What are your key responsibilities?
As the Director of ESG/SRI, I lead a team of highly skilled ESG/SRI experts to support clients’ growing interest in aligning their portfolios with their personal missions and values. I work closely with the business development, research, portfolio management, and marketing teams, as well as our data vendors, to develop hypercustomized ESG/SRI strategies for our clients. I also liaise with our external industry partners to further enhance our client offering, including active ownership through proxy voting and the sponsoring of ESG/SRI-related shareholder resolutions.

Describe your key previous work experience.
Prior to joining Aperio, I headed ESG and defined contribution research and product development at Wells Fargo Asset Management. I started my investment management career at Barclays Global Investors, which later merged with BlackRock, where I served as a Researcher and Portfolio Manager in the firm’s quantitative stock selection strategies, and as a Senior Investment Strategist in the Global Investment Strategy and Model Portfolio Solutions group, while also spearheading the firm’s behavioral finance research and thought leadership. Earlier in my career, I was an Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs, after beginning my career in the Mergers & Acquisitions group at Salomon Smith Barney.

What is the most interesting aspect of the job to you?
I particularly enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to structure investment strategies that align with our clients’ specific personal values; every client case is unique. My role is at the cross section of ESG, quantitative investing, strategy, and marketing. Against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving ESG industry, it is rewarding to be part of helping our clients have a positive impact, as they define it, through their portfolios.

Describe some noteworthy projects you have worked on that directly impact Aperio’s clients.
I joined Aperio just as we were launching our new proprietary ESG system that allows for more flexibility and innovation in the space of Values-Aligned Investing. The close collaboration of teams across our firm, from ESG to research, portfolio management, marketing, and beyond, has been truly remarkable, especially given the sudden shelter-in-place orders related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the turbulent markets.

What do you like most about working at Aperio?
I like the people—highly skilled, respectful, and collaborative, with high integrity and a focus on learning—and the firm’s approach, a true partnership with our clients.

List any committees or organizations you are a member of outside Aperio.
In recent years, I have served to further diversity and inclusion in the investment management industry, with a specific focus on women, and to support public education.

What are some non-work-related things we should know about you?
I trained to be a professional dancer, and the athleticism, artistic expression, and quasi-meditative feeling in a ballet class is the perfect balance to my left-brain-focused professional life in quant investing.

What postsecondary degrees and/or professional certifications do you possess?
BSc (with honors) in Management Sciences from the London School of Economics; PhD in Finance from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where my behavioral finance dissertation focused on expectations formation and learning in the financial markets.