Advisory panel
Our new Advisory Panel members will provide Diversity in Sustainability (DiS) with strategic advice, representing the wisdom of many lived and professional experiences to help us build an intersectional and intergenerational approach to our organization. These individuals have experience in human rights, social justice, politics, responsible investment, diversity, equity and inclusion, education, Indigenous relations, environmental law, civil rights, communications, sustainability consulting, organizational development, and coalition building.
Christine Bader
Christine Bader is the author of The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: When Girl Meets Oil. She lives in McMinnville, Oregon, where she serves on the city’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Committee; teaches in Linfield University's master of science in business program; and coaches girls high school rugby. Her past positions include director of social responsibility at Amazon; manager of policy development for BP in Jakarta, Shanghai, and London; advisor to the U.N. Special Representative for business and human rights; and contributing writer for The Atlantic. She is also a half-Filipina, TED talker, and mother of twins.
Read more about Christine in her Colour Commentary profile.
Dr. Priya Bala-Miller
Dr. Priya Bala-Miller is the Founder and CEO of Palmyra Partners. Palmyra Partners was created to catalyze innovative partnerships that dismantle barriers for justice, equity and inclusion in natural resource governance and sustainable development. Priya has worked on sustainable development for two decades across three continents, in collaboration with NGOs, UN Agencies, the private sector, academia and trade unions. She holds a PhD in Political Science, and brings specialist expertise in gender equality, human rights, resource governance and sustainable finance.
Read more about Priya in her Colour Commentary profile.
Kevin P.C.J. D’Souza
Kevin is a recognized professional and ESG thought leader with over three decades of direct experience in responsible mining and is currently the Chief Sustainability Officer for Resource Capital Funds where he leads their Environment Social Governance (ESG) work. He has worked his entire career in the mining industry having begun as an operational mining engineer in West Africa after graduating from the Royal School of Mines in London in England. He has worked in operational, managerial, and executive leadership roles that range from remote exploration camps, mine construction sites, operational mines, and closure sites, to Corporate and Ministerial offices. He has worked directly for or consulted with, numerous mining companies including many of the industry’s majors such as Barrick Gold, AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Kinross, and De Beers, and was most recently the VP of Security, Sustainability & Environment for Centerra Gold. Kevin has been fortunate to have amassed direct mining experience in over fifty countries worldwide working with closely remote rural communities and indigenous groups. To complement the private sector work he has also worked extensively on mining-related human rights and sustainable development programs for some major NGOs and with International Funding Institutions (IFIs) supporting emerging market Governments on macro-level mining policy reform and mining-related community development programs (including the World Bank, IFC, ILO, USAID, and the UK’s DFID). He is strong DE&I advocate and has been a committee member of Black North Initiative (BNI) and a board member of Women in Mining Canada; and is currently an advisor to the Femina Collective and an advisory board member to International Women in Mining (IWiM).
Talynn English
Talynn English is a recent graduate from the University of British Columbia with a background in Political Science and Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice. Her involvement in Diversity in Sustainability is driven by the belief that sustainability work is entangled with other areas of justice including racial, gender, and economic justice; and therefore requires an intersectional systems-change approach to address gaps. Talynn finds joy in engaging with community grassroots organizing and building relationships through art and food.
Andrew Gonzales
Andrew Gonzales has been a lifelong Human Rights professional. Coming from 12 generations of Hispanic farmers in New Mexico, he was spurred to pursue diversity and social justice from a young age. He has worked in varied fields in several capacities, from LGBTQ rights with USAID, to Community Development in India & Nicaragua, to driving supply chain sustainability with Fair Trade USA. He now has brought his diverse sustainability experience to academia, leading Climate Justice and Sustainability programming for Northeastern University's West Coast campuses.
Read more about Andrew in his Colour Commentary profile.
Shefaly Gunjal
Shefaly is an experienced social sustainability and diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) consultant and researcher whose work focuses on the intersection between social sustainability and DEIJ. She currently is a Manager of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Citizen Relations. Shefaly holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Management and a Master of Science in Sustainability Management at the University of Toronto.
Veena Jayadeva
Veena Jayadeva is a sustainability leader with 20+ years of impact experience at international organizations, nonprofits, and the private sector. Veena is currently Head of Enterprise ESG at Guardian Life, supporting the company’s strategic priorities and leading their expanding environmental, social, and governance efforts. Previously, she served as Chief of Staff to the Chief Information and Operations Officer and was formerly Guardian’s Head of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Prior to Guardian, she served as Vice President at Grameen America and Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). She spent the early part of her career in international development, microfinance, and CSR in the United States and India at organizations including the World Bank, United Nations, and International Monetary Fund. Veena holds a M.B.A. from MIT Sloan School of Management, a M.A. in International Economics and a B.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University, and participated in Columbia Business School's Senior Leadership Program for nonprofit executives. Veena is a member of the Board of Directors of Global Impact, the Board of Directors of BRAC USA, and the Corporate Leadership Council of CHC: Creating Healthier Communities.
Charlotte King
Charlotte King connects the dots between marketing communications, sustainability, public policy, UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and equity with almost 30+ years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies, multiple levels of government, educational institutions and NGOs. Applying a multidisciplinary lens, Charlotte focuses on scaling programs to deliver game-changing impacts. She has championed urban forestry, reaching millions across the U.S.; convened collaborative forums for tropical/urban forestry and a notable legislative forum following Hurricane Katrina; provided diversity training for the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank and increased diverse forestry grantees by 30% in Georgia.
Charlotte also holds a Bachelor’s degree from Boston University in International & Comparative Studies, and she was awarded the first Martin Luther King Award at her alma mater for her senior college thesis on the impact of busing while attending Boston University during violent busing protests. More recently she co-authored the peer-reviewed journal article, “The persistence of high energy burdens: A bibliometric analysis of vulnerability, poverty, and exclusion in the United States”, as part of her Master’s Degree at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Born during the civil rights era, she has broken many barriers as the first African-American female to serve as a U.S. congressional page, in the St. Louis Junior League, on the Georgia Tree Board, and many others. She is currently Global Liaison for the United Nations Regional Centre of Excellence in Atlanta.
Beth Knight
Beth is a Social Impact and Sustainability Leader with over fifteen years’ experience driving transformation in large matrixed organizations. Beth is a committed advocate of inclusive work environments who has a proven track record spearheading systems change initiatives. She has built and led Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability functions at Amazon, EY and Accenture.
She is a Tutor at the University of Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL), Corporate Board Chair for Save the Children and a Domain Expert at Carbon13.
Beth was recognised as Great British Businesswoman of the Year in 2022.
You can reach Beth at bethknight.earth
Katie Kross
Katie Kross is a sustainability educator, career expert, and thought leader who is passionate about inspiring more professionals—and more diverse professionals—to enter sustainability, climate, and clean energy careers. She directs educational and extracurricular programs for students as the managing director of the Center for Energy, Development, and the Global Environment (EDGE) at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and is the author of Profession and Purpose: A Resource Guide for MBA Careers in Sustainability. Katie has a BA from Davidson College and an MBA from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Farron Rickerby-Nishi
Farron is a recent graduate of the University of British Columbia and the University of Oxford who lives and learns on unceded Coast Salish lands. Farron’s work and research centre on climate justice, environmental governance, political ecology, and sustainable food systems. As a Japanese-Canadian woman and activist, Farron is motivated to approach systemic issues through community empowerment, intersectional thinking, and equity-oriented solutions. Farron is drawn to Diversity in Sustainability as she believes that capacity building and uplifting diverse voices are critical for addressing complex challenges. Farron loves art and nature and can often be found hiking, foraging, creating music, and painting.
Sabrina Shadie
A life-long dedicated equity champion, Sabrina works to the principles of ‘People Care, Earth Care and Fair Shares’. Her multi-award-winning consultancy provides Ethics and Equality Strategies to enhance and elevate organisations.
Her background in community engagement, inclusive education and behaviour management in the UK public and voluntary sectors, has enabled her to create safe and inclusive learning environments. Her commitment to nurturing development and growth of diverse individuals and changing wider organisational cultures has led her to invest her time in regional and national taskforces.
Sabrina advises several diversity focused networks, including the national LINK EDI working group (a collective of the UK’s environmental charities), on implementing their shared inclusion strategy. Using her education and coaching background, Sabrina invests in young professionals from diverse backgrounds through developing inclusive partnerships, showcasing learning and instigating equity approaches to engagement and EDI strategies.
Rosie Towe
As a Senior Partner at Carnstone Partners Ltd in the U.K., Rosie advises and supports international organizations on responsibility topics including diversity, culture, environment and human rights. Prior to entering the world of consulting, she managed Community Investment at Deutsche Bank. With a background in Social Anthropology, Rosie is fascinated by human behaviour and how to shift it for the better. She is passionate about the power of business for good, and is always learning from the best data and evidence available to come up with robust strategies. Besides this, she firmly believes that allies play a key role in inclusive organizations.
Moses Williams
Moses is currently the Regional DEIB Manager (EMEA Region) for ERM, the largest global pure play sustainability consultancy.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion has featured heavily in his roles, from studying Politics & International Relations in university and getting involved with various political and non-political initiatives on and off campus. Moses then worked as a police officer in London, spending a large portion of his time implementing and leading DEI initiatives for the force, creating and running an ERG, and focusing on policy, outreach, recruitment, strategy, and training.
He became the force representative for the National Black Police Officer’s Association sitting as an NEC member and becoming the first chair of the REACH network. Moses then went to Entain, launching the company's first employee network for women and LGBTQIA+ colleagues. In his spare time, Moses loves to eat, spend time with family and friends, play sports and watch movie.
Carissa Wong
Carissa Wong is an international environmental lawyer with expertise in alternative dispute resolution and the intersection of equity and the environment. She assists First Nations in facilitated discussions supporting land claim negotiations in the Northwest Territories, and is contributing author to the book “Children’s Rights and the Environment” published by Cambridge University Press. As an Associate Fellow with the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, she has published and spoken extensively on water resources and Indigenous customary law. As a Director of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers in Ontario, she is founding Chair of its Women’s Committee. In 2019 she was named an Emerging Leader at the Action Chinese Canadians Together Summit.
Zubair Zakir
Zubair Zakir is founder and CEO of Anthropocene.io, a London-based specialist advisory firm. Over the past 16 years Zubair has advised hundreds of public, private and non-profit organisations across the value chain of carbon markets globally. A self-described ‘tree-hugger in a suit’, Zubair has worked with governments as well as Indigenous tribes, to design and deploy policy and finance mechanisms toward climate mitigation and development outcomes.
As a second generation British-Pakistani Muslim with ADHD, and proud uncle to 22 nieces and nephews, he is conscious of the need to share lived experiences which help eliminate barriers and ease the path for others to follow.
Zubair holds a Bachelors degree in Geography from Kings College, London, a Masters in European Business Management from ESCP-Europe and has undertaken executive training and further postgraduate studies at London Business School and Harvard Extension School. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, London and the Royal Society of Arts.
Advisory Panel Alumni
We would like to thank and acknowledge the contributions of our Advisory Panel alumni:
Rekha Grennan
Sandip Lalli
Kiana Michaan
Image credit: Caleb Woods