Michael Azlen is a senior investment professional with 25+ years of industry experience. After a 15-year career spanning two Canadian banks and several alternative asset management companies, Mr. Azlen founded his first investment management business in 2005 and grew it to $700 million in assets before achieving an exit to a public company. Mr. Azlen holds a Sloan Masters Degree in Leadership and Strategy from London Business School, is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) and has completed the LSE's "Economics and Governance of Climate Change" course. Following the sale of his business, Michael then focused on research into climate change and impact investment strategies, culminating in a full academic paper on carbon as a liquid and investable asset class. Based on this research, he formed Carbon Cap Management LLP as an environmental asset manager focused on carbon markets and climate impact, and launched the World Carbon Fund in February 2020.

Mike Kubzansky spent nearly three decades working across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors on the intersection of technology, markets, and social impact. He most recently served as CEO of Omidyar Network, the philanthropic investment firm founded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, leading the organization from 2018 through early 2026 and overseeing more than a billion dollars deployed across hundreds of organizations, including efforts to promote responsible development of generative AI. He also led a philanthropic funding consortium that invested in Anthropic in 2024. Earlier in his career, Mike was a partner at Monitor Group (now Monitor Deloitte), where he co-founded the firm's Inclusive Markets practice, and he spent several years at the World Bank and IFC. He holds an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and a bachelor's degree from Brown University, and serves on the boards of the Norrsken Foundation and the US Impact Investing Alliance.

Mark Surman has spent three decades building a better internet, from the advent of the web to the rise of artificial intelligence. Mark is President of Mozilla, a non-profit that works with companies and communities around the world to ensure the internet is built for people, not for profit. Mozilla's double bottom line portfolio includes the public benefit companies that make Firefox, Thunderbird and open source AI developer tools; a venture fund that invests in responsible tech companies; and a global foundation which backs the work of artists, educators and builders. Mark works across this whole portfolio to ensure Mozilla's people and resources are aimed at bending tech — and the tech industry — in a direction that serves all of humanity. Before joining Mozilla, Mark spent 15 years leading organizations and projects focused on building the internet and open source in the public interest.

Maurits Dolmans is Senior Counsel with Cleary Gottlieb, based in the firm's London office. He joined the firm in 1985 and spent nearly four decades focused on EU, UK, and international competition law, particularly in high-tech, IP, and telecom matters, appearing before the European Commission, EU courts, national competition authorities, and international arbitration panels. Over the last several years his practice has increasingly turned to sustainability, exploring how antitrust law, fiduciary duty, and climate-related litigation intersect. He is co-author of "Sustainable Fiduciary Duties," a paper examining how fiduciary obligations can help resolve the climate "prisoner's dilemma," and he co-chairs the International Chamber of Commerce's Sustainability and Competition Taskforce.

Madison Condon joined Boston University School of Law as an associate professor in 2020, where she teaches Environmental Law, Corporations, and a seminar on climate risk and financial institutions. Her research examines how climate change intersects with corporate governance, market risk, and financial regulation, and her work has been relied on by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Labor in federal rulemakings. Before joining BU Law, she was an attorney at NYU School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity, litigating against federal regulatory rollbacks, clerked for Judge Jane Kelly of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University's Earth Institute. She holds a JD from Harvard Law School, an MALD from Tufts University's Fletcher School, and a BS in Earth and Environmental Engineering from Columbia University.

Kristi Petrie is Co-Executive Director of the AJL Foundation, a Colorado-based family foundation dedicated to investing in people, programs, and movements that benefit the state's youth and families. Under her leadership, AJL moved to align the entirety of its endowment — not just its grantmaking — with its mission, using a combination of exclusionary screening, thematic investing, and program-related investments. Kristi serves on the steering committee for Colorado Funders for Inclusiveness and Equity and on the Board of Directors for Philanthropy Colorado. Before working in philanthropy, she spent years in marketing and communications for agencies in Denver, Los Angeles, and Madrid. She holds a master's degree in Journalism and a bachelor's degree in Marketing, both from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Akasha Absher is Co-President and Head of Impact Investing at Syntrinsic Investment Counsel, an IMA company and national investment consulting firm focused exclusively on foundations, endowments, and nonprofit organizations. She brings more than 25 years of experience spanning investment consulting, investment banking, fixed-income trading, risk management, and nonprofit leadership, and chairs Syntrinsic's Portfolio Implementation Committee. Previously, she was a Portfolio Manager and Research Analyst at Lucidus Capital Partners and Caxton Associates, and earlier served as Vice President and Senior Publishing Analyst at J.P. Morgan. Akasha chairs the Board of Pinnacol Assurance and serves as Treasurer of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce board. She was named one of the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce's Top 25 Most Powerful Women and a Colorado Girl Scouts Woman of Distinction. She holds a BA in Finance from Clark Atlanta University and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Kevin joined SHARE in 2013 as a Senior Analyst on social issues and became Executive Director in 2018. Prior to working with SHARE, Kevin was the Director of Advocacy for the Maquila Solidarity Network, a labour and women's rights organization, where he advised companies, governments, and public institutions on the development and implementation of policies and practices to improve respect for worker rights in global supply chains. From 1998 to 2009 Kevin served as a political advisor to the Chief and Governing Council of the Lubicon Lake First Nation in Alberta, Canada, and as Chief Negotiator for treaty negotiations with the Federal and Provincial governments. He also negotiated land use, environmental protection and economic benefit agreements with oil, gas and forestry corporations. Kevin holds a Master of Laws, LLM in international business law (with a focus on securities law, corporate governance, taxation, trade, and arbitration) and an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Environment and Resource Management from the University of Toronto.

William Burckart is the CEO of The Investment Integration Project (TIIP), where he advises a range of clients (including pension plans, investment management firms, private foundations and endowments, government and major industry bodies) on integrating system-level and investment goals through the development and implementation of related strategies. He is co-founder of Colorful Capital, a venture capital firm that brought capital support to enterprises founded and led by members of the broad LGBTQ+ community. William is Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs and The Brandmeyer Fellow for Impact and Sustainable Investing at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University. He is a fellow of the High Meadows Institute, co-author of the book 21st Century Investing: Redirecting Financial Strategies to Drive Systems Change (Berrett-Koehler, 2021), and co-editor of the book New Frontiers of Philanthropy: A Guide to the New Tools and Actors that Are Reshaping Global Philanthropy and Social Investing (Oxford University Press, 2014). His writing has been featured in Chief Investment Officer, Barron's, The Guardian, Pensions & Investments, Forbes, Quartz, top1000funds, Investment & Pensions Europe (I&PE), Benefits & Pensions, InvestmentNews, Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), ImpactAlpha, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and FundFire to name a few.

Nikki works at the intersection of climate change, natural capital degradation, wealth inequality, food and water insecurity, and social injustice — motivated to find solutions for the world's most complex problems.

She is working to contribute to sustainable and equitable investment models, mechanisms, and strategies that shift capital towards solutions creating systems change at local and global scales.

Combining a creative streak with a background in impact investing, social enterprise, and global development, Nikki aims to use the powerful tools of business to create systemic change.

Roy Swan leads the Ford Foundation's Mission Investments team, managing approximately $1.35 billion in capital dedicated to advancing social justice and addressing inequality through impact investing. He oversees a robust, global portfolio of impact investments and works to strengthen and encourage impact investing strategies across the philanthropic, corporate, and government sectors.

Before joining the Ford Foundation, Roy was managing director and co-head of Global Sustainable Finance at Morgan Stanley, where he oversaw his team's commitment of more than $13 billion to community development transactions. He was also the founding chief investment officer of New York City's Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), a federal initiative to bring new resources to distressed urban communities, which played a key role in Harlem's economic rebirth. He also previously served as CFO at Carver Bancorp, the nation's largest African American managed bank, and built deep expertise in investment banking at The First Boston Corporation, Salomon Brothers, and JPMorgan; finance at Time Warner; and practiced corporate law at Skadden Arps.

Roy has served on the boards of nonprofits related to economic development, education, and ESG reporting. He has also served on for-profit corporate and mutual fund boards. He received a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and a JD from Stanford Law School, where he was an editor of the Stanford Law Review.

Most recently, Roy authored "Positive Sum: How Zero-Sum Thinking Broke Capitalism – and How We Can Fix It," to be published by Wiley in July 2026. It reveals why zero-sum thinking continues to cost U.S. businesses $600 billion annually and offers a practical roadmap for recognizing the economic power of fairness to create broadly shared prosperity. Copies are available to order at positivesumbook.com.