Christina Alfandary
Managing Director, GAMCO Investors
Christina L. Alfandary is Managing Director, Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) and Sustainable Investments at GAMCO Asset Management, the institutional affiliate of Gabelli Asset Management Company. At GAMCO, Christina leads the company’s expansion of its ESG integration efforts and ESG investing capabilities. Christina has over twenty-five years of experience in the investment business. Prior to re-joining GAMCO, she served as Senior Managing Director, Co-Head of Nikko Asset Management Americas, Inc. While there, she managed the US business and was instrumental in a US product launch of an innovative impact investing Green Bond product developed in collaboration with the World Bank. Prior to Nikko AM, she was a Vice President at GAMCO Investors from 2000 to 2005 where she worked with institutional and high net worth clients. Her experience includes working at Morgan Stanley, both in institutional fixed income sales & trading as well as a banker in municipal finance. Christina speaks on ESG investing frequently and is a guest lecturer on ESG investing at Fordham University in its Impact Investing course. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Thacher School, a California Green Ribbon school. A native of California, Christina received an M.B.A. in Finance from Columbia Business School and earned her B.A. from Lewis & Clark College.
Meredith Jones
Partner, Aon Hewitt Investment Consulting
Meredith A. Jones is a partner at Aon Hewitt Investment Consulting, focused on emerging and diverse manager research and responsible investing strategies. She is also an internationally recognized researcher, writer, blogger speaker and expert in the alternative investment industry. She is the author of Women of The Street: Why Female Money Managers Generate Higher Returns (And How You Can Too), which won an Axiom Award gold medal in 2016. She was also named as an Inc. magazine’s “17 Inspiring Women To Watch” and serves on the Board of Directors for Rock the Street, Wall Street, a non-profit that provides financial and investment literacy programs to high school girls. Over the past 20 years, Meredith has presented her original research and insights to industry participants around the world. She is a frequent speaker on the international conference circuit and has had her findings published in books and major media outlets, including the Economist, the New York Times, CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Journal of Investing, and others. She began her alternative investment career at Van Hedge Fund Advisors International where she was Director of Research. She continued her research at PerTrac Financial Solutions and Barclays Capital, Inc., producing groundbreaking reports on emerging managers and diversity investing, before she became Director of the Rothstein Kass Institute, an alternative investment think tank, and then a partner at Aon.
Carole Laible
Chief Executive Officer, Domini Impact Investments
Carole Laible is the Chief Executive Officer of Domini Impact Investments. Domini is an investment adviser with $2.1B in assets under management and is focused exclusively on impact investing. Carole has over twenty years of impact investing experience. She is responsible for the overall research and mutual funds operations of Domini Impact Investments. She has spearheaded Domini’s pioneering work on systems-level issues and stability, focused on the influence investors can have on systems beyond their portfolio. She launched Domini’s Systems Initiative, working to evaluate and increase Domini’s systems-level impact. Carole has been active in the fossil fuel divestment movement, supporting efforts through public outreach and advocacy. Carole also serves as a founding member of Sustainability Accounting Standards Board™ (SASB)™ Investor Advisory Group, engaging with companies on the use of SASB metrics. SASB is an independent 501(c)3 organization that issues industry-specific standards for use in disclosing material sustainability information in filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ethan Powell
President/CEO/Founder, Impact Shares Corp
Ethan Powell has spent over two decades in financial services, primarily in Hedge Fund and Private Equity. Most recently Ethan founded Impact Shares. Impact Shares is a collaboration of leading financial service and non-profit organizations providing single social issue ESG solutions. Impact Shares has issued exchanged traded funds in collaboration with The NAACP Minority Empowerment ETF (Ticker: NACP), the YWCA Women’s Empowerment (Ticker: WOMN) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Ticker: SDGA). Additionally, Ethan serves as the Chairman of the board for a $4 billion mutual fund complex and is a finalist for 2016 mutual fund director of the year. Previously, Ethan was the Chief of Product and Strategy at Highland Capital Management Fund Advisors, L.P. In this role he was responsible for evaluating and optimizing the registered product lineup offered by Highland. Ethan also served as the portfolio manager of the Highland ETFs and worked with other portfolio managers and wholesalers on the appropriate positioning of strategies in the market place. Prior to joining Highland in April 2007, Ethan spent most of his career with Ernst and Young providing audit and merger and acquisition services. Ethan received an MS in Management Information Systems and a BS in Accounting from Texas A&M University. Ethan has earned the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant.
Stacy Louizos
Partner, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP
Stacy H. Louizos is a partner in Drinker Biddle’s nationally ranked Investment Management Group. For over twenty years, Stacy has represented registered investment companies and their independent directors and investment advisers-- counseling them on a broad range of matters relating to the operation of investment companies of all kinds, including the organization and offering of open-end and closed-end funds and ETFs, mergers of individual funds and fund complexes, and board governance, compliance and other regulatory matters under the federal securities laws. Stacy regularly counsels on topics such as board governance best practices, distribution, D&O insurance, risk management oversight, and on new regulatory and industry matters. She has substantial experience relating to registered fund products, including ESG and socially responsible funds, alternative investment funds, variable annuity insurance funds, funds of funds and master-feeder funds, manager of managers structures, and umbrella series trusts. She has been recognized nationally in the area of mutual/registered fund law and is also a regular speaker and writer on topics such as board governance, fund best practices and cybersecurity. Stacy is a member of Drinker Biddle’s Financial Services Steering Committee and Women’s Leadership Committee. She received her J.D. from Washington & Lee University and her B.A. from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
