Responsible Investment and the York Endowment Fund: Share Value or Shared Values? is a panel discussion taking place Nov. 5 from 11:30am to 1pm in the Senate Chamber, N940 Ross Building. The discussion, which is an initiative of the Committee on Responsible Investing at York University, will provide an opportunity for the York community to engage in a conversation about the investment of the University's endowment funds. The event features the following panellists:
Tessa Hebb
Tessa Hebb is the director of the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ont. Her research focuses on responsible investment and impact investment, and is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The Carleton Centre for Community Innovation is a leading knowledge producer on these topics together with non-profit and philanthropic leadership, northern communities and community economic development. Hebb is the chair of the steering committee of the UN-backed PRI Academic Network. She also serves on the boards of the Heartland Network, Canadian Business Ethics Research Network, the Responsible Investment Association and the Impact Investing Policy Collaborative. She led a four year research project on the United States Public Sector Pension Fund Investment in Urban Revitalization based at Harvard University that was funded by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations (2004-2008). She is a frequent guest speaker on responsible investment issues in both Canada and the US. She has published many books and articles on responsible investing and impact investing policies including the volumes Working Capital: the Power of Labor’s Pensions; No Small Change: Pension Fund Corporate Engagement; The Next Generation of Responsible Investing; and SRI in the 21st Century: Does it make a Difference to Society. Hebb received her doctorate from Oxford University, UK.
Irene Henriques
Irene Henriques is a professor of sustainability and economics at the Schulich School of Business at York University and chair of the York University Advisory Committee on Responsible Investing. Her research interests span economics, stakeholder management and sustainability. She has published numerous articles in leading economic and management journals. She is a member of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) Executive Committee at York University. From 2001 to 2005, she was a member of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development working group on firm level environmental management and environmental policy. In 2008-2009, she was chair of the Organizations and the Natural Environment Division of the Academy of Management. In 2005, she was appointed by the Canadian Minister of the Environment for a three-year term to the Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) to the US, Canadian and Mexican environment ministers under NAFTA (the Commission for Environmental Cooperation) and in 2007 was elected chair of JPAC. Henriques has a doctorate in economics from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ont.
Priti Shokeen
Priti Shokeen is a Toronto-based senior associate with MSCI ESG Research focused on the transportation industry and Canadian companies. Prior to joining MSCI, she managed consulting projects and research for the extractive sector at Innovest Strategic Value Advisors. Shokeen has worked for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce in Delhi, India and the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. She also has experience auditing working conditions in India’s garment factories and, as part of her team’s advocacy projects, worked on ground to create HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment awareness among target groups. Shokeen has a doctorate in accounting and finance from Kingston Business School, UK. Her thesis focused on integration of responsible investment among Canadian pension funds. She has published reports on comparative study of UK and Canadian pension fund transparency regulations and practices for the National Roundtable for the Economy and Environment, Government of Canada, Human Capital based Investment Criteria (EU Lisbon Strategy Project, FEEM, Milan), and Potential of Responsible Investing in Asian Pension Systems(University of Toronto, Canada).
The event is open to all York University community members.