HIGH WATER WOMEN
Investing for Impact Symposium Committee
In 2014, High Water Women created a special, all volunteer, committee to work closely with our Board of Directors and staff to curate, plan and execute an annual Symposium on Impact Investing. This event has established HWW as a thought leader and educator in the Impact Investing space.
Drianne Benner
Impact Committee, Co-Chair - Content
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Drianne Benner
Managing Director, Appomattox — Joined in 2010. She has over 30 years’ experience in investment management. She is responsible for business development and client service.Previously, she was Global Marketing Director at Cadogan Management where she was responsible for overseeing firm-wide marketing and client communications for institutional and family office clients.Prior to joining Cadogan, she spent ten years, most recently as a Managing Director, at U.S. Trust Company, where she developed and led client and marketing initiatives focused on investment communications, initiated an institutional consultant relations program and serviced large institutional clients. Before that she worked at Paribas Asset Management, a global asset management firm, in a variety of roles including institutional and consultant relations to some of the largest U.S. pension funds and as a manager of portfolios in an enhanced quantitative strategy. She earned a BA from Pennsylvania State University and attended graduate studies in regional planning in international development at Cornell University. Drianne is a CFA charter holder and is a former board member of the CFA Society New York. Drianne is on the board and Finance/Investment Committee of the New York City Audubon Society; chairs the Investment Committee of the American Friends Service Committee and is on the Finance/Investment Committee of the Oysterponds Historical Society.
Moya Connelly
Impact Committee
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Moya Connelly
Vice President, Global Social Finance, Deutsche Bank — Moya Connelly is an impact investment professional with extensive experience in investing and the development of investment funds. Moya was one of the founders of MicroVestin 2002, a microfinance investment management firm. She has served as the chief financial officer of a capital management company, an investment officer (lending and equity), and a member of the Board of various microfinance organizations (MFIs and NGOs). Moya is currently a Vice-President at Deutsche Bank, developing investment funds and managing investments in finance services and in the energy sector. Prior to Deutsche Bank, she developed several funds for the European market (particularly in energy efficiency and renewable energy) and managed a large microfinance fund.She has volunteered on microfinance consulting projects for Bankers Without Borders/High Water Women. Moya has an MBA from the University of Virginia.
Ariane de Vienne
Board Officer, President
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Ariane de Vienne
Global Head of Asset Owner Strategy, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), Board President, High Water Women — Ariane de Vienne is Global Head of Asset Owner Strategy at Institutional Shareholder Services. She is leading a global mandate to deepen ISS’ relationships with asset owners and consultants across ISS. Before that, Ariane was Head of ESG Strategy Americas, and part of the leadership team establishing ISS ESG as the leader and gold-standard in the responsible investment industry. Ariane joined ISS via oekom research in May of 2016. Having begun her banking career in Germany, Ariane gained extensive experience with her own impact and ESG consulting businesses in Hong Kong and New York.
Prior to that she was Managing Director at Guggenheim Investment Advisors LLC and served as Senior Vice President at David J. Greene and Company as well as in several Managing Director roles at JPMorgan Chase, leading multi-disciplinary teams. Ariane serves on the Board of Directors of several non-profit organizations focusing on social impact as well as ecological issues, including the US Board of The Climate Group. She is also an Ambassador to TBLI, a Dutch-based organization dedicated to raising awareness about the benefits and opportunities of ESG and impact investing.
Darcy Garner
Board Member
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Darcy Garner
Managing Partner, Channel Family Assets, Board Member, High Water Women — Ms. Garner has over 20 years leadership experience in the investment management industry, and serves as an advisor to entrepreneurial individuals and families. She started her firm, Channel Family Assets in 2011 and works with high net worth families around their investments, estate planning, and family education. From 2002-2011, Ms. Garner was a founding Partner of HighmountCapital, a $2.5 billion dollar wealth management firm with offices in New York, Boston, Amsterdam and Zurich. While at Highmount, Ms. Garner was directly involved in having her firm achieve a number of awards, including the PAM Awards as the best multi-family office in 2011. She was responsible for the firm’s internal investment capabilities and led the investment portfolios and staff. During her tenure, she was responsible for the firm’s marketing and branding. While at Highmount, Ms. Garner was responsible for developing governance and financial education programs for families.Ms. Garner received her BS from Tulane University in New Orleans and her MBA from Thunderbird, The Graduate School of International Management in Glendale, Arizona. Ms. Garner has served on a variety of non-for-profit boards including K.I.D.S. and was a founding and advisory member of The Redwoods Initiative. She has been a member of the Women’s Presidents Organization (WPO), Financial Women’s Association (FWA), New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA), The CFA Institute, Financial Planning Associations (FPA), and STEP. She holds a series 65, and has her Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. She has been a member of Golden Seeds, a women’s angel investing group and on the Board of Springboard Enterprises, a venture catalyst for emerging growth ventures led by women. She recently co-founded The Foundation for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment and served as the Chief Financial Officer.
Kathy Martens, CAIA
Impact Committee
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Kathy Martens
Business Development & Relationship Management Executive, CAIA — Accomplished multi-lingual professional with proven successes in global investment management – institutional business development, client relationship management and investment product development. Reputation built on strong partnership building skills across international markets, a deep understanding of cultural and language barriers and identifying product and market growth opportunities. Recognized as a trusted adviser and business partner with the ability to cultivate effective working relationships across all levels of organizations, both domestic and international.
Most recently, Kathy served as an Institutional Client Advisor for Voya where she serviced the single largest institutional distribution client and was responsible for driving asset growth from international markets, spanning over fifteen different countries across Europe, Asia and the Middle East and servicing a wide variety of institutional investors. Through her work with European clients she was introduced early on to the world of ESG/Sustainable Investing and has since developed a passion for the industry together with a personal commitment to contribute to a more inclusive and sustainable society.
Prior to joining Voya, Kathy held Business Development & Investor Relations roles at Sandell Asset Management where she was responsible for opening up the HNW channel and at Citigroup Alternative Investments where she was a main contributor to the growth of HedgeForum, a single manager hedge fund platform distributed globally through Smith Barney and Citigroup Private Bank. Kathy is a CAIA charter holder and earned a BA in Applied Economic Sciences and Accountancy from the Economische Hogeschool Sint-Aloysius in Brussels and an MBA from New York University – Leonard N. Stern School of Business. She is also a KRI Certified Instructor of Kundalini Yoga.
Sue Meirs
Impact Committee
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Sue Meirs
Consultant, National Organization on Disability — Sue Meirs is a Consultant focused on disability inclusion at work. Sue joined the National Organization on Disability as COO in 2015, where she worked closely with corporate clients as well as overseeing strategy, internal operations and staff development.
Prior to joining NOD, Sue was a COO and sales person at Barclays. She was responsible for overseeing all strategy, finance and regulatory change requirements for her department. Sue was the spokesperson for the launch of Barclays’ first diversity investment products, Return on Disability and Women in Leadership. While at Barclays Sue served as Co-Head of Reach, the disability employee resource group.
Sue holds an ScB in Engineering from Brown University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Athena Ole, CAIA
Impact Committee
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Athena Ole
Head of Private Funds Nasdaq Private Market, CAIA, Board Member, High Water Women — Athena is responsible for driving the development of the Private Funds business at Nasdaq Private Market (NPM). NPM is addressing the challenges of liquidity in alternative investment funds by creating opportunities for new product vehicles and broadening access to new sources of capital through their technology powered marketplace.Athena joined Nasdaq in 2018, bringing over 20 years of experience in financial services. At Merrill Lynch, she as a leader across various roles in the Alternative Investments (AI) business for almost 10 years. In addition to managing relationships with the firm’s AI fund partners, she also hired and led a team who championed adoption of hedge funds and private equity with the largest and most sophisticated clients of the firm. Before joining Merrill Lynch in 2007, she spent over ten years at Citigroup where she was a Director of Alternative Investment Sales at Citigroup Alternative Investments, driving third party distribution of proprietary hedge funds and private equity. Athena started her career in Citigroup’s Global Corporate & Investment Bank, and spent seven years in NYC, London and Dublin, working in Corporate Finance. Athena is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst, and received her B.A. in Economics from Columbia College at Columbia University. She lives in Montebello, NY with her husband Rich and their three boys. Outside of her career and being a hockey mom, she enjoys her directorship on the board of High Water Women, and is an accomplished musician and recording artist.
Amie Patel
Impact Committee
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Amie Patel
Director, Elevar Equity — Amie Patel is a Director with ElevarEquity and manages and cultivates Elevar’sglobal partnerships including LP and co-investor relationships. Amie was previously a Vice President with Goldman Sachs Asset Management which she joined through the acquisition of Imprint Capital. Amie focused on the firm’s ESG and Impact Investing capabilities within the emerging markets. Prior to Imprint, she was with the Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF) where she concentrated her efforts on early to growth stage investments. She managed SEDF's investments in Haiti and worked on several other investment opportunities in Palestine, India and parts of Africa. Amie also was with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation as a Presidential Management Fellow in the Investment Funds department responsible for developing and evaluating top-quartile and first-time emerging market private equity fund managers. Amie began her career as an M&A analyst with Merrill Lynch and First Union Securities. She also volunteered in Nepal with Students Partnership Worldwide as a Program Manager working on environmental education and women’s issues. She holds an MBA from Georgetown University and a BS in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis, MO undergraduate degree in Economics from Smith College.
Christine Pishko
Impact Committee
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Christine Pishko
Investment Product Strategist, Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) — Christine is an accomplished investment product strategist with extensive experience in business development and marketing in asset management. Currently, she holds a role as a US Relationship Manager with the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) responsible for Signatory Relations and Outreach. Prior to joining PRI, Christine held the role of Managing Director and lead Client Portfolio Manager for responsible investment strategies at Nuveen, a TIAA company. Previously, she held various investment product specialist roles, including director in the Retirement Services Group at New York Life Insurance Company, director and alternatives product specialist covering private equity, hedge funds, real estate and timber with Morgan Stanley’s Global Wealth Management Alternative Investment Group, and assistant vice president at Credit Suisse Asset Management, focusing on fixed income separately managed account strategies. Christine holds a Bachelors of the Arts in English from the State University of New York at Potsdam and an Masters of Business Administration in financial management from Pace University.
Imogen Rose-Smith
Impact Committee, Co-Chair - Content
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Imogen Rose-Smith
Journalist — An award winning journalist, Imogen Rose-Smith is an expert on institutional investment and sustainable asset management. She is a contributing editor to Impact Alpha, the leading publication on impact investing, and is a regular commentator on the popular Impact Alpha podcast, Returns on Investment.
Imogen was a 2017 to 2019 investment fellow at the University of California in the Office of the Chief Investment Officer to the University of California Regents. She helped design, implement and oversee the $120 billion asset owner’s award winning sustainable investment strategy. Prior to joining the UC, Imogen was a Senior Writer with Institutional Investor Magazine, where she founded and lead the publications award winning sustainable investment coverage.
From 2012 to 2015 Imogen served as an advisor to the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights foundation on their program concerning institutional asset owners, ESG and human rights. In 2015, Imogen was part of a delegation that worked successfully with the Obama White House and the Department of Labor to achieve changes to the DOL’s guidance for corporate and union pension plans concerning the consideration of ESG factors (the environment, social responsibility and corporate governance) in investment decision making.
Imogen has a BA in American Studies from the University of East Anglia, including a year abroad at UC Berkeley, and an MA in American Studies from Columbia University. She serves on the advisory committee of Girls Who Invest, a not-for-profit focused on increasing the pipeline of women investment professionals, and is a trustee of ALTSO UK, a not-for-profit which helps disabled children in developing market countries. She is the co-founder of Combinate Capital, a diversity focused venture capital initiative, and a principal of and impact investment advisor to Gravity Exists, an impact investment and advisory business. She lives in Brooklyn and Orient, NY with her husband.
Kim Leslie Shafer
Impact Committee
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Kim Leslie Shafer
Board Chair, Aeris — Board Chair of Aeris, a social enterprise that accelerates the flow of capital to good by driving accountability and transparency into impact investing. She also works as an expert witness in litigation, consults in financial services and fin-tech and serves on the Advisory Committee of a credit hedge fund. She was a Senior Managing Director in Strategic Finance at Bear Stearns until its 2008 merger, working with alternative asset managers and various structured fixed income products. Subsequently, she assisted the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in DC create its (bestselling) report and archives. In earlier professional chapters, Kim was a public finance investment banker, served as Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Banking Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee, worked on the national staffs of two Presidential campaigns and practiced corporate law at White & Case. Her policy work in Washington engendered a lifelong interest in the beneficial power of finance and the challenge of effective regulation. Having recently joined the board of Princeton’s Center for Jewish Life, Kim’s prior board service includes the Council for Economic Education, Financial Women’s Association, Women in Housing & Finance (DC) and the Alumni Association of each of her alma maters. Kim has a J.D. from Columbia Law School and a B.A. from Vanderbilt University. Post-graduate she was awarded a Corning World Travel Fellowship to explore foreign private investment and economic development issues in Asia and Africa. She resides with her husband in New York City and they have two (spectacular) teenaged children.
Anna K. Snider
Board Officer, Chair
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Anna Snider
Managing Director, Head of Due Diligence, Bank of America, Board Chair, High Water Women — Anna Snider is Managing Director and Head of Due Diligence for the Chief Investment Office within Global Wealth & Investment Management, Bank of America. In this role, Anna is responsible for manager research across all asset classes for the wealth management businesses. She also defines and executes investment strategies focusing on impact strategy research, thought leadership and investment implementation. Prior to this role, Anna was part of the alternative investments group where she advised clients on hedge fund and private assets portfolio construction and became head of research for externally managed alternative investment fund of funds. She was also a senior analyst in the risk management division at U.S. Trust. Anna offers many years of investment and risk analysis experience, having held positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, JP Morgan and UBS focusing on market, credit and operational risk management. Anna graduated from Connecticut College. She holds the Chartered Alternative Investment AnalystSM(CAIASM) designation. Anna serves as chair of the board for High Water Women, a foundation based in New York City.
Alissa Desmarais
Impact Committee
HIGH WATER WOMEN
Alissa Desmarais
Executive Director, High Water Women — Alissa Desmarais brings over 20 years of leadership experience in nonprofit and human resources management both globally and locally. She has worked with some of the best New York City organizations. Her accomplishments include closing six-figure revenue deals and managing a budget of over $5M at the City Parks Foundation, securing $1.5M in unrestricted gifts for Synergos, and increasing service revenues at Creative Alternatives by 42%. She has successfully organized and managed top tier events working with international figures such as David Rockefeller, Kofi Annan and Queen Rania of Jordan. Under her leadership the New York Public Radio gala grew by 32%. Her honest, practical, can do attitude, coupled with her strategic approach will help us guide HWW into a new phase of growth.