of the COVAX Facility, including purchase commitments with vaccine manufacturers, commitment agreements from over 70 sovereign self-financing participants, and the contractual framework for 92 low-income participants, as well as financing, guarantee, and insurance arrangements with multilateral finance organizations. He is an English qualified solicitor, and before joining Gavi, his practice was focused on corporate and M&A, after training and working for over a decade at Linklaters in London. Duffield’s experience includes working on cross-border M&A transactions, IPOs, joint ventures, risk management, securities/listing compliance, high yield note issues, structured finance, and restructurings. His in-house experience also includes working for large public and private multinationals across various sectors, including financial services, consumer goods, and technology businesses in the UK and Switzerland.
Catherine Dun Rappaport
Vice President at Social Finance
Catherine Dun Rappaport is a vice president at Social Finance. Her work focuses on helping government agencies, philanthropic partners, and impact investors deliver programming and deploy capital in ways that support economic and racial justice. She currently is engineering impact assurance processes for Social Finance’s Impact-First Fund of Funds. She leads related impact due diligence, impact measurement and monitoring (IMM), and efforts to use findings to enhance practice.
Dun Rappaport has 20 years of experience leading research and learning functions at mission-driven organizations; developing measurement strategies for impact investors and government and philanthropic clients; and directing action-oriented research. Prior to Social Finance, she spearheaded the development of the IMM function at BlueHub Capital, a national community development financial institution. She also served as the vice president of Learning and Analytics at the United Way of Mass Bay and as a senior research consultant at Abt Associates. She has several years of direct experience working in community-based organizations.
Dun Rappaport is a senior advisor to Impact Frontiers and to the Greater Boston Evaluation Network, a member of Social Value-US, and an ambassador for Leap of Reason. She graduated with honors from Amherst College and received a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School.
Sarah Ellington
Partner, Watson Farley & Williams; Co-Founder and Co-Creator, Legal Innovation for Sustainable Investments (LISI); UK Regional Board Member, Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL)
Sarah Ellington is a dispute resolution and ESG partner based in Watson Farley & Williams’ London office. She been resolving disputes using both formal and informal mechanisms for multinational corporations, governments, governmental agencies, and international organizations for 15 years. She is one of only a few lawyers to combine experience in complex and high-profile group litigation with advising on complaints to nonjudicial mechanisms, such as OECD National Contact Points, UN Special Procedure mandates, and private, sector-based accountability mechanisms. She also has experience drafting and developing novel nonjudicial grievance mechanisms in this field.
Ellington also advises on the ESG aspects of large energy and infrastructure projects, including the rights of indigenous peoples, as well as developing policies and procedures for due diligence and risk mitigation. Her focus is on the “S” aspects of ESG and how this interrelates to the other elements. She has advised on the “just transition’” materials developed by The Chancery Lane Project and is a member of the Business and Human Rights Committee of the IBA.
Robert Esposito
Managing Director and Senior Counsel, ESG, Apollo
Robert Esposito is a managing director and senior counsel, ESG. He joined Apollo in 2020 in the Legal Department as the firm’s first ESG counsel. Prior to that, he was an associate in the Private Funds Group at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP from June 2017 to March 2020. Earlier, he was an M&A and private funds associate in the New York offices of two international law firms. Esposito previously served as a Jacobson Fellow in Law and Business at New York University School of Law, and as a professional lecturer in law on the adjunct faculty at George Washington University Law School.
He received his BA from Dartmouth College, his JD from Wake Forest University School of Law, and his LLM, with highest honors, in international and comparative law from George Washington University Law School.
Jennifer Faust
Investment and Finance Advisor, Faust Global Partners
Jennifer Faust is a lawyer with 25 years of global investment and business advisory experience. She is founder and managing partner of Faust Global Partners LLC (FGP), an international business advisory firm launched in 2010 focused on ESG, sustainability, and impact investing in private equity, venture capital, and development finance. She also provides clients with strategic counsel on business development, client and investor relations, and capital raising.
Faust serves as a managing director with Bankers without Boundaries (BwB), a nonprofit finance innovation organization powered by former investment bankers to assist high-impact projects that benefit the environment and social good. BwB works with governments, institutions, cities, and foundations to provide advisory and research services to mobilize capital.
Faust also acts as an international advisor to the United Nations and World Trade Organization’s joint agency—the International Trade Centre. Key programs include the Ethical Fashion Initiative (EFI) and Alliance 4 Action (A4A), which focus on sustainability in fashion and in agriculture in emerging markets. She is also a board member of Aruna Project, an athleisure impact-brand based in India and the United States.
Previously, she was a manager, Private Equity in the Investment Funds Department at the United States’ Development Finance Corporation (formerly OPIC) and was a senior vice president at investment management company 57 Stars. Faust received her master’s degree from the London School of Economics and her BA from Furman University.
Anne Field
Contributor, Forbes Magazine
Anne Field is an award-winning business journalist, writer, and editor who focuses on entrepreneurship, social enterprise, and impact investing, among other topics. Her work has been published in Crain’s New York Business, CNBC.com, the New York Times, and many other places. Her blog Not Only for Profit, which covers social entrepreneurship and impact investing, appears in Forbes.
Field also has a deep background writing about financial services, supply chain issues, tech, and management. And she taps her long career covering business to produce content for consulting firms, foundations, nonprofits, and other organizations.
Before starting work as a freelancer, Field was on the staff of such publications as Business Week, Business Month, and Success. She is the winner of many awards, including the Jesse H. Neal Award for Best How-To Article and the American Society of Business Publication Editors Award for Best Case Study. She’s also a member of Impact Entrepreneur magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board. And she was featured in Denver Business Journal’s 2018 Who’s Who in Impact Investing special issue.
Field attended Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Wesleyan University.
David Frydlinger
Managing Partner, Cirio Law Firm
David Frydlinger is a Swedish attorney and partner at Cirio law firm in Stockholm. He has more than 20 years’ experience working with large and complex customer-supplier contracts and transactions in a variety of industries. He is an expert on formal relational contracting, daily assisting clients daily on how to enter into long-term partnerships. He is author of a number of books and co-author to the books Contracting in the New Economy—Using Relational Contracts to Boost Trust and Collaboration in Strategic Business Relationships, and Getting to We—Negotiating Agreements For Highly Collaborative Relationships. He is co-author of Harvard Business Review articles on relational contracts with Oliver Hart and Kate Vitasek.
Frydlinger is currently writing a book about sustainability and law, in which he will extend his long experience with relational contracting into the areas of impact investments and sustainable contracting.
Ruth Gao
Associate General Counsel, Impact Investments, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Ruth Gao serves as the associate general counsel for Impact Investments at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and works closely with the Law Department and the Impact Investment team to deploy capital in key areas of programmatic focus. She brings a decade of experience representing investors and investment managers in both the United States and internationally. Immediately prior to joining the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Gao was associate general counsel at Calvert Impact, Inc., a global nonprofit investment firm that seeks to use private capital in innovative and collaborative ways to create an equitable and sustainable world. At Calvert, she worked with the investment team on a range of transactions and provided counsel to partners seeking to raise impact investing funds and to assess potential investment opportunities. Earlier, Gao was an associate at Ropes & Gray LLP, where she counseled fund managers and limited partners in the forming and raising of and investment in private equity funds. She also maintained an active pro bono practice for various not-for-profits and small businesses.
Gao graduated from NYU School of Law with a JD degree and from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. She is admitted to practice in New York.
Chris Garner
Managing Director, Mirova UK Limited
Chris Garner is managing director at Mirova UK Limited, a subsidiary of French sustainable investment house Mirova S.A. He has 20 years’ experience in investment funds, equity, and JV investments in the impact investing space, particularly in emerging and frontier markets. Prior to joining Mirova, he was chief legal officer and management team member at the impact fund SunFunder and worked as in-house counsel for British International Investment (formerly CDC Group), EBRD, DEG (secondment). and FMO. Garner developed his skills in private practice at law firms Slaughter and May, Skadden Arps, White & Case, and DLA Piper.
Edmond Ghisu
Chief Investment Counsel, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
As deputy general counsel and chief investment counsel at the Foundation, Ed Ghisu works with management and staff on a variety of matters of strategic importance to the foundation. He has primary legal responsibility for overseeing the investment of the foundation’s investment portfolio and its use of program-related investments to achieve greater impact. He also serves as a legal representative for several of the foundation’s areas of programmatic focus and works with RWJF’s HR department on employee benefit and retirement plan matters.
Ghisu joined RWJF in 2006 after serving as a business and finance attorney for six years with Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll. His practice focused primarily on partnership and joint venture transactions and securities law matters. Prior to his employment with Ballard Spahr, he worked as a commercial litigator for Hangley Aronchick Segal & Pudlin, and Drinker Biddle & Reath, LLP.
Ghisu received his JD from Temple University School of Law and his BA in political science from West Chester University. He is qualified to practice in New Jersey and Philadelphia.
Emiliano Giovine
Head of ESG & Legal Impact, RP Legal
Emiliano Giovine is chair of GAIL Europe (Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers) and scientific director of Legal Impact at Cottino Social Impact Campus.
He’s head of ESG & Legal Impact and supports leading national and international companies on ESG-related matters. In particular, he is involved in adoption and implementation of sustainability models, corporate policies. and ethical codes; the acquisition of the Benefit Corporation status and the B Corp certification; and ESG/human rights due diligence, non-financial reporting, and impact management.
Giovine also deals with nonprofit entities, social enterprises, and NGOs, advising them through incorporation, reorganizations, extraordinary transactions, and adjustments required by the Third Sector regulatory framework.
He is tutor of the Human Rights and Migration Law Clinic legal training program at the Faculty of Law of University of Turin, and he is founder and head of legal at ResQ Onlus–People Saving People.
Giovine has been a consultant to the United Nations at UNEP and legal officer at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.
Harold Glasser
Chief Legal Officer, Pathfinder International
Harold (Hal) Glasser is chief legal officer of Pathfinder International, a nonprofit organization that works to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights in more than 20 countries in Africa and South Asia. Hal is also founder and president of Health Impact Partnership, Inc., a nonprofit that makes charitable investments in social enterprises that are improving access to healthcare in low- and middle-income countries and in underfunded health sectors. Prior to transitioning into public health and the nonprofit sector, Glasser worked for over 25 years in multinational pharmaceutical and vaccine companies as regional counsel, chief compliance officer, and pro-bono organizer in Asia Pacific, Europe, and Latin America. He is a member of the Nonprofit Organizations Committee of the New York City Bar Association and is a founder and co-chair of its Nonprofit/For-profit Subcommittee. He earned his JD from Brooklyn Law School and his BA from the University of Rochester. He was also a Japanese Ministry of Education Graduate Research Fellow in economic law at the University of Tokyo.
Andrew M. Grumet
Nonprofit Organizations Chair, Polsinelli Law Firm
Andrew Grumet partners with some of the largest multinational nonprofit organizations, foundations, mission-driven companies, social entrepreneurs- and philanthropists around the globe. For over 20 years, he has served as outside general counsel to numerous organizations providing practical and strategic advice. He has advised on many significant transactions and projects, including, among others, structuring a variety of nonprofit/for-profit hybrids, impact investments, social and development income bonds, one of the most historic art acquisitions in history, innovative incubator models, and some of the most widely seen cause marketing programs.
Recognizing that complex problems often require unique perspectives, Grumet takes a collaborative multi-disciplinary approach to the clients he works with. His work with the Strategic Nonprofit Solutions team at Polsinelli exemplifies this approach and serves as a powerful value-add to the firm’s work.
As an active speaker and media contributor, Grumet has been quoted in TIME magazine, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the International Herald Tribune, among others. He serves as an advisor to the Restatement of the Law of Charities and Nonprofits, a restatement that clarifies the law governing charities nationwide.
He has a BA from Syracuse University, a JD from Quinnipiac University School of Law, and an LLM in taxation from Villanova University School of Law.
Jay Grunin
Founder & Chairman, Grunin Foundation; Advisory Board Chair of the NYU Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship
Jay Grunin graduated from Brooklyn College, with honors, in 1964, and from NYU School of Law in 1967, where he was an editor of the Law Review and where he met his future wife and business partner, Linda. After a brief exposure to academia—as research assistant to an NYU Law professor teaching a seminar on legislative history—as well as a brief stint in Big Law in New York, followed by a one-year Appellate Division clerkship in New Jersey, Jay and Linda Grunin landed in a then-small town on the Central Jersey Shore called Toms River.
After a few years, they decided to open up their own small law firm. In the 1970s, as Ocean County became one of the fastest-growing counties in the entire United States, their law practice flourished. At the same time, they expanded their business interests to include real estate and other investments.
In the 1990s, the Grunins dissolved their law practice to concentrate full time on their two greatest passions, business investments and philanthropy. In 2013, their philanthropic endeavors were formalized with the creation of the Jay and Linda Grunin Foundation (now the Grunin Foundation). Grunin, among his other civic involvements, is currently Advisory Board chair of the NYU Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship and vice chair of the Monmouth Medical Center Foundation Board.
Louise Harman
Partner, Bates Wells
Louise Harman is a partner at law firm Bates Wells, the first UK law firm to be certified as a B Corp. She co-leads the firm’s multi-disciplinary Purpose & Impact strategy and advises corporate, charities, social entrepreneurs, B Corps, philanthropists, and investors seeking to create positive impact. She advises on the full range of activities carried out by clients seeking to have a positive social impact through their business and other activities, including capital-raising, formation, governance, and general nonprofit and commercial law issues.
Harman is a trustee of B Lab (UK) (the charity behind the B Corp movement in the UK) and also formed part of the Policy Council that was appointed to develop the legal requirements for B Corps in the UK. During 2016, she was also seconded to the Government Inclusive Economy Unit to help develop recommendations to government and industry on mission-led businesses as part of the Mission led Business Review. Prior to joining Bates Wells, Harman trained and worked for seven years in the general finance team of a magic circle law firm, where she advised on high-value, cross-border emerging market financial transactions, investment grade and leveraged finance transactions, and restructurings.
Oliver Hart
Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University
Oliver Hart is currently the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1993. He is the 2016 co-recipient of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Hart’s research centers on the roles that ownership structure and contractual arrangements play in the governance and boundaries of corporations. His recent work focuses on how parties can write better contracts, and on the social responsibility of business. He has published a book (Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure, Oxford University Press, 1995) and numerous journal articles. He has used his theoretical work on firms and contracts in several legal cases.
Hart is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the American Finance Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association, and has several honorary degrees. He has been president of the American Law and Economics Association and a vice president of the American Economic Association.
Joan MacLeod Heminway
Rick Rose Distinguished Professor of Law and Interim Director of the Institute for Professional Leadership at the University of Tennessee College of Law
Joan MacLeod Heminway is the Rick Rose Distinguished Professor of Law and Interim Director of the Institute for Professional Leadership at the University of Tennessee College of Law and a fellow of the C. Warren Neel Corporate Governance Center, the Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, and the Center for the Study of Social Justice at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Professor Heminway joined the College of Law faculty in 2000 after completing nearly 15 years of corporate transactional legal practice in the Boston office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.
Professor Heminway’s scholarship focuses on securities disclosure law and policy (especially under Rule 10b-5, including insider trading) and incorporated and unincorporated business associations law in the United States (including entrepreneurial and social enterprise governance and finance). She has authored numerous articles and book chapters in domestic and international publications and is a coauthor of two business law texts. Professor Heminway is a member of the American Law Institute and is licensed to practice in Tennessee (where she remains active in the Tennessee Bar Association’s Business Law Section) and Massachusetts (where she is inactive and served as chair of the Corporate Law Committee of the Boston Bar Association). She has a JD from New York University School of Law and an AB from Brown University.
Sue Hendrickson
Executive Director, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Sue Hendrickson is Berkman Klein’s executive director, helping shape its next generation of education, research, collaboration, and impact. She is an adviser and commentator on tech and digital media policy issues and serves as board member and liaison to the Tech Advisory Board of Human Rights First.
Hendrickson advocates for the deployment of tech and philanthropy in support of the public good and has helped numerous mission-driven organizations and their collaborators launch innovative initiatives addressing health, environment, education, gender equality, workforce development, human rights, and social justice. She has forged effective interdisciplinary and global alliances enabling leading international and civil society organizations, technology companies, investors, and philanthropists to embrace the promise and mitigate the risks of emerging technologies.
A leading technology and intellectual property legal and policy strategist focused on cutting-edge technology and innovation, Hendrickson’s experience with complex legal, commercial, and public policy issues spans three decades of technology expansion, from the early days of AOL to today’s advanced AI/machine learning, autonomous, and connected technologies. Her expertise extends across many sectors, including digital media, IT, telecommunications, life sciences, education, and the arts. Prior to Berkman Klein, she served as a partner at Arnold & Porter, where she co-headed the Technology Transactions and Life Sciences Transactions practices.
Hendrickson is a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Kennedy School, and was an editor on the Harvard Law Review.
Will Higginbothom
Chief Data Privacy Officer, International Finance Corporation (IFC)
Will Higginbothom is a seasoned attorney and the chief data privacy officer for International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group. He leads IFC’s global Data Privacy Office and was the primary author of IFC’s current privacy risk management policies. In addition, he provides legal advice on broader data issues, including cybersecurity and data incident response. Prior to joining IFC, he served as transaction counsel both in private practice and in-house, including roles at a small technology startup and in the data cloud division of a large multinational corporation. Higginbothom holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Rhodes College and a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.
Oliver Hunt
Partner, Bates Wells
Oliver Hunt is a partner at UK nonprofit specialists Bates Wells. At the law firm, he advises charities, social enterprises, and impact-driven businesses on a wide range of legal issues, including establishment, governance, and financing. He is a Board member of the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL).
Nnamdi Igbokwe, PhD
Director of Knowledge and Thought Leadership, Convergence
Dr. Nnamdi Igbokwe is the director of Knowledge and Thought Leadership at Convergence, the global network for blended finance, where he heads the strategic development of blended finance content and intelligence. He combines over 15 years of research experience in global capital markets, economic development policy, and development finance with more than a decade of private-sector financial advisory and institutional client management.
Previously, Dr. Igbokwe served as the director of Investor Relations at a NY global macro hedge fund, where he created knowledge products and managed the ecosystem of content to support and mobilize investments. He has also worked as a sustainable development advisor for multilateral investment initiatives sponsored by the World Bank and the African Development Bank. Prior to joining Convergence, Dr. Igbokwe was Senior Vice President leading strategic initiatives for the Data Analytics Reporting and Technology Market Risk team at Citigroup. He began his career as a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group servicing financial institutions in regulatory compliance and risk management.
Dr. Igbokwe has been awarded a doctoral research fellowship at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and was selected for the inaugural ACLS Emerging Voices postdoctoral fellowship class of 2020. He holds a BA in political science from Northwestern University, an interdisciplinary MA in international relations from Johns Hopkins University (SAIS), and an MA and PhD in international political economy from Johns Hopkins.
Daniella Jammes
Associate, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
Daniella Jammes is a finance associate at Freshfields, working in their global transactions practice in London. She advises primarily on debt capital markets transactions but also has experience in derivatives, whole business securitizations and other debt products, and bespoke financing solutions. She also has extensive experience in providing pro bono support on a number of social impact bonds and development impact bonds.
Jammes is a solicitor in the United Kingdom.
Pilar Jiménez de Aréchaga
Senior Attorney, Inter-American Development Bank
Pilar Jiménez de Aréchaga is a senior attorney at the Inter-American Development Bank, working on the development and financing of government projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. Within the IDB, she spent her first four years in the private sector division, focusing on capital market and structured financed projects. Prior to IDB, she was an associate at the project finance group of Chadbourne & Parke LLP based in Washington DC. Her combined private and public sector experience places her in a unique position for her current work at IDB, supporting the development of structured sovereign-guaranteed transactions with a focus on climate change issues.
Jiménez de Aréchaga is admitted to practice law in Uruguay, where she was born and raised, and in New York. She obtained her LLM degree from Harvard Law School.
Susan R. Jones
Director/Supervising Attorney of the Small Business & Community Economic Development Clinic, George Washington University School of Law
Susan R. Jones is an award-winning attorney and the director/supervising attorney of the Small Business & Community Economic Development Clinic at the George Washington University School of Law. She was a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and the Haywood Burns Visiting Chair in Civil Rights at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law at Queens College and also served on the faculty.
Professor Jones is a past chair of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Clinical Legal Education and chaired the sections on Africa and Poverty Law; she served on the executive committee of the Section on Transactional Law and Skills and as co-chair of the Transactional Clinics Committee of the Clinical Section.
In addition to her work with the AALS, Professor Jones has held numerous leadership positions in the American Bar Association (ABA) including vice-chair of the Economic Justice Committee, Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice, service on the governing committee of ABA Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development Law, editor-in-chief and senior editor of the ABA Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Development Law and co-chair of the Forum’s Legal Educators’ Practice Division. She is a co-founder and past co-chair of the Community Economic Development Committee of the ABA Section on Business Law, and she served on the ABA Business Law Education Committee, as well as on the ABA Commission on Homelessness and Poverty.
Professor Jones was a Fannie Mae Foundation Fellow at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, and she is a current member of Leadership Greater Washington and the American Law Institute. Professor Jones has a BA from Brandeis University and a JD and MA from Antioch School of Law.
Tatyana Kleyman
Advisor, OutcomesX
Tatyana Kleyman is an advisor to OutcomesX, a startup that is building a marketplace for social outcomes. Before joining OutcomesX, she spent 15 years as an attorney in the financial industry, most recently helping build and scale the digital assets business at Jane Street, a market making and quantitative trading firm. Previously, Kleyman worked in the Global Markets division of BNP Paribas, where she provided legal advice to the bank’s prime finance platform and was on the Microfinance employee group executive committee and the Legal Department’s inaugural Pro Bono Committee. She started her legal career in the finance group of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP.
Kleyman has served as board chair of Impact Capital Forum, a 92NY Women in Power Fellow, a business mentor through the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, a board member of Global Youth Connect, a fellow at the Community Development Project of the Legal Aid Society, and a volunteer with community-based nonprofits in Latin America, Africa, and her native Ukraine.
She holds a JD from New York University School of Law and a BA in philosophy, politics, and economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dave Koch
Founder and Partner, Plave Koch PLC
David Koch co-founded Plave Koch PLC in 2007 after many years of large-firm partnership. His practice focuses on franchising, licensing, and supply chain transactions. Projects include structuring franchise programs and license arrangements, private equity investments in franchising, corporate and commercial transactions, regulatory compliance, antitrust counseling, advertising and marketing, and international expansion.
Koch has worked with clients in food service, hotels, educational services, staffing, car rental, automotive, insurance, homeowner services, retail, and other industries. Before entering private practice, he served as an attorney-advisor to the Hon. Daniel Oliver, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. Koch is also an adjunct clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School and at NYU School of Law in each law school’s respective International Transactions Clinic, where he works with students and clients on microfranchising and branded network projects.
He is a graduate of Michigan State University College of Law and is a member of the Virginia and DC Bars.
Sanjeev Krishnan
Chief Investment Officer and Senior Managing Director, S2G Ventures
Sanjeev is the chief investment officer and senior managing director at S2G Ventures and a member of the Builders Vision Leadership Team. He’s active in developing investments and managing portfolio companies. His career has been focused on finding opportunities at the intersection of investment, sustainability and health, and innovation.
Prior to being a founding team member of S2G Ventures, Krishnan worked at various investment platforms, including CLSA Capital Partners, IFC (World Bank Group), Global Environment Fund, and JPMorgan. He is passionate about system thinking principles and the application to investing in tough tech sectors, like the food system and others related to climate change and human health.
Krishnan is a graduate of the London School of Economics and serves on a variety of advisory and corporate boards. Outside of work, Sanjeev enjoys taking calls from his minivan, playing chess, sparking up healthy debates, and spending time with his family and friends. In his downtime, you’ll find him attempting to fine-tune his DJ skills with music from past decades.
Matt Kuhlik
NYU Law Student, JD ’24
Matt Kuhlik is interested in social enterprises, emerging companies, and tech law. He attended Emory University, where he majored in business administration. Prior to law school, he worked in management consulting and as an analytics manager at a healthcare-focused tech startup. At NYU Law, Kuhlik is a managing editor on the Annual Survey of American Law, a student advocate in the Brennan Center Public Policy Advocacy Clinic, and a teaching assistant for NYU’s Stern School of Business undergraduate business law course. This summer, he is working as a summer associate at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York.
Benjamin Lawless
Senior Policy Advisor, US Treasury
Benjamin Lawless is an attorney in the US Treasury Department’s Office of Assistant General Counsel for International Affairs, currently on a detail as a senior policy advisor to the Treasury’s Office of Climate & Environment. He joined Treasury in 2020 and covers a variety of issues in Treasury’s international climate finance portfolio. This year he is serving as lead advisor to the US co-chair for the Green Climate Fund and the US representative to Climate Investment Funds (CIF).
Lawless has spent over a decade working on a variety of climate, environmental, and energy finance issues. Prior to joining Treasury, he was a Bosch Fellow in Berlin and an associate in the Washington, DC, office of Latham & Watkins.
He holds a bachelor’s degree and JD from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in environmental science from Central European University. He is admitted to the Maryland and DC Bars.
Josh Lichtenstein
Partner, Ropes & Gray
Josh Lichtenstein is a partner in Ropes & Gray’s New York office, heading the firm’s ERISA fiduciary practice. He focuses on finding creative and practical solutions to issues involving the investment of plan assets in a constantly evolving asset management landscape. He advises asset managers, private wealth platforms, large pension plans and other institutions on ERISA issues that have emerged in recent years, including advising on compliance with evolving DOL and state ESG rules.
Lichtenstein leads the team that maintains the award-winning interactive website, Navigating State Regulation of ESG Investments, which tracks relevant ESG-related legislation, executive actions and initiatives, and coalition activities, as well as changes to state retirement plan investment policies nationwide. The website offers podcasts and alert memos for key insights into this dynamic and politically charged area. He is frequently cited as an authority on these matters by reputable newspapers and trade publications. He has been recognized by Chambers USA, as a “Rising Star” by New York Super Lawyers, and by the National Law Journal for the “ESG and Community Impact Leaders Award.”
Lichtenstein received his JD from New York University School of Law after completing his undergraduate studies at the College of New Jersey.
Emmeline Liu
General Counsel, Calvert Impact Capital
Emmeline Liu is the general counsel of Calvert Impact Capital. She oversees all of Calvert Impact Capital’s legal affairs, including its overall legal structure and approach to impact, as well as negotiating agreements with its borrowers and strategic partners. She manages regulatory compliance and securities issues relating to the issuance of the Community Investment Notes. She also helps to construct creative and innovative legal structures for new impact products Calvert brings to market.
Prior to joining Calvert Impact Capital, Liu practiced in the Business and Finance group at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius’ New York office. She was actively involved in pro bono matters and diversity initiatives. She received her JD from the University of Chicago Law School and her BA from Cornell University.
Ginny Reyes Llamzon
Conference Co-Chair; General Counsel and Chief Operations Officer, MCE Social Capital
Ginny Reyes Llamzon is an international finance lawyer who has worked in frontier markets for most of her career. She has advised on the structuring of a wide range of debt and equity products in diverse legal and regulatory environments in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Central and South America.
Reyes Llamzon is currently general counsel and chief operations officer at MCE Social Capital, a nonprofit impact investor committed to generating sustainable livelihoods in emerging markets. Prior to joining MCE, she worked at the Global Innovation Fund, where she provided transaction and regulatory advice in connection with GIF’s risk capital and grants portfolio. She also worked at FMO, the Dutch development finance institution, where she was transaction counsel for their renewable energy and infrastructure transactions. Reyes Llamzon trained as a project finance attorney and previously worked for US and UK law firms in Hong Kong and Singapore, and for a law firm in the Philippines.
Jens Lowitzsch
Kelso Professorship of Comparative Law, East European Business Law and European Legal Policy, Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt
Dr. Jens Lowitzsch holds the Kelso Professorship of Comparative Law, East European Business Law and European Legal Policy at Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder). Dr Lowitzsch is director of the Kelso Institute Europe at Berlin which is undertaking applied research on participatory economics and renewables for a sustainable future. He also directs the Inter-University Centre (Viadrina, Freie Universität Berlin, Sveučilište u Splitu and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne). His main fields of expertise are employee and consumer financial participation, energy law, privatization, insolvency law, European law and legal policy, distributive justice, and the renewal of the European welfare state.
Dr. Lowitzsch was born in Germany and, besides his mother tongue, speaks fluently English, French, Italian, and Polish and is proficient in Spanish and Russian. He studied law and Slavonic studies at Freie Universität Berlin and Universytet Jagiellonski Kraków. After postgraduate judicial service at the Berlin Regional Court of Appeal, he passed the bar exam in 2002. In the same year, he earned his PhD at Freie Universität Berlin.
From 2018 to 2021, Dr. Lowitzsch directed the HORIZON 2020 project “SCORE – Supporting Consumer Co- Ownership in Renewable Energies” as coordinator. He edited Energy Transition: Financing Consumer Ownership in Renewables, published in January 2019 with Palgrave/McMillan. The book advocates Consumer Stock Ownership Plans (CSOPs) investigating their feasibility in all countries under consideration. He publishes on a wide variety of subjects concerning a just and sustainable transition to a circular society.
Edward Marshall
Co-Managing Partner, Developing World Markets
Edward Marshall is the co-managing partner of Developing World Markets (DWM), a US-based emerging markets impact investing firm. DWM has invested more than $2 billion in private debt and private equity in over 200 companies in over 60 countries worldwide, with a primary sector focus on financial inclusion. As co-managing partner of DWM, Marshall shares responsibility for leading strategy, operations, and business development, working closely with DWM’s senior team. As general counsel, he oversees legal and regulatory matters pertaining to DWM, its investment vehicles, and overseas investments. He also is a member of the DWM Equity Investment Committee.
Before joining DWM in 2009, Marshall worked as a corporate and project finance attorney in New York, representing development finance institutions in project and structured finance transactions in emerging markets, and underwriters of debt capital markets transactions in Latin America.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina with a BA in political science, earned a JD from the University of North Carolina School of Law, and earned a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University. He is a native English speaker and also speaks Spanish. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer and Outward Bound instructor in Ecuador from 1996 to 1998. He volunteers as an advisor to the Reserva Alto Coca, a 1,300-hectare nature reserve on the Eastern slope of the Andes in Ecuador’s Amazon basin.
Troy McKenzie
Dean and Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law, NYU School of Law
Troy McKenzie is Dean and Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. He served as faculty co-director of the Institute of Judicial Administration (IJA) for over six years, as well as faculty co-director of the Center on Civil Justice. His research and teaching interests include bankruptcy, civil procedure, complex litigation, and the federal courts. He studies litigation and the institutions that shape it—particularly complex litigation that is resolved through the class action, bankruptcy, and other forms of aggregation. He is a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference and the Council of the American Law Institute.
From 2011 to 2015, Dean McKenzie served, by appointment of the chief justice, as a reporter to the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules of the Judicial Conference of the United States. From 2015 to 2017, he took a leave of absence from NYU to serve in the US Department of Justice as a deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.
Dean McKenzie earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1997 from Princeton University and a law degree in 2000 from NYU, where he was an executive editor of the Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. After law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Pierre N. Leval of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining the NYU faculty in 2007, Dean McKenzie was a litigation associate at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York.
Celinda Metro
Counsel, Dispute Resolution Group, Watson Farley & Williams
Celinda Metro is counsel in the Dispute Resolution Group of Watson Farley & Williams’ New York office.
She regularly advises on maritime and insolvency issues, as well as commercial business litigation and arbitration matters, including international contract disputes, creditors’ rights in US bankruptcy proceedings, maritime lien rights, and charter party issues. She has assisted major secured and unsecured creditors in evaluating and quantifying their exposure and legal claims as against reorganizing debtors and advised lenders on strategic actions to be taken at the pre-insolvency stage.
In 2017, Metro created WFW New York’s Women’s Initiative program, aimed at promoting the advancement of women lawyers, and is also a key member of WFW’s Global Women’s Initiative. The programs have sponsored networking, community outreach, and charitable events and activities. Additionally, she has been selected as a Rising Star by Super Lawyers (2017–2020). Most recently, Metro moderated a panel at an event co-hosted with Women’s International Trading and Shipping Association (WISTA) on women in financing and, specifically, sustainability-linked loan principles related to gender diversity.
Ivette Montero
Founder and General Director of Centro Mexicano Pro Bono and Director of the Foundation of the Nacional Association of Corporate Lawyers in Mexico
Ivette Montero is the founder and general director of Centro Mexicano Pro Bono as well as the director of the Foundation of the National Association of Corporate Lawyers in Mexico. She worked previously for 20 years as a general counsel for international and national companies. She was general counsel for the Northern Region of Latin America at Becton Dickinson, Co., a global company that enables medical research. In 2007 she began her work as general counsel of Sports World, the only public company in the Wellness industry in LATAM.
Montero is professor of International Treaties at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, Mexico. After obtaining her law degree from Universidad La Salle, in Mexico City, Montero earned a degree in international business law at Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA). She also holds a certification in negotiation from Harvard Law School.
Lisa Montez
Senior Counsel of Philanthropy and Impact Investments, Builders Vision
Lisa Montez is senior counsel of Philanthropy and Impact Investments at Builders Vision. In this role, she guides Builders Initiative’s use of philanthropic tools to maximize social impact and provide advice on spanning myriad legal matters related to compliance with the laws and regulations applicable to private foundations. She also is involved with formulation of governance and compliance policies; advising program staff with respect to grantmaking; and general corporate and transactional matters.
Previously, Montez served as General Counsel for the Walton Family Foundation and deputy general counsel and assistant secretary at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She also worked at the McCormick Foundation and at Chapman and Cutler’s Chicago office, where she specialized in public finance law focused on bond financing and securitization of tax-exempt status.
Montez is a graduate of Rice University and the University of Texas School of Law and is admitted to the State Bar of Texas.
Malini Ram Moraghan
Founder and Managing Director, Torana Group
Malini Ram Moraghan is founder and managing director of Torana Group, an investment firm that offers business owners alternative capital for responsible growth and equitable exits. She has spent years balancing margin and mission, working at the intersection of food and agriculture, and impact investments. Prior to Torana, she ran a multimillion dollar-portfolio of activity through Drawing Board and DAISA Enterprises, advising single family offices, national foundations, regional food system investors, and USDA career leaders. She has worked with a variety of businesses, across a range of investor types, and has focused on integrating financial viability and measurable social impact.
Before she owned farm-grade rubber boots, Moraghan spent a decade in the private sector. She was an engagement manager with McKinsey & Co., served her community as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, and cut her teeth as an investment banker at JPMorgan in New York. She has been nationally recognized as an expert, speaking at the White House Rural Council ROI Summits and USDA’s AgOutlook, SSAWG, SAFSF, OFN, and SARL conferences. She serves on the Joint Federal Reserve-USDA Publication Advisory Committee. She is currently on the board of the Common Market and was a founding board member of Red Hills Small Farm Alliance and a past board member of a Feeding America food bank. Moraghan earned a BS in chemical engineering from Cooper Union and an MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business and has passed Level I of the CFA Exam.
Gordon Myers
Of Counsel, Wave Law; Special Adviser, Sustainable Technology, Valoris Stewardship Catalysts; Project Lead, Responsible Technology Initiative, ISLP
Gordon Myers is of counsel at Wave Law. He retired from a distinguished 27-year career at International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector financing arm of the World Bank Group, where he was most recently chief counsel and head, Technology Business Risk. Prior to that, he was chief counsel, Technology and Private Equity. He was also a core member of the World Bank Group’s Science, Technology and Innovation Global Expert Team; co-headed the IFC Legal Department’s Center for Innovation; and was principal lawyer for IFC’s original Performance Standards, as well as its Operating Principles for Impact Management, and was a member of the Legal Advisory Council of the Institutional Limited Partners Association.
Myers has a JD from Stanford Law School, an MBA from the Wharton School, and an AB from Stanford University and is a member of the New York State Bar.
Josh Nathan
Associate Director and Staff Attorney, Social Finance
Josh Nathan is an associate director and staff attorney at Social Finance, based in Boston. In this role, he partners with private, public, and social sector organizations to improve measurable outcomes for underserved and low-income populations by utilizing innovative financing models, especially in the areas of employment and workforce development.
Previously, Nathan served as an academic director at Bridge International Academies, a social enterprise improving the quality of education in developing countries; he started his career as an 8th grade teacher with Teach For America. He holds MBA and JD degrees from Northwestern University and a BA from Amherst College.
Jonathan Ng
Senior Counsel, USAID
Jonathan Ng has extensive legal experience working in the private, NGO, and government sectors. He is currently an attorney in the Office of the General Counsel of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), where he provides legal and policy advice for the agency’s private sector engagement team. He also co-leads the DC chapter of the Impact Investing Legal Working Group. He previously served as the USAID attorney for Power Africa, a presidential initiative launched by the Obama administration with the goal of doubling electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa.
Prior to joining USAID, Ng was the first global legal director for Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, an international NGO known for starting the modern social entrepreneurship movement. While at Ashoka, Ng developed the idea for the first center for law and social entrepreneurship, which is now the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship at NYU School of Law and for which he serves as an advisory board member.
Ng began his legal career at White & Case LLP in its New York office in the energy, infrastructure, and project finance practice group. He received a BA and BS, with distinction, from the University of Kansas and his JD, cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame Law School and is licensed to practice law in New York State.
Melissa Obegi
President, Conduit Capital
Melissa Obegi is president of Conduit Capital, an impact investment platform that innovates financial products to mobilize capital for social and environmental change. She provides leadership for mission-critical business initiatives and is responsible for fiduciary oversight and implementation of its strategies. With decades of experience at top tier alternative asset management firms, she has a deep understanding of the investment management business globally.
Previously, Obegi was Asia general counsel for Bain Capital, based in Hong Kong, where she was responsible for transactional, portfolio, and operational legal matters and risk management for Bain Capital’s private equity and credit businesses in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to that, she was a managing director and Asia regional counsel for Oaktree Capital in Hong Kong. She started with Oaktree Capital as associate general counsel at its Los Angeles headquarters in 2002. She previously held various positions with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a US government agency that supports investment in global emerging markets with private equity investment funds, project finance, and political risk insurance. Obegi began her career with Coudert Brothers in New York as an associate in the International Banking group.
She holds a JD from the School of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a BSc in foreign service from the Foreign Service School at Georgetown University. She is a Fellow and Advisory Committee member of Salzburg Global Corporate Governance Seminar.
Nnenne Okorafor
Legal Counsel, Acumen Fund, Inc.
Nnenne Okorafor serves as legal counsel at Acumen Fund, Inc. which she joined in July of 2022. In this role, she focuses on the development and oversight of Acumen’s venture capital funds to ensure they are operating in compliance with the law, investor requirements, and Acumen’s mission. She also supports Acumen’s direct impact investing program. Prior to joining Acumen, she was an investment management attorney at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, where she represented private fund sponsors and investors. Before that, she was a corporate associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where she focused on fund formation and supporting large financial institutions. Okorafor holds a JD from NYU School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in finance from Howard University School of Business.
Chintan Panchal
Founding Partner, RPCK Rastegar Panchal
Chintan Panchal is a founding partner and head of the US region at RPCK, Rastegar Panchal, a global boutique law firm whose mission is to co-create and facilitate the launch of scalable and investible solutions that address social and environmental targets. He has assembled a deep bench of senior talent who honed their craft at some of the world’s leading law firms and are highly skilled at building impact-investing concepts into complex financial transactions. The firm works closely with leading family offices and foundations, high-growth companies, and investment funds across a broad spectrum of industries throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America on a range of capital investments that generate social and environmental impact alongside market rate, risk-adjusted financial returns.
Panchal has been recognized many times for his contributions to law and impact investing. He was a 2019 and 2021 Grunin Finalist, has contributed to legal and business texts on impact investing, and teaches lawyers impact finance. He is a regular speaker at a variety of industry conferences around the country, including at the Sorenson Winter Innovation Summit, Gratitude Railroad, the Impact Capitalism Summit, SOCAP, and the Grunin Center’s Legal Symposium on Impact Investing. In addition to his corporate practice, he has performed pro bono work representing displaced US workers denied retraining benefits under the Workforce Reinvestment Act, and he also served as a member of the team representing 11 Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Panchal is also a board member of Camelback Ventures, as well as a Beyond Capital Ambassador.
He received a JD from Emory University and a BA in international relations from Michigan State University and is a member of the New York State Bar.
Satyadeep (Bobby) Patnaik
Chief Technology Officer, Lafayette Square
Bobby Patnaik serves as the chief technology officer at Lafayette Square, leading all technology initiatives within the firm. He has 20+ years of industry experience, with 14 years in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Lafayette, Patnaik worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) as the global head of Institutional/Fund reporting and reference data technology. Before that he spent several years developing and leading middle- and back-office technologies for GSAM. He began his career working for several technology and telecommunication companies, including AT&T and Verizon, before joining Goldman Sachs in 2006. At Goldman, he was part of the recruiting team focusing on hiring from historically black colleges and universities. He also spent time mentoring women in engineering at Goldman Sachs. Outside of work, Patnaik loves to run, hike, and watch cricket.
Originally from the small town of Keonjhar in the state of Orissa in India, Patnaik holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce/accounting from Utkal University, India, and an MS in computer science from the University of North Dakota.
Joe Pileri
Chief Legal Officer, Mission Driven Finance
Joe Pileri has over a decade of experience representing mission-driven organizations and working with diverse communities. He began his career in the corporate department of a large international law firm and later worked in a nonprofit legal services organization, both in Los Angeles. He also has taught and supervised law students representing social enterprises and community economic development-focused organizations in legal clinics at Georgetown University Law Center, American University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Pileri is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School and received an LLM in advocacy from Georgetown University Law Center. He lives in Philadelphia.
Ashlee Pinto Zurita
Senior Counsel, Builders Vision
Ashlee Pinto Zurita serves as senior counsel, Corporate at Builders Vision. She is responsible for supporting S2G Ventures, Builders Asset Management, and Builders Initiative teams on the execution of direct investments, including venture capital and growth equity investments, as well as ongoing portfolio company support and legal matters. She is also responsible for managing Builders Vision’s compliance program and supports Builders Vision in connection with legal matters related to operations, philanthropy, and other corporate matters.
Pinto Zurita is an experienced attorney with a demonstrated history of representing private funds, fund sponsors, large public companies, and investors. She is passionate about the private equity and venture capital industry and enjoys advising market-making investors and leaders. Before joining Builders Vision, Ashlee served as associate counsel at Valor Equity Partners and was an attorney in private practice with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP & Affiliates.
Pinto Zurita is admitted to practice law in New York and Illinois. She earned her law degree from Stanford Law School and received a bachelor’s degree in political science from DePaul University. While in law school, she co-authored a textbook on property law in Timor-Leste. She remains intellectually curious about tribal sovereignty and enjoys zombie and post-apocalyptic fiction. When she is not working, she is chasing her rambunctious and fearless toddler.
Elena Popovic
Secretary and General Counsel, Media Development Investment Fund, Inc.
Elena Popovic, secretary and general counsel with Media Development Investment Fund, is an attorney with extensive experience with commercial law in multiple legal systems. Since joining MDIF in 1997, she has played a critical role in structuring, documenting, and enforcing cross-border debt and equity investments for independent media in numerous emerging and frontier markets. Prior to joining MDIF, she worked on property rights of refugees and managed a legal policy task force for the former Yugoslavia at the Open Society Institute in New York. Popovic was a founder and general secretary of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia from 1994 to 1995 and general secretary of the Council for Human Rights at the Center for Anti-War Action until 1994. A graduate of the School of Law at the University of Belgrade, she worked in private commercial practice in Serbia before completing an LLM at New York University School of Law. Popovic is admitted to the New York State Bar and is currently based in Belgrade. She speaks Serbo-Croatian or southern Slavic languages.
Raluca Radu
Co-Founder and Co-Creator, Legal Innovation for Sustainable Investments (LISI) Foundation; Europe Board Member, Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL); Managing Director at the LegallySaid Accelerator.
Raluca Radu is an experienced general counsel with over 15 years of practice at the intersection of sustainability, business, policy, and law in climate innovation, cleantech, ESG, and impact investments. In 2022, she was included in the Benelux General Counsel Power List maintained by Legal 500, recognizing the top 100 in-house counsels in the region. She worked as counsel for the European Commission and as a lawyer in the public and private domains, with large companies, startups, and scaleups.
Radu also worked as general counsel for several organizations, including The Impact Facility, a platform directing capital to sustainable supply chains and the energy transition in the UK and four major African countries. Before that, she was general counsel at Fairphone, an award-winning tech company, that received the UN COP 21 Momentum for Change award and TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions list, headquartered in Amsterdam.
She co-founded the Legal Initiative for Sustainable Investments (LISI). The LISI Impact Term Sheet, an open-source legal tool for more impactful equity investments was launched in November 2022. As part of the European Board of the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers, an organization headquartered in the UK with chapters across all continents, Radu aims to shape the next generation of impact lawyers.
In 2023, she founded the LegallySaid Accelerator as a support ecosystem for the scaleup process of organizations in the impact space (launching soon).
Shirmila Ramasamy
Senior Counsel, World Bank
Shirmila Ramasamy is a capital markets lawyer who works on innovative financing mechanisms for targeted development priorities. She has been with the World Bank since 2008 and is part of the team responsible for the design and structuring of the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm), the Advance Market Commitments (AMC), the Pilot Auction Facility for Climate Mitigation (PAF), and other financing initiatives.
Ramasamy also advises on capital markets instruments pioneered by the World Bank, including the inaugural Issuer-Driven Exchange Traded Fund, which was launched on the Brazilian stock exchange in May 2019. Prior to joining the World Bank, she worked in London, New York, and Singapore, managing cross-border structured finance transactions as Managing Associate at Linklaters LLP.
Ramasamy received her LLB (Hons) from the University of London and is admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales.
Roberto Randazzo
Partner, Head of ESG and Impact, Legance
Roberto Randazzo is Legance’s responsible partner for the ESG and Impact industry. With a background in commercial and corporate law, he has developed transversal expertise in sustainability, ESG criteria, impact finance, and social innovation, assisting investment funds, benefit corporations, B-Corps, and companies interested in generating positive and measurable impacts. For more than 20 years, he has also been involved in nonprofit organizations, strategic philanthropy, and social entrepreneurship, dealing with projects both nationally and internationally, with focus on emerging markets, and in particular those in sub-Saharan Africa.
Randazzo currently is an adjunct professor at Tiresia–Politecnico di Milano and a member of the extended faculty of the Graduate School of Management at Politecnico di Milano. He is also Emeritus Director of the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL), officer of the Business Human Rights Committee of the International Bar Association, and an advisor of OECD. He earned his law degree at Università degli Studi di Milano.
Claudio Rechden
General Counsel, Deva Capital
Claudio Rechden is the general counsel of Deva Capital, a global alternative asset investment firm with operations in London, Madrid, and New York. Prior to joining Deva, he was IFC’s lead counsel for special operations in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia. He has over 20 years of legal experience in distressed investments and litigation, working on 40+ cross-border workouts and disputes across Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia in manufacturing, financial services, health and education, mining, infrastructure, and transportation. Since 2009 Rechden has taught cross-border debt restructuring as an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and has taught at Stanford Law School and University of Miami Law School. He holds an LLB from the Pontifical Catholic University (Brazil) and an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center.
Arjun Reddy
Director of Technology & Operations, Global Impact Investing Network
Arjun Reddy is a technology and consulting professional with extensive experience in solution design, product development, cybersecurity, and navigating legal and regulatory compliance. As director of Technology & Operations at the Global Impact Investing Network, he led the organization’s technology initiatives—which included new products launches, cloud software solutions, business process optimization, and risk management—all in service of the GIIN’s mission to increase the scale and effectiveness of impact investing globally.
Reddy is currently a Technology Enablement consultant at SEI, where he supports critical client needs in the areas of data and analytics, technology enablement, information security, and strategy and operations. He has developed a well-rounded understanding of the intersection between technology and business and is committed to helping clients solve their most-pressing business problems through technology-enabled solutions. Reddy earned a BA in economics, along with a BS in electrical and computer engineering, from Rice University.
Danielle Reyes
Partner, Goodwin Procter LLP
Danielle Reyes is a partner in Goodwin Procter’s Financial Industry group, providing broad regulatory compliance advice with a focus on responsible investment, financial regulatory matters, corporate social responsibility programs, non-financial reporting, and human rights. She also serves as a co-chair of the firm’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) & Impact practice. Reyes received her JD and LLM in international and comparative law from Duke University School of Law and her BA in economics from Rice University.
George Rogers
Impact Investing Legal Consultant
George Rogers possesses over 30 years’ experience in legal support to private sector development and impact projects in the Americas, including design of targeted investment funds, investments in financial institutions, trade finance, and infrastructure project finance. He has collaborated with project teams to develop innovative capital raising and risk mitigation structures, in addition to blended finance products, with impact projects ranging from pay-for-results social impact programs in Colombia to support to microfinance and climate mitigation projects, often with multi-stakeholder support. Rogers has worked with the IDB Private Sector Department and IDB Lab (Multilateral Investment Fund—administered by the IDB), IDB Invest, and law firms in New York, Washington, DC, and Buenos Aires and currently as consultant providing advice to private international investment funds and projects. He holds a JD from Columbia Law School, an MA from Georgetown University, and a BA from Cornell University, and is admitted to the New York and DC Bars.
Ariella Rotenberg
Director, Maycomb Capital
Ariella Rotenberg is the director of Strategy and Investor Relations at Maycomb Capital. She leads business and product development for Maycomb’s impact debt vertical. She also leads investor relations and communications for the Community Outcomes Fund, the Educational Resources Impact Fund, and other Maycomb Capital custom strategies. Previously, she was part of the founding team that launched The ImPact, the largest global network of family offices focused on impact investing. Rotenberg began her career as a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, focusing on public health, China, and national security issues.
She earned an MPhil from the University of Cambridge in development economics and a BA from Harvard University in social studies.
Maria Santos Valentin
Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow, Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship, NYU School of Law
Prior to joining NYU School of Law, Maria Santos Valentin served as the general counsel and corporate secretary of the Rockefeller Foundation, where she managed the foundation’s legal, grants management, and records departments. During her tenure, she helped effectuate the foundation’s historic $700 million bond offering and created the foundation’s public charity (RF Catalytic Capital) to aggregate capital for foundation-managed projects, including the Pandemic Prevention Institute and the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, which obtained over $1 billion in funding.
Prior to that, Santos Valentin worked at the Open Society Foundations, most recently serving as legal director of the Economic Justice Program and secretary and general counsel of the Soros Economic Development Fund. In this capacity, she structured and negotiated the fund’s more than 40 innovative program-related investments around the world, primarily in Central and Eastern Europe, India, Africa, and the Middle East, which totaled over $200 million. The investments focused on increasing financial inclusion and improving the lives of smallholder farmers, refugees, and migrants. Projects included the creation of over 300,000 affordable housing units in South Africa and establishing a wholly owned holding company (Aspada) to make investments in small businesses in India.
Prior to her work at private foundations, Santos Valentin worked as an international corporate securities lawyer, first for New York-based law firm Brown & Wood and then UK-based Clifford Chance, working on emerging market capital markets transactions in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. In addition, she worked for two years as a senior commercial associate with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, where she helped structure a small business lending program.
Santos Valentin is a member of the New York Bar and the American Bar Association and holds a BA in economics from Fordham University and a JD from Yale Law School.
Kevin Saunders
VP of Legal, Fidelity Foundation
Kevin Saunders is the VP of Legal of Fidelity Foundation. In that role, he supports the foundation’s philanthropic strategy by providing counsel around regulatory and corporate issues in the private foundation space, as well as by structuring relationships with a diverse group of partners in pursuit of impact.
Previously, Saunders was general counsel at Accion, where he spent 14 years supporting its financial inclusion mission. He also was an adjunct faculty member for over a decade at Boston University School of Law in its Banking and Financial Law LLM program. He has been active in the Impact Investing Legal Working Group since (before) inception.
Saunders holds degrees from Arkansas State University and Boston University School of Law.
Louise Savell
Co-Founder, Social Finance
Louise Savell is co-founder and director of the UK-based non-profit advisory firm Social Finance, where she jointly leads its international team. She advises governments, philanthropies, and service providers on the design and delivery of social development programs.
Savell is an innovator who is passionate about driving social impact through rigorous analysis, efficient structures, and effective cross-sector partnerships. She has particular expertise in outcomes-based approaches and social investment structures. She co-developed the impact bond approach in 2008.
Savell is a graduate of the University of Oxford. She was a Government Outcomes (GO) Lab Fellow of Practice in 2018 and a Visiting Fellow of Practice at the Blavatnik School of Government from 2020 to 2022.
Kristina Schwartz
Assistant General Counsel, Kiva Capital
Kristina Schwartz oversees legal and compliance matters for Kiva Capital in addition to providing legal support to Kiva’s operations. Kiva Capital is an impact-first asset manager whose funds invest in microfinance institutions and social enterprises to support financial inclusion globally.
Schwartz is a business transactions and securities lawyer with over a decade of experience at international law firms. Prior to joining Kiva in 2020, she was a partner at Womble Bond Dickinson in Durham, North Carolina, where she co-led the firm’s International Development Finance Team. Before Womble, she was an associate in the Investment Funds groups at Sidley Austin and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in New York City, and in the Capital Markets group at Sidley Austin in Sydney, Australia.
Schwartz holds a BA, summa cum laude, in comparative literature from Princeton University and a JD, with honors, from Columbia University School of Law. She is qualified to practice in New York.
Helen Scott
Professor of Law; Founder and Faculty Co-Director of the Mitchell Jacobson Leadership Program in Law and the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship, NYU School of Law
Helen Scott is professor of law and the founder and co-director of the Mitchell Jacobson Leadership Program in Law and Business at NYU School of Law, as well as faculty co-director of the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship. In that capacity, she has participated in the development of innovative law and business courses, including Investing in Microfinance, Law & Business of Corporate Governance, and Professional Responsibility in Law and Business. Scott oversees the competitive Leadership Scholars program and runs the capstone seminar for the Law and Business Projects program. She has been a member of the NYU Law faculty since 1982 and teaches a wide variety of business law courses, including the basic Contracts and Corporations courses.
Scott currently serves on the Board of Directors of IEX LLC, the newly launched stock exchange. From 1999 to 2004, she co-chaired the Listing and Hearing Review Council of the NASDAQ Stock Market, an independent advisory committee to the Board of Directors, with primary responsibility for formulating and recommending corporate governance and quantitative listing standards for that market.
Tom Scriven
Senior Counsel, RPCK Rastegar Panchal LLP
Tom Scriven is senior counsel in RPCK’s Denver office, where he advises early- and growth-stage companies, investment firms, fund managers, and foundations. He is a seasoned transactional and regulatory attorney and former general counsel and managing partner of an impact investment firm operating in Africa, chair of boards of directors, and an angel investor. He brings to his legal practice a unique perspective and seasoned track record as a finance and legal executive with mission-driven companies and investors.
Scriven advises US and international clients on private capital transactions and fund structuring, corporate legal matters, governance, and regulatory compliance. Among his areas of expertise are the design of innovative legal solutions that leverage new sources of financing to enable clients to achieve ambitious business and impact objectives. He has developed gender lens and SME investment vehicles for frontier markets, co-designed and launched first-of-their-kind blended finance partnerships, structured a social impact bond and pay-for-success grants for a family foundation, and closed numerous private capital transactions in frontier markets.
Scriven received his BA in political science from Houghton College, where he graduated summa cum laude, and his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He is a member of the bar in New York, Colorado, and Washington, DC. He also is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)® charterholder.
Fran Seegull
President, US Impact Investing Alliance
Fran Seegull is president of the US Impact Investing Alliance, which works to increase awareness of impact investing in the United States, foster deployment of impact capital across asset classes globally, and partner with stakeholders, including government, to build the impact investing ecosystem. She also serves as executive director of the Tipping Point Fund on Impact Investing—a donor collaborative focused on growing the field.
Previously, Seegull was the chief investment officer and managing director at ImpactAssets, where she headed investment management for The Giving Fund—now a $1.5B impact investing donor-advised fund.
Seegull has a BS in economics from Barnard and an MBA from Harvard. She serves on the Investment Committee of Align Impact and the Advisory Boards of SOCAP and the CASE i3 Initiative at Duke.
Carolina Serra
Partner, Beccar Varela
Carolina Serra is a partner at Beccar Varela. Her practice areas include company law, mergers and acquisitions and banks and financial institutions. She has ample expertise advising both national and international companies on complex corporate law issues and on mergers and acquisitions. She has also counseled on complex financial transactions, including advice in syndicated loans and to the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Serra obtained her law degree from Universidad de Buenos Aires (2006). She conducted postgraduate studies in law and economics at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella and Arizona State University. She worked as a foreign associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York from 2016 to 2017.
Serra is a member of the Buenos Aires Bar Association and the International Bar Association.
Kim Leslie Shafer
Senior Policy Advisor, Impact Capital Managers
Kim Leslie Shafer is the senior policy advisor at Impact Capital Managers (ICM), a field building network of over 100 private capital impact fund managers investing for leading returns and authentic impact. Since 2020 she has guided multiple organizations, including the Impact Weighted Accounts Initiative at Harvard Business School, in writing comment letters to federal agencies advocating for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure within asset management. She serves on advisory boards of JUST Capital and a credit hedge fund and is immediate past chair of Aeris, a social enterprise.
Previously, Shafer was a senior managing director in Strategic Finance at Bear Stearns, working with alternative asset manager clients. She later assisted the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission with creating its bestselling report. Earlier professional chapters included serving as staff director of the US Senate Banking Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee; working on the national staffs of two presidential campaigns; and, practicing corporate law at White & Case.
Shafer has a JD from Columbia Law School and a BA from Vanderbilt University, which nominated her for a Rhodes Scholarship and awarded her a Corning World Traveling Fellowship. She lives in New York City with her NYU Law alumnus husband.
Radhika Shroff
Managing Director, Nuveen Capital
Radhika Shroff is a managing director on the Private Equity Impact Team at Nuveen and is responsible for identifying, executing, and managing direct private equity investments in key thematic impact sectors in both developed and developing markets.
Prior to joining the firm in January 2020, Shroff was the deputy chief investment officer of Accion Global Investments, responsible for leading global equity investments and managing a portfolio of equity investments in over 20 financial institutions and innovative financial services providers that support underserved populations in emerging markets. Before Accion, she spent 15 years in various investment, advisory, and operational roles, including Latin America investment banking, global consumer and commercial banking, and microfinance principal investing at financial services institutions including UBS, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Peruvian Development Group.
Shroff graduated with a BS in economics and a BA in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from the Wharton School, and an MA in international studies, with a concentration in Latin America, from the Lauder Institute, and she is a former Luce Scholar with the Thai Ministry of Finance. She sits on the board of Yuva Pragati, a nonprofit focused on child health and wellness in rural India, and is fluent in Spanish and Gujarati.
Dr. Nomazulu Sibanda
Economic Development Specialist, Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, South Africa
Nomazulu Sibanda is an economic development specialist in the public sector. She works within the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) branch of the National Department of Public Works and Infrastructure in South Africa. EPWP is a public employment program that creates temporary employment opportunities through government-initiated projects. EPWP promotes sustainable livelihoods and targets poor, marginalized, and unskilled persons with special emphasis on vulnerable population groups. Sibanda works closely with cooperatives, private companies, and nonprofit organizations, unlocking funding opportunities, market access, and strengthening of capacity. She has extensive experience working with various government spheres, international organizations, community-based organizations, and the private sector. where she has established networks to leverage support and promote sustainable livelihoods.
Before joining the National Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, Sibanda worked for the provincial government, where she was involved in supporting local government with planning and implementation of local economic development projects, as well as creation of networks. Her research interests include the labor market, social protection, and entrepreneurship. She holds a PhD in development studies from the University of Pretoria and a master of commerce degree in economics from the University of Fort Hare.
Mike Silvestri
Director, Social Finance
Mike Silvestri is a director at Social Finance, where he leads the firm’s impact investing partnerships with donor-advised funds, family offices, and foundations. He also helps oversee Social Finance’s career impact bond portfolio, including developing regional workforce funds to finance upskilling/reskilling for low-income individuals.
Prior to joining Social Finance, Silvestri served on the Strategic Operations team within the Office of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, spearheading numerous efforts to improve service delivery across the Commonwealth. Before that, he worked as a social impact consultant at FSG, where he helped corporations, foundations, and nonprofits develop strategies to solve systemic social challenges spanning health, education, and economic mobility. He brings extensive experience in the design, implementation, and scaling of education and workforce programs. Prior to FSG, Silvestri began his career as a management consultant at Oliver Wyman, where he advised Fortune 500 clients in addressing a range of strategic and operational issues across the energy, retail, and healthcare industries. He has founded, and currently helps lead, an NGO that provides education, leadership development, and college preparation to thousands of South African township youth.
Silvestri has a joint MPP/MBA from the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. He has received numerous awards for his leadership at the intersection of business and public service, including the Zuckerman Fellowship, Dukakis Fellowship, Harvey Fellowship, Rock Summer Fellowship, George Fellowship, and HBS Leadership Fellowship. He received his BA in economics with honors from Harvard College.
Matthew Sparkes
CRO and General Counsel, BlueOrchard Finance Ltd.
Matthew Sparkes is chief risk officer and general counsel at BlueOrchard Finance Ltd. and a senior member of the global legal and risk departments of the Schroders Group, the parent company of BlueOrchard. At BlueOrchard, he leads the teams responsible for all legal, risk management, and compliance functions, a position he has held since 2018. In his capacity as general counsel, he serves as the firm’s primary in-house attorney on matters involving fund formation, investor negotiations, and complex restructuring transactions of portfolio assets. He chairs the BlueOrchard Risk Committee, represents the firm leadership on impact and sustainability-related decision-making, and holds voting membership on all investment selection committees across asset classes. Sparkes has worked with BlueOrchard since June 2016, having joined the firm as specialist counsel to the investment and risk departments, and went on to develop the in-house transactional legal function in 2017 before taking his current position.
Sparkes joined BlueOrchard from Root Capital Inc, where he served as the organization’s first in-house legal counsel in their Cambridge, Massachusetts, headquarters. He began his legal career at the US Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, DC, and prior to law school served as a senior aide on foreign and national security policy to a member of the US House of Representatives. Sparkes is graduate of Northeastern University Law School and holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Holy Cross. He lives in Geneva, Switzerland, with his wife, Dr. Susan Powers Sparkes, and their two young children.
Lorraine Spradley Wilson
Chief Sustainability Officer, Novata
Lorraine Spradley Wilson is Novata’s chief sustainability officer. She is responsible for integrating sustainability into all aspects of Novata’s business, working with customers and partners to develop their sustainability strategies and goals, and engaging with ecosystem partners, media, industry groups, and regulators. Prior to this role, she was Novata’s chief impact officer and head of ESG Methodology. In that capacity, she led the team that developed and defined a library of over 500 metrics, which were informed by ESG standard-setters and industry working groups. Before joining Novata, Spradley Wilson served on the leadership team at JUST Capital, a research non-profit based in New York. Previously, she held roles in investment management in New York at Bank of America, Third Avenue Management, and Goldman Sachs.
Spradley Wilson holds a BA in government from Georgetown University and an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business. Based in Washington, DC, she currently serves as an advisor to the NYU Center for Sustainable Business.
Christopher Stephens
Senior Vice President and General Counsel, World Bank Group
Christopher Stephens is senior vice president and general counsel of the World Bank Group. He oversees the World Bank’s Legal Vice Presidency (LEG), consisting of approximately 200 professionals located around the world. He is responsible for overall coordination and support on legal aspects of the Operational Activities of the World Bank, including lending, advisory services, country engagement, operational policies, development finance, trust funds and partnerships, and sanctions and anti-corruption. He is also responsible for legal aspects of the corporate finance functions related to financial risk, financial reporting, treasury functions, capital markets issuances, and asset management, and provides legal advice on human resources, procurement, information technology, ethics, and external affairs.
Stephens is the principal advisor to the Board of Governors, the Executive Directors, the World Bank Group President, and other members of the Senior Management Team on matters of law and policy. Prior to his appointment, he was vice president and general counsel of International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, since September 2019. Previously, he was general counsel of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and managing partner for Asia and a member of the Management Committee of law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. He has a BA from Colgate University and a JD from New York School of Law.
Linda Sugin
Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Office of Professionalism, Fordham Law School
Linda Sugin joined the Fordham Law School faculty in 1994 and has taught courses in Federal Taxation, Tax Policy, Nonprofit Organizations, Corporations, Contracts, Leadership, and Quantitative Methods for Lawyers. She was the 2021 recipient of the Fordham Law School Dean’s Medal of Achievement and the 2007 recipient of Fordham Law School’s Teacher of the Year Award. Her scholarly interests focus on issues of distributive justice in taxation and nonprofit organizations, and her articles have been published in journals at Yale, Georgetown, Columbia, and Harvard, among others. She has written about nonprofit organization governance, philanthropy and inequality, and corporate philanthropy.
Sugin is co-author of a textbook for the basic course on federal income taxation, The Individual Tax Base, published by West, now in its third edition. Her op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, and she is regularly quoted in the media on issues of nonprofit governance.
She served as Fordham Law School’s associate dean for Academic Affairs from 2017 through 2021, guiding the law school through the COVID pandemic. In that role, she focused on students, transforming the Fordham Law School student experience through new programming, resources, and courses. She developed Fordham’s Peer Mentoring and Leadership program, a rigorous and holistic approach to professional development for law students. Sugin is currently working on a book about improving legal education.
Scott Taitel
Clinical Professor at New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
Scott Taitel is clinical professor of Public Service and director of Social Impact, Innovation & Investment at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He has received Wagner’s Professor of the Year Award, as well as the Financial Times’ Award for Excellence in Sustainable Finance Education. Professor Taitel has also created the Social Innovation & Investment Initiative at Wagner, which serves as a central hub and incubator in the field of social finance, bringing together policymakers, philanthropists, finance professionals, nonprofits, and foundations to collaboratively strengthen the growing field.
As former chief operating officer for the Clinton Foundation’s Enterprise Partnership, Professor Taitel was responsible for establishing impact investment funds and the oversight of a portfolio of social enterprises, as well as economic development, health, and nutrition projects throughout the developing world.
Prior to joining the Clinton Foundation, Professor Taitel was a managing partner of an international venture capital firm and held numerous senior executive roles in both private and public multinational technology companies. His earlier career was as an economic development planner with both urban government and community action agencies. He holds a BA in policy studies from Syracuse University and an MBA from Northeastern University, where he taught as an adjunct faculty member.
Brian W. Tang
Executive Director of LITE Lab, University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
Brian W. Tang is the founding executive director of the interdisciplinary and experiential Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship Lab at the University of Hong Kong's Faculty of Law, where the lab and its students from seven of HKU’s 10 faculties have won international accolades, such as Georgetown’s Iron Tech Lawyer Invitational and the CLOC Legal Innovation in Operations Award. An innovator, ecosystem builder, and educator at the confluence of law, technology, and finance who has held senior leadership roles across three continents in global investment banks, international law firms, and now a leading university, Tang was named by Asia Legal Portal as One of the 30 People to Watch in the Business of Law in 2022.
Tang spent nearly 20 years at global investment bank Credit Suisse in Hong Kong, and at law firms Sullivan & Cromwell in New York and Mallesons in Perth, Australia, where he advised on capital markets, M&A and project financings, including Asia’s first microfinance IPO. He is co-chair of Asia-Pacific Legal Innovation & Technology Association (ALITA), an APAC Regional Board member of the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers, and a board member of Fintech Association of Hong Kong. He has an LLM from New York University School of Law and a combined LLB and BA in law and politics from the University of Western Australia.
Perry Teicher
Impact Finance Counsel, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
Perry Teicher leads Orrick’s global Impact Finance & Investment practice, advising impact-oriented clients globally, and serves as a leader of Orrick’s ESG initiatives. He represents and advises entrepreneurs, companies, fund sponsors, family offices, tax-exempt organizations, and other asset owners across a wide range of transactions, including corporate legal matters, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, private fund formation matters and portfolio transactions, and private placements. He advises clients on impact-oriented and ESG matters, integrating social, environmental, and financial outcomes into a comprehensive strategy.
Teicher serves as co-chair of the NYU Law Grunin Center/Impact Investing Legal Working Group’s annual conference on Legal Issues in Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing and is involved in other sector-building initiatives. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kazakhstan, where he supported the development of businesses aiming to create mobility and opportunity for people with disabilities in the region. Teicher is an Ariane de Rothschild Fellow and member of the ROI Community and Nexus. A native of the Detroit area and University of Michigan graduate, he remains committed to the Detroit area, supporting Detroit expat initiatives.
Vivien Teu
Partner, Head of Asset Management & ESG, Dentons Hong Kong
Vivien Teu is a corporate and commercial lawyer with more than 20 years’ experience in Asia, specifically deep and broad focus in the areas of asset management, investment funds, and financial services, regularly advising on strategic legal and regulatory matters of the industry. She is market leading in having developed a unique focus in her practice on corporate and regulatory issues around environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters, sustainable finance, responsible investment, impact, and social finance. Teu has been engaging in market advocacy and thought-leadership on ESG issues across the spectrum of capital and proactively contributing in the development of standards for corporations and the asset management industry, not only from Asia perspectives but also global relevance. Throughout her career, she has been involved in many pioneering transactions and projects. She has been highly rated for technical ability and innovation, while carrying in-depth international and Asia knowledge and insights, which she applies to advisory and transactional matters.
She is currently a partner, head of Asset Management & ESG at Dentons Hong Kong. She is a member of Dentons Global Funds Group and Dentons Global ESG Steering Group, respectively, and leads the Global Sustainable Finance Working Group. She previously held lead roles in leading funds practice, based in Hong Kong and two years in Shanghai, at tier-one regional and global law firms Deacons and Clifford Chance, respectively, and as senior in-house legal counsel, head of Legal Greater China at Invesco, a global investment management firm.
Prior to joining Dentons in 2021, Teu was founder and managing partner of Vivien Teu & Co LLP, a Hong Kong firm with an established reputation and accolades in the areas of investment funds, banking and finance, financial services, regulatory, private equity, private equity funds, and private client and wealth management. In 2018, it became one of the first law firms with dedicated practice areas on ESG, sustainable finance, social finance, and impact. Teu is qualified as a solicitor in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, England, and Wales. She is an Advisory Board member of Asia Venture Philanthropy Network, Asia’s largest impact funders’ network; a Hong Kong Board director of EMpower–The Emerging Markets Foundation; a member of a global charitable organization supporting at-risk youth; and a member of the B Lab Asia Regional Standards Advisory Group.
Gwen Thomas
Founder, The Data Governance Institute
Gwen Thomas has influenced hundreds of data programs around the globe via her teaching and the DGI Data Governance Framework that she created in 2003. After more than a decade of training, coaching, and consulting to clients such as the Federal Reserve, she spent 10 years as a data strategist for the IFC, the private sector branch of the World Bank Group. Currently, she is a principal for the consulting arm of the Data Governance Institute.
Randall Tift
Senior Associate, Oxford House UK
Randall Tift has worked for over 25 years in international development at the nexus of strategy, policy, operations, and innovation for US government and non-governmental development partners. In 2017-21, he served as a senior appointee of the US Agency for International Development, improving USAID systems and policies for the delivery of over $20 billion in annual US foreign assistance. Previously, for 11 years, Tift was senior advisor and policy director at World Vision in Washington, DC. In this role, he advised World Vision’s executive leadership on public policy and diplomatic engagement to advance more effective field programs and manage operational risk.
Prior to that, he led development programs in the field for USAID and its partners for over a decade, including three-year stints as democracy and governance officer for USAID Romania and chief of party for a six-year, $50 million USAID Serbia post-conflict democratic development and reconstruction program. Tift is currently senior associate at Oxford House UK and a consultant for several international NGOs working on international relations and global development.
Elodie Timmermans
Managing Director, Ernst & Young
Elodie Timmermans is a managing director in EY’s Climate Change and Sustainability team, where she focuses on ESG strategy and nonfinancial reporting. She has more than 14 years of experience assisting EY’s clients with advisory and assurance services focused on ESG and sustainability strategy, climate-related risks, stakeholder engagement and disclosure performances. She joined the EY Netherlands sustainability team in 2008 and transferred to the US in 2013. Her experiences enable her to give clients both global and local perspectives on ESG issues, risks, and opportunities.
Timmermans has a master’s degree in sustainability development from the University of London, UK, and a master’s degree in corporate social responsibility management and auditing from the University of Rotterdam, Netherlands. She also has a bachelor’s degree in international management and is a certified project management professional.
Carl Valenstein
Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Carl Valenstein is a senior partner at Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP in the Boston office. His practice, which spans 40 years (the first 30 of which were spent in Washington, DC), focuses on domestic and international corporate and securities matters, mergers and acquisitions, project development, and asset finance covering a wide range of industries and regions, including developed and emerging markets (Latin America and Africa). He also advises clients concerning a broad range of international risk management issues (CFIUS, anticorruption, sanctions, export controls, and trade) and has been involved in internal investigations and enforcement cases in this area. Valenstein co-chairs his firm’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and sustainable business and Cuba initiatives and is an active participant in the firm’s renewable energy and responsible labor working groups. He recently led his firm's Boston office corporate and business transactions practice.
In addition to his international transactional and compliance practice, for more than 25 years Valenstein has provided legal assistance to microfinance institutions, public charities, private foundations, social enterprises and entrepreneurs, impact investment venture capital funds, and other impact investors. His work includes setting up various impact funds, including the Habitat MicroBuild and Shelter Venture Funds, the Ujima Fund, and the Boston Impact Initiative Fund, as well as representing Jewish Vocational Services on the third Massachusetts pay-for-success (social bond) contract.
He also works as an adjunct supervising attorney within the International Transactions Clinics at the University of Michigan Law School and at NYU School of Law, where he supervises law students as they provide ITC clients with pro bono legal support on compliance and other corporate and transactional matters. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Michigan Ross School of Business Social Venture Fund and International Investment Fund and the NUImpact Fund.
Valenstein is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and is admitted to the Bars of Massachusetts, New York and the District of Columbia. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and conversant in French and Italian.
Elise van den Hoek
JD Student, Class of 2025, New York University School of Law
Elise van den Hoek is a rising second-year JD candidate at NYU School of Law. She is interested in social enterprise, international law, and sustainability, with a focus on renewable energy. She grew up in Sevenoaks, UK, before pursuing her undergraduate degree in the United States. As a Robertson Scholar, she was jointly enrolled at Duke University and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Duke was her home campus, where she received a BA in public policy, with minors in history and Russian. Prior to law school, van den Hoek developed a passion for entrepreneurship after working at a growing renewable energy startup and operating a zero-waste business on Duke’s campus. She also has expertise and research experience in US-Russia relations and transatlantic security. She hopes to pursue a legal career that spans these interests, with a focus on international transactions and sustainable development. This summer, she is working at Tech GC in an internship sponsored by the NYU Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital Fund.
Kate Vitasek
Faculty, Graduate & Executive Education, University of Tennessee
Kate Vitasek is an international authority for her award-winning research and Vested® business model for highly collaborative relationships. A Distinguished Fellow for the University of Tennessee’s Global Supply Chain Institute, Vitasek been lauded by World Trade Magazine as one of the “Fabulous 50+1” most influential people impacting global commerce.
Her pioneering work has led to seven books, including: Vested: How P&G, McDonald’s and Microsoft Are Redefining Winning in Business Relationships, Getting to We: Negotiating Agreements for Highly Collaborative Relationships, and Contracting in the New Economy. Her work also won the Supply Chain Council’s Academic Advancement award for its impact in advancing business.
Vitasek is internationally recognized for her practical and research-based advice for driving transformation and innovation through highly collaborative and strategic partnerships. She has appeared on CNN International, Bloomberg, NPR, and Fox Business News. Her work has been featured in over 300 articles in publications including Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Chief Executive Magazine, CIO Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Journal of Commerce, World Financial Review, and Intelligent Sourcing.
Prior to joining the University of Tennessee, Vitasek’s storied career included positions with P&G, Microsoft, Accenture, and Stream International and the founding of Supply Chain Visions—a boutique-consulting firm recognized by ARC Advisory Group as one of the “10 coolest” boutique consulting firms.
Ivy Wafford Duke
General Counsel, ImpactAssets
Ivy Wafford Duke is the general counsel for ImpactAssets, an impact investing trailblazer, dedicated to changing the trajectory of the planet’s future and improving the lives of all people. ImpactAssets empowers impact investors and philanthropists with access to investing opportunities and customized solutions that promote positive change. ImpactAssets has more than $2 billion in assets in 1,700 donor-advised fund accounts, working with purpose-driven individuals and their wealth managers, family offices, foundations, and corporations. Wafford Duke ostensibly “grew up” in the impact investing field, working for approximately 20 years in the Legal Department at Calvert Investments (formerly Calvert Group, Ltd.) while also providing counsel to the Calvert Foundation in fulfilling nonprofit securities-related and philanthropic activities.
Prior to re-joining the impact investing field earlier this year, she had brief stints serving as the chief compliance officer for National Real Estate Advisors, LLC—a build-to-core real estate investment adviser, and as counsel in the Investment Management Group at Seward & Kissel LLP. She began her legal career at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP (now Faegre Drinker). She holds an LLM in securities and financial regulation from Georgetown University Law Center and a JD and BA from the University of Virginia.
Amaris White
Executive Director, Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship
Amaris White is the executive director of the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship. She is a mission-driven social impact leader, with experiences in both the private legal sector and the nonprofit world. Prior to joining the Grunin Center, she was the director of Operations at Catholic Charities of New York’s Youth Services Division and the director of Volunteer Services and Community Engagement for Catholic Charities of New York’s Federation of Agencies. Before joining the nonprofit world, she was an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and vice president and senior counsel at Citi. White received her BS in business administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, her BA in economics from UC Berkeley, and her JD from Columbia Law School.
Susan Winterberg
Academic Advisory Board Member, VentureESG
Susan Winterberg is an independent consultant specializing in ESG for venture capital and disruptive technology ventures. She supports investors in establishing ESG frameworks, processes, training, due diligence, and portfolio support. She also supports think tanks and nonprofits in developing their thought leadership, advisory services, and collaborations on ESG issues.
Winterberg was previously the Inaugural Fellow for the Technology and Public Purpose Project (TAPP) at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, established by former US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter to advance responsible management and policy for emerging technologies. She also previously worked at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), where she led the Inclusive Economy team advising global companies on questions of diversity, equity and inclusion, addressing social, racial, and economic inequalities and managing the future of work in the face of increasing automation and artificial intelligence. Her thought leadership has been featured in media interviews and events by Forbes, Ethical Corporation, Harvard Business Review, MIT Technology Review, National Public Radio (NPR), Private Equity International, Responsible Investor, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and UK Sustainable Investing and Finance (UKSIF).
Winterberg spent the beginning of her career in international development and urban planning, where she developed projects in housing, transport, energy, and facilitated foreign investment for infrastructure development in emerging economies. Her global work field work experience spans more than 25 countries across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia.
David Wolf
Associate General Counsel, Global Communities
David Wolf serves as Global Communities’ associate general counsel and is the general counsel of its wholly owned subsidiary Vitas Group. Global Communities is an international development organization with operations in over 30 countries, and the Vitas Group performs financial inclusion operations through a global network of affiliates, predominantly in the MENA region. Wolf has advised on loan guaranty and term loan facilities, early-stage investments and exits, and helped transform several Global Communities microlending programs into separate legal entities. He earned a bachelor’s degree in arts in economics with a minor in Spanish from Denison University, and a JD from the University of Michigan Law School. He resides in Washington, DC.
Julie Wynne
Partner, MLL Legal
Julie Wynne is a social impact lawyer with particular expertise in philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and social impact finance. She advises individuals, nonprofit organizations, and businesses that aim to make social and environmental impact. She is also specialized in all aspects of international estate planning. Passionate about art, Wynne assists institutional art collectors and individuals on legal issues relating to their collecting activities in connection with tax and estate planning. She also advises cultural institutions on charity law, governance issues, legacies, fundraising and sponsorship. She is a trustee and the chair of the Patrons’ Club of PhotoElysée, museum dedicated to photography.
Wynne is very involved in the promotion of philanthropy and the use of business as a force for good. She is a Board member of the Global Alliance for Impact Lawyers (GAIL) and a member of the Advisory Council of the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights. She sits on various boards of charitable organizations, among them Earthworm Foundation, Switzerland for UNHCR Foundation, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), and XPRIZE (Europe). She received her law degree from the Universities of Geneva and Zurich, Switzerland, and is a member of the Bar of Geneva and of Switzerland.
Beth M. Young
Managing Partner, Corporate Governance & Sustainable Strategies
Beth Young is a lawyer and consultant to investors on corporate governance matters, including shareholder proposals, “vote no” campaigns, regulatory matters, and proxy voting. Her clients include pension funds, religious organizations, employee-owners, policy organizations, and foundations, for whom she has designed innovative initiatives addressing political spending disclosure, access to medicines, racial justice, and director voting. Young has drafted comments on many regulations proposed by the SEC and DOL, most recently rules on fiduciary duty, proxy advisor regulation, the shareholder proposal rule, and climate change disclosure. She also drafted the Human Capital Management Coalition’s petition for SEC rulemaking on human capital disclosure.
Young, together with Meredith Miller, former chief corporate governance officer of the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust, provides consulting services through Corporate Governance and Sustainable Strategies. Young previously served as the Shareholder Initiatives coordinator in the AFL-CIO Office of Investment and as a senior research associate for the Corporate Library/GMI. She co-taught a Harvard Law School seminar on Shareholder Activism and taught Corporations at Fordham Law School. She received her BA from Yale University and her JD, magna cum laude, from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Law Review.
Jessica Zarzycki
Portfolio Manager, Nuveen
Jessica Zarzycki is a portfolio manager for Nuveen’s global fixed-income team. She is an integral part of the ESG/Impact fixed-income strategy team and co-portfolio manager on the Core Impact Bond, Global Core Impact Bond, Green Bond, and Short Duration Impact Bond strategies. She is a frequent panelist and speaker at ESG and Impact conferences and was a member of the ICMA Advisory Board (2020-21), which provides insight and guidance to the Executive Committee on issues affecting the Green, Social, and Sustainable Bond markets.
Zarzycki joined the firm in 2008 as an agency MBS analyst before joining the International/EMD sector team as a European sovereign and agency analyst. Her analyst responsibilities included sovereign and local markets throughout Western and Eastern Europe. Prior to Nuveen, she worked at Citi Global Wealth Management (GWM), helping to manage liquidity and risk of the GWM balance sheet.
Zarzycki has a BS in business administration with an emphasis in finance from Ohio State University, holds the CFA designation, and is a member of the CFA Society New York and the CFA Institute.