Rob is the Program Director and Senior Researcher for Multi-Faculty Sustainability and Impact Investing Special Projects, including The Impact-Weighted Accounts Project, the Social Impact Collaboratory, and the Project on Impact Investments at Harvard Business School. Previously, Rob was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs where he had roles in Investment Product Innovation, Strategy & Development, Alternative Investment Strategies, and Private Wealth Management. Rob has consulted with the National MS Society and the World Wildlife Fund and was a 2019 Three Cairns Climate Fellow focused on mitigating the environmental effects of charcoal use in Mozambique. Rob received his MBA from Columbia Business School in the Executive Program where he concentrated on Social Enterprise and Impact Investing, graduating Deans Honors with Distinction (top 10%). He was featured in Poets and Quants annual 100 Best & Brightest Executive MBAs list. Rob is the 2019 recipient of the Carson Family Changemaker Award which recognizes commitment to the field of social enterprise. Rob earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Georgetown University where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.

Daniel Concessi is a research analyst for the Impact Investing strategy within BlackRock’s Fundamental Active Equity group. Danny covers multiple sectors within the Impact strategy, including healthcare, software, telecommunications, and financial services.

Prior to joining BlackRock, Danny was a research associate at Wellington Management, where he worked as an equity analyst on the firm’s flagship Global Impact equity strategy, and as a sector specialist covering financial services. Before Wellington, Danny spent the first two years of his career in New York City at Morgan Stanley conducting credit analysis to support the underwriting of leveraged loans.

Danny graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northeastern University, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting and a minor in economics in 2016. Outside of his career, Danny is active in community and philanthropic work, including running Boston Marathons to raise awareness and cancer research funding for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Ariel Smilowitz is a member of BlackRock’s Investment Stewardship (BIS) team, based in New York. Through direct engagement with BlackRock’s portfolio companies, the BIS team promotes corporate governance and business practices that are aligned with the long-term economic interests of BlackRock’s clients.

As a generalist, Ariel is responsible for proxy voting; engaging with senior executives and board members of portfolio companies on matters related to corporate strategy, governance, and environmental and social issues; and contributing to the development of engagement and thought leadership strategies to enhance sustainable financial performance.

Prior to joining BlackRock, Ariel worked at Rabin Martin, a global health strategy firm, where she was responsible for the execution of communications, thought leadership, and advocacy initiatives for Merck & Co.’s flagship corporate responsibility program. She started her career at UNICEF, where she supported organizational learning and development efforts to strengthen the technical expertise of employees across all programmatic and business functions.

Ariel earned a BA in Government from Cornell University and an MPA in International Development Policy & Management from the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service

William McSweeney is a research analyst and member of the Global Impact team within the Fundamental Equity division of BlackRock’s Portfolio Management Group. William
joined the Global Impact fund in 2020 and covers multiple sectors, including financial and education technology.

Prior to joining the Global Impact team, William was a research associate responsible for covering the energy industry for BlackRock’s Value and Income team. William’s
passion for impact investing came from his focus on the transition to clean energy and the electric vehicles industry.

William graduated Cum Laude from Hofstra University, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in finance and minored in economics.

Quyen Tran is the Director of Impact Investing for BlackRock. Her research creates BlackRock’s framework for advancing impact investing, including the development of BlackRock’s criteria for impact investing across asset classes. Quyen’s research includes making the case for impact in public equities, the case for alpha generation, the role impact plays in a total portfolio’s asset strategy, and best practices in impact measurement. She partners with academia and industry practitioners to develop thought leadership in the impact ecosystem. Quyen is a member of Harvard Business School’s Alumni for Impact Initiative, serves on the Global Impact Investing Network’s (GIIN) working group for impact in public equities, and is a Board Advisor for Bentley University’s Sustainable Investment Group.

Prior to joining BlackRock, Quyen worked as the sustainable investment strategist for Wellington Management. She guided the development of the firm’s flagship impact strategy in public equities and the strategy to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Previously, Quyen worked as a senior investment consultant at Cambridge Associates where she advised endowments and foundations on investment strategy and she headed the training program for analysts globally. At Fidelity Investments, Quyen was a director of investment analytics covering global equities.

Quyen earned her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BA, cum laude, in philosophy from Mount Holyoke College. She studied abroad at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, India. On a volunteer basis, she taught English as a classroom teacher in Vietnam and worked for the advancement of grade-school children in the US.

Katie is a Research Associate for the Impact-Weighted Accounts Project. Prior to joining the team, she worked with accelerators, social enterprises, institutional investors, and field-building organizations addressing global challenges through market-based approaches. Katie’s earlier work included HIV prevention and control, global health finance, and human resources for health. She earned a Master of International Business from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a Bachelor’s from Brown University where she focused on Development Studies and Global Health. Katie is driven by the IWA’s goal to think creatively and rigorously about the integration of impact metrics within corporate financial accounts, and believes the project will contribute to adoptable and scalable solutions.

Katie is a Research Associate for the Impact-Weighted Accounts Project. Previously, Katie was a Senior Consultant at Oliver Wyman. Her project experience has included work in promoting healthier consumer purchasing behavior with over twenty retailers and manufacturers as well as data migration and project management for post-merger integrations in aviation. As a Fellow with TechnoServe Ethiopia, Katie created the organization’s in-country environmental strategy and promoted farmer livelihood interventions that reduced deforestation of the last indigenous forest in Ethiopia. Katie attended Dartmouth College where she was magna cum laude and earned the Lewis H. Haney Prize for Best Thesis in Economics. She graduated with High Honors with a B.A. in Economics in 2016.