Karim Harji brings over a decade of international experience in impact measurement and impact investing. He is the Managing Director at Evalysis, an impact measurement advisory firm, and Programme Director of the Oxford Impact Measurement Programme at the Said Business School, University of Oxford. He was previously on the Board of the Responsible Investment Association.
Karim works with impact investors to describe, evaluate, and improve their social impact. He was the Co-Chair of the Impact Measurement Task Force convened by the Government of Ontario, a Member of the Impact Measurement Working Group of the G8 Social Impact Investment Task Force, and an Advisor to the Rockefeller Foundation on social impact measurement.
Karim was previously a co-founder and Director at Purpose Capital (now Rally Assets), where he established and led its Impact Investment Advisory practice. He has authored widely-cited reports on impact investing, including “State of the Nation: Impact Investing in Canada” and “Accelerating Impact: Achievements, Challenges and What’s Next in Building the Impact Investing Industry”.
Desjardins Group is the largest integrated cooperative financial group in Canada. Our mission is to contribute to improving the economic and social well-being of people and communities within the compatible limits of its field of activity.
Forerunners in terms of responsible investing (RI), Desjardins offers a range of investment products made up of securities selected based on specific environmental, social and governance criteria.
Delphi is part of a constellation of organizations that includes GLOBE Series, the EXCEL Partnership and Leading Change.
Delphi offers a range of consulting services weaving together profit and the environment, with expertise in the fields of corporate sustainability, climate change, the green economy, and cleantech and innovation.
Responsible for business development and client service for Eastern Canada.
At Ninepoint Institutional Partners we work with Canadian Pension Plans, Foundations, Endowments, Insurance Companies, Family Offices, and other institutional investors to provide objective, comprehensive investment management solutions from around the globe.
We seek to understand the issues that plans face and we discuss the options and combinations that make an effective solution. With exposure to many plans over the years, we can provide perspective on how similar plans have approached similar problems. As a team, we have a long track-record of working with investment managers in the alternative income, real assets, and diversified core spaces.
Steve has practised corporate and securities law throughout his career at major law firms in New York and Toronto, took a working sabbatical in 1998 as a principal at private equity firm Royal Bank Equity Partners and since 1999 has been a partner at Fasken, a 900 lawyer international law firm. Steve co-founded Fasken’s ESG & Sustainability group and spends substantial time advising on ESG matters.
Steve also is the Chair, ESG at Middlefield, a Canadian investment manager.
From 2011 to 2018 Steve was the Executive Director of the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance (CCGG), whose members are institutional investors across Canada which collectively manage over $5 trillion of assets. As Executive Director of CCGG, Steve created and debated public policy positions in relation to ESG issues and led over 85 ESG engagement meetings between CCGG and directors of public companies across Canada. The Directors’ E&S Guidebook was the final publication issued by CCGG during Steve’s tenure.
Steve has spoken and written widely and has been interviewed by television, radio and newspaper reporters on numerous ESG topics. The press have called Steve’s writing “insightful” and “prescient” and have referred to Steve as “a leading governance expert”, “a leading practitioner in the Canadian fund industry” and one of “Canada’s top M&A attorneys”. Global Proxy Watch named Steve one of the “10 people around the world who have had the most impact on corporate governance” in 2016.
Steve is a director of the RIA and a director and past President of the Harvard Business School Club of Toronto and was the inaugural Co-Chair of the Global Network of Investor Associations. He also is a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors and the Global Stewardship Committee (and prior thereto the Shareholder Rights Committee) of the International Corporate Governance Network.
Steve is a member of the New York and Ontario bars. He has law degrees from University of Toronto and New York University, an M.B.A. from Harvard University, the Responsible Investment Professional Certification from the RIA and the certificate in Sustainable Capitalism & ESG from UC Berkeley Law.
Coro Strandberg is a thought leader and advisor on embedding sustainability into the marketplace. She specializes in corporate sustainability, sustainability governance, social finance, banking and insurance and socially responsible investment. She has 25-years experience in this work from her days as director and Chair of Vancity Credit Union, which created the first SRI fund in Canada shortly before Coro joined the Board. She was a founding trustee of Ethical Funds Inc., Canada’s most comprehensive family of socially responsible mutual funds.
Clients hire Coro for advice on sustainable and impact investment strategies and social finance and social insurance business models. Community Foundations of Canada, for example, hired Coro to help them launch their responsible investment education and engagement program for community foundations. She authored much of the original Canadian research on impact investing, socially responsible investment, and sustainability governance which she posts on her website along with her other social finance publications.
Coro was a member of Canada’s National Advisory Board to the Social Impact Investment Taskforce established by the G8. Currently she is an advisory panel member to the Office of the Auditor General’s Sustainable Development Commissioner and on the board of BC Lotteries Corporation.
Coro was recognized as the top CSR consultant by Canada’s Clean50 in 2015 for her impact.
Catherine has over 20 years of experience in the investment funds industry and as VP, Product Management, ESG Funds at RBC Global Asset Management (RBC GAM), leads the execution of product-related initiatives. She works closely with various teams at RBC GAM to drive the adoption of responsible investment within the Individual Investor business through education and communication.
In 2009, Catherine joined RBC GAM as a Portfolio Specialist and during her nine-year tenure in the Investment Products Advisory Group covered fixed income, quantitative and ESG strategies. Prior to that she spent seven years at Phillips, Hager & North in their direct-to-investor business.
Catherine has a Master of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music and Bachelor of Music from the University of Ottawa. She holds the Canadian Investment Manager (CIM) designation as well as the Responsible Investment Professional Certification (RIPC).