Featured Podcast (Insightia): Have we just seen a lull in ESG activism?

Sky helps SGP clients navigate investor engagements with informed perspectives and succeed leading up to and during proxy season. She has worked in several capacities as a trusted advisor for clients, advising them on how to achieve and exceed their goals. Prior to joining SGP in 2021, Sky worked at Rockefeller Capital Management where she partnered with ultra-high-net-worth families to build portfolios that aligned with their financial and sustainability objectives, focusing on carbon emissions from individual portfolios. Before Rockefeller, Sky worked at Wilmington Trust focusing on client experience initiatives.

Sky graduated cum laude from University of Richmond with a degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing and a minor in History. She is a SASB FSA Credential holder and is currently a student at Columbia University in the Certificate in Sustainable Finance program. Sky lives in New York City with her fiancé and their golden retriever, Monty.

Rob Main, CFA is a managing partner and COO at Sustainable Governance Partners (SGP). Rob focuses on board related matters, investor engagement, executive compensation, ESG strategy, and issue & financial activism.

Rob helps our clients with critical ESG strategy issues, board composition & disclosure, compensation governance, and how to optimize engagements with key investors and other stakeholders. He is an active industry thought leader and regularly speaks with executives, directors, investors, and other market participants on important corporate governance and sustainability topics.

Before founding SGP, Rob was the Head of Investment Stewardship for the Americas and Asia at Vanguard. His responsibilities included company engagement, corporate governance research, policy development, proxy voting, and ESG integration. He spoke on behalf of the firm’s stewardship program regularly at industry conferences and events, and actively contributed to thought leadership discussions and publications in industry. Rob’s prior asset management industry experience included roles as director within Vanguard’s investment manager due diligence team, head of active equity product management, and leader of the firm’s new product development efforts.

Rob earned a B.S. from the University of Richmond, and an M.B.A. from Villanova University. He is a CFA charterholder and is a member of the CFA Society of Philadelphia. He has served as adjunct faculty in Villanova University’s M.B.A. program and has guest lectured at Harvard University, Drexel University, and at Villanova’s Charles Widger School of Law. He currently serves on the advisory board for the Markets Advisory Council of the Council of Institutional Investors (CII), the Vinyl Sustainability Council, and practicalesg.com. He enjoys racquet sports, is active in the Unionville youth sports community, and once served as a ball boy for Martina Navratilova.

Topically, Marc is a recognized industry expert on shareholder proposals and other investor activism, sustainability frameworks and disclosure, regulatory and policy developments, and board of director-matters. He serves on the advisory board of the Society for Corporate Governance, Mid-Atlantic Chapter, is a regular speaker at corporate governance and other industry forums, and is routinely cited in media coverage of investor voting outcomes and expectations.

Prior to co-founding SGP, Marc served as a senior director on Vanguard’s Investment Stewardship team, where he was responsible for reviewing ESG practices of thousands of global companies, conducting hundreds of engagements with company executives and directors, and leading annual updates to Vanguard’s voting and engagement policies. Marc was also a member of investor advisory groups for the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) that provided investor perspectives on leading ESG disclosure frameworks. Marc was previously a practicing attorney, including over a decade in private practice at Dechert LLP, specializing in mergers & acquisitions, corporate finance, and corporate governance, and in-house at Vanguard, where he managed Vanguard’s corporate secretary function.

Marc received his undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia, where he was a Foundation Fellow, and his law degree from Georgetown University. A former member of the U.S. National Swim Team, Marc still enjoys time in and near the water with his partner and two daughters.

Amy drives our clients’ ESG materiality work, board-related oversight & disclosure, peer benchmarking, and sustainability reporting. Amy’s expertise in corporate governance draws from herprior role as a director and senior analyst on Vanguard’s Investment Stewardship team. In that capacity, she was responsible for evaluating the corporate governance practices of portfolio companies, and for leading engagements with board directors and executive leaders of Vanguard’s portfolio companies. Amy oversaw the team’s development of significant programmatic perspectives and participated in key regulatory initiatives. In this work, she evaluated wide-ranging and evolving ESG issues impacting passive managers’ stewardship programs globally. Previously, at Hall Capital Partners in New York, Amy was responsible for client relations for endowments and foundations, and assisted clients in integrating ESG considerations into their investment portfolios.

Amy earned a B.A. in economics from Colby College, and an M.B.A. from the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, where she was a Roy H. Park Leadership Fellow and Environmental Finance and Impact Investing Fellow. Amy holds the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board’s (SASB) Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting (FSA) credential. Amy is an alumna of the National Outdoor Leadership School, and enjoys spending time in the outdoors with her husband, daughter, and dog.

With nearly twenty years of experience in active equity fund management and passive fund stewardship, Jessica has unique insights into the practices of both fundamental active investors and passive governance decision makers. Prior to forming SGP, Jessica was a senior director on the Investment Stewardship team at Vanguard, overseeing proxy voting decision-making and leading engagement with directors and executive team members at public companies across the U.S. While at Vanguard, Jessica also led an interdisciplinary ESG working group, focusing on the research, policy and market implications of environmental, social and governance issues. Prior to Vanguard , Jessica worked in active equity portfolio management at BlackRock, Putnam Investments, and Wellington Management Company. While on the buyside, she directed global investments in securities within the energy sector, managed natural resources sector funds, and served as director of research for a global equity investing team. In merging her experience as a governance leader and an active equity investor, Jessica sees the significant opportunity to empower public companies to drive long term shareholder value by applying a long-term lens to the bottom line.

Jessica holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College, and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and five children, and serves on the board of directors of FREYR Battery (NYSE: FREY). She has served previously volunteered on the Board of Trustees for Tyler Arboretum and on the Philadelphia Committee for UNICEF USA.

Dave provides strategic guidance to our clients on ESG issues, executive compensation matters, and effectively navigating shareholder and proxy advisor policies and engagements.  Before joining SGP, Dave was an Associate Partner with the Corporate Governance and ESG Advisory Solutions consulting team at Aon. His responsibilities included pay-for-performance modeling, governance and ESG audits, and helping clients develop effective CD&A disclosure. Prior to this, Dave was Vice President of Research at proxy advisor Glass Lewis, where he was responsible for the company’s compensation analysis globally including oversight of the firm’s say-on-pay policies, as well as ESG research and shareholder proposal analysis.

Dave is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, client events, and webcasts. His views on current governance and compensation-related issues have been cited in media throughout the country. Dave was named to the 2012 NACD Directorship 100, the prestigious list of the most influential people in corporate governance and the boardroom.

Dave earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics from Haverford College and a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) from the Yale University School of Management. Further, Dave received his Certified Equity Professional (CEP) designation from Santa Clara University.