Ann brings her deep experience working across government, nonprofit, and private sectors to help find solutions to our world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges. She has over 10 years of experience partnering with clients such as Peloton, SoulCycle, UBS, Merck, Neiman Marcus Group, Virgin Voyages, and Keurig Dr Pepper to advance their progress in corporate responsibility, social impact, and sustainability. Ann is a natural systems thinker and is passionate about partnering with clients along the entire value impact chain, from North Star ideation and strategic design to activation planning and on-the-ground implementation. She is a native of Utah and has a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science and Peace & Justice Studies.

In her free time, you can find Ann reading, pretending to be a capable gardener and then getting disappointed in the results, or exploring her home base of Chicago.

What company do you see as your “North Star” in ESG/sustainability/responsibility? Why? What do they do that makes them unique, interesting, different, or particularly awesome in our field?

Neiman Marcus Group for creating an ESG program that is strategically integrated across various levels of the company. They have envisioned their enterprise-wide north stars, the medium term goals needed to succeed, and the wins that can be accomplished relatively quickly. Their official ESG initiatives are new but they have moved at an incredible speed to ignite and implement their sustainability strategy deep and wide across the company. This type of movement and commitment requires incredible agility, stakeholder engagement, and vulnerability to not just be good but great.

When you look at a company’s sustainability initiatives or reporting, what “red flags” do you see that company that might be greenwashing?

1. Heavy emphasis on storytelling with a lack of data (their marketing outpaces their strategy, accomplishments, and on-the-ground work).
2. Ambitious goals without short- or medium-term milestones to keep them accountable and check progress.
3. Lack of a roadmap as to how the goals or targets will be achieved.
4. Little to no ESG strategy integration into the wider enterprise.
5. Little or no Board or Leadership oversight of ESG initiatives, goals, plans, etc. 

When you look at a company’s sustainability initiatives or reporting, what “green flags” do you see that signal a company is the “real deal” in sustainability?

1. Year-over-year data charts.
2. Scenario planning: Not just snapshots of where the company is at a static point in time but analysis on how the company will navigate the social and environmental issues into the future.
3. Actively pointing out and addressing where they have fallen short.