There are lots of opinions about how companies can operate more transparently and with greater purpose. I’ve spent decades doing it.

My career in sustainability started with a simple childhood desire for more baseball cards.

My hometown didn’t have recycling, so I went door to door collecting aluminum cans. I hauled them to the dump in the 25-foot family station wagon and took the cash straight to the baseball card shop. 

I didn’t know it then, but I was learning that reducing our environmental impacts can go hand in hand with profitability.

That early lesson has been my North Star ever since.

I majored in Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz, and from there I joined The Nature Conservancy, supporting a $60M capital campaign for land conservation in Massachusetts.

In 2003, I found my niche at Ceres, an influential organization in the sustainability field which pioneered corporate ESG disclosure, including the creation of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). It was at Ceres that I helped launch the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a coalition of institutional investors committed to addressing climate-related financial exposure in their portfolios. 

For more than a decade after business school, I consulted with a wide range of Fortune 500 companies on ESG strategy, reporting, and communications, producing over 50 sustainability reports for Russell 1000 clients. This breadth of industry experience gave me a sector-agnostic view of the challenges, key stakeholder partners, and strategies that are key to delivering sustainability disclosures that hold up to stakeholder and investor scrutiny.

In 2020, I was recruited by Merck to lead their ESG reporting in-house. What followed was four years in a rapidly evolving ESG landscape, marked by co-leading the company’s preparation for the EU’s CSRD requirements alongside the Controller’s Office, onboarding enterprise data management systems, and establishing an ESG Disclosure Committee in collaboration with legal and finance counterparts. 

Large organizations are like container ships. They don’t turn quickly. But with consistent and strategic nudging through evidenced case studies, a real-world approach to disclosure frameworks, and creating governance structures to codify expectations, companies’ destinations can vary significantly by the time these ships make it across the ocean.

After twenty years, I’m more passionate than ever about nudging ships toward a more resilient and efficient future.