Person Type: Team

RUTGER GOETHART | SENIOR ASSOCIATE

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In his role as a Senior Associate at Shift, Rutger focuses on corporate human rights due diligence, supporting companies to assess, address, prioritize, and report potential human rights impacts. He guides companies on the practical application of the UNGPs, supporting the acquisition of internal buy-in and development of strategy and policies, risk assessment, external stakeholder engagement and collection of feedback, action-planning and communications and reporting.

Rutger’s expertise is in human rights, labor rights and public/government affairs, in both national and international and EU contexts. Rutger gained this experience through work at the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) supporting the development of the social European Sustainability Reporting Standards; 15 years at HEINEKEN, as Senior Manager for International Labor Relations, where he was responsible for international labor relations and labor & human rights and as Global Public/Government Affairs Manager; as International Public Affairs Manager and as Manager for International Labor Relations at the Postal & Express Company TNT (now part of FedEx). His first practical experience in Labor Rights & Relations and Public Affairs was as Secretary of International Social Affairs for the Dutch Employers’ Federation.

Rutger is an independent member of the Dutch OECD National Contact Point for responsible business conduct (NCP). The NCP mandate is to promote the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and related due diligence guidance, and to handle cases (referred to as “specific instances”) as a non-judicial grievance mechanism.

Rutger studied at the Faculty of Law at Utrecht University, where he specialized in Labor and Civil law. He speaks English and Dutch and is proficient in French, Spanish and German. He is based in Amsterdam.

SUBAJINI JAYASEKARAN | SENIOR ADVISOR

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Defne Gürsoy Sökmen | ADVISOR

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As an Advisor, Defne works with companies and other strategic partners to support their implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).

Defne has extensive experience researching a range of human rights and international legal issues, including the UNGPs and corporate accountability. Prior to joining Shift, Defne was an independent researcher and consultant on labor rights, where she focused on occupational health and safety, collaborating with a variety of stakeholders, from the ILO to trade unions. Previously, she worked as a researcher on reporting projects for UNESCO, Freemuse and the OSCE, looking at artistic freedom, freedom of expression, and anti-slavery.

Defne is currently a PhD candidate at the Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. Her project explores the shift from the corporate social responsibility tools of the liberal economy to those of the financial economy, with a focus on the use and purpose of voluntary social disclosure mechanisms and performance rating systems.

Defne has instructed courses on legal process, ethical lawyering, corporate social responsibility and transnational law in Canada and the UK.

Defne holds degrees in Law from the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London (LL.M, distinction) and Koç University in Istanbul (LL.B, Member of the Istanbul Bar). She is currently the co-managing editor of Transnational Legal Theory, a refereed law review of transnational law.

RUBEN ZANDVLIET | DIRECTOR

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As Director, Ruben works with governments, companies, civil society organizations and investors to drive alignment with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) in public and private standard-setting initiatives. In this role he focuses on mandatory due diligence and reporting regulations, working closely with Shift’s Vice President and Co-founder, Rachel Davis. He also supports Shift’s wider engagements with companies and financial institutions in relation to regulatory developments, and thematic work on strengthening the ‘S’ in ESG.

Prior to joining Shift, Ruben was Business and Human Rights Advisor at the Dutch bank ABN AMRO, where he was responsible for the coordination of ABN AMRO’s Human Rights Programme.  Here, he helped embed the UNGPs into the bank’s corporate lending, project finance, retail banking and investment activities. Between 2016 and 2019, he represented the bank in the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement on Human Rights, a ground-breaking multistakeholder collaboration between banks, civil society organizations, trade unions and the Dutch government, ingraining responsible business conduct into the global operations of participating banks. In 2017 Ruben co-authored ABN AMRO’s Human Rights Report, following the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework, making it the first bank ever to do so.

During his time at ABN AMRO, Ruben was also a member of various expert groups on business and human rights. Within the Social Risk Working Group of the Equator Principles Association, Ruben worked to advance remedy in the context of project finance. And, as a member of the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group, he helped to inform the initial draft EU sustainability reporting standards. He has previously worked as a Policy Advisor in the Dutch Parliament, advising on corporate responsibility for human rights, and as a Public Affairs Advisor to the Dutch Chamber of Commerce.

Ruben has a PhD from Leiden University. His dissertation, which is published by Brill| Nijhoff, examines the ways in which trade and investment law both enables and constrains international labor standards. He is currently based in the Netherlands.

JENNY HOLDCROFT | DIRECTOR

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As Director, Jenny works with companies, governments, financial institutions, civil society organizations, funders and partners to advance Shift’s mission to redefine corporate practice to fully embed human rights. Working closely with the Business Engagement team, she facilitates strategic alignment and shared learning across Shift’s work.

Jenny has over 20 years of experience working with trade unions, companies, NGOs, multistakeholder initiatives, academics and others to drive progress on business and human rights. Prior to joining Shift, Jenny was Assistant General Secretary at IndustriALL Global Union, where she led major initiatives on precarious work, living wages and sustainable industrial policy. There, she engaged extensively with multinational companies, governments, NGOs and trade unions to develop pioneering joint strategies, including the ACT initiative on living wages in garment supply chains, linking brand purchasing practices to the payment of higher wages, and the seminal Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, for which Jenny jointly led the first international arbitration in the field of business and human rights to enforce its provisions.

Before this Jenny was Director of ICT, Electrical and Electronics and Aerospace Departments at the International Metal Workers Federation in Geneva. She has also held posts at the Affirmative Action Agency, the National Tertiary Education Union, and the Community and Public Sector Union, in Sydney, Australia.

Since January 2021, Jenny has worked with Shift’s Accounting for Living Wages project to support the development of an accounting model that enables companies to measure and report on progress towards living wages across their workforces and supply chains.

Jenny holds a Masters in Labour Law and Relations from the University of Sydney, and a Bachelor’s degree in French and Linguistics from the University of Exeter.

TAMMY VALLEJO | Advisor

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As an advisor, Tammy support Shift’s research and advocacy on mandatory due diligence standards at the European Union and EU member states and helps connect our work on mandatory due diligence and reporting standards. She also works to bring business and civil society perspectives from key sourcing markets into the EU debates.

Prior to joining Shift, Tammy was a policy advisor at Solidaridad Europe. She worked at influencing EU legislative developments on sustainable supply chains, including the proposal for a Directive on corporate sustainability due diligence and the proposal for a Regulation on deforestation-free products with the aim of making them inclusive of the interest of smallholders. She also participated in the multisectoral gold sector agreement negotiated under the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER) where she supported member companies in implementing due diligence in the mineral supply chain.

Tammy has extensive experience in the development of public policy in Ecuador, where she worked as a legal and policy advisor to a number of senior governmental officials. This included working toward the adoption of national legislation premised on the notion of water access as a human right. Working as a consultant for the UNDP to draft key sections of the implementing regulation of the Ecuadorian Environmental Law. Providing legal advice to the Vice-Mayoress of Quito in the exercises of her legislative power in the environmental committee. All these processes involved significant multistakeholder engagement, including with indigenous peoples’ representatives. She also supported negotiations on the restructuring of Quito’s waste management system, securing commitments to assess and address social risks, which included an obligation to conduct a fully participatory process with informal waste pickers.

Tammy holds a Master degree in Public and International law from Melbourne University, and a Master of Globalization and Social Integration from Universidad de Navarra. She has a Graduate Specialization in Environmental Management from Universidad Central del Ecuador and is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law. Tammy is a (non-practicing) lawyer qualified in Ecuador and is an Ecuadorian and French national.

BOB DANNHAUSER | SENIOR ADVISOR

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In his role as Senior Advisor at Shift, Bob Dannhauser focuses on how investors and other financial institutions address the human rights impacts associated with capital allocation decisions, the information about corporate social performance that supports their decisions, and the relationships between human rights and systemic risks that underpin risk and return in capital markets.

His expertise includes how the UN Guiding Principles are applied in the context of diverse portfolios, the evolution of more effective data and disclosure to support investment analysis and decisions, and the potential connections between human rights performance and other dimensions of relevance to assessment of financial performance and impact.

Bob’s career spans a variety of investment functions, including client-facing roles for several North American institutional asset managers, development and sales of fixed income analytic tools, and investor policy and professional standards advocacy in the US, Europe, and Asia for CFA Institute, the global membership association for professional investors. He has experience across a broad range of asset classes with corporate defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans, public retirement systems, multiemployer trusts, foundations and endowments, and high net-worth investors. His investment governance experience includes service as Chair of the CFA Institute 401-k investment committee and member of the investment committee overseeing the CFA Institute Reserve Fund.

Bob earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation from CFA Institute as well as the Financial Risk Manager (FRM) designation and Sustainability and Climate Risk certificate from the Global Association of Risk Professionals. He holds an MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, an MPH in Health Policy and Systems from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and a BA in Political Science from the George Washington University.

Francesca de Meillac | SENIOR ADVISOR

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As Senior Advisor at Shift, Francesca works with companies and financial institutions to support their implementation of the UN Guiding Principles (UNGPs).

Francesca was previously Principal Consultant at Environmental Resources Management (ERM), where she led ERM’s UK human rights team, and global technical community on modern slavery and human rights. Francesca advised multinational companies to assess and address human rights risks, build internal capacity and develop and implement fit-for-purpose policies and management systems. She also worked closely with financial institutions including development finance institutions (DFIs), commercial banks, export credit agencies and private equity on assessing and managing human rights risks in accordance with international standards including the UNGPs, IFC Performance Standards and Equator Principles IV.

Prior to ERM, Francesca was Senior Business Advisor at the Ethical Trading Initiative, a leading initiative of companies, NGOs and trade unions promoting respect for labor rights in supply chains. She supported companies to develop and improve ethical trade strategy, implementation and reporting.

From 2012-2016, she was the in-house human rights specialist at BG Group, a multinational energy company. Francesca developed and managed BG Group’s approach to integrating the UNGPs into company processes, and supported BG Group’s country offices on site, on issues including community impacts, grievance management, security and conflict, stakeholder engagement, and social investment.

She has international work experience across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America including on-the-ground experience conducting stakeholder consultation, human rights impact assessments (HRIA), environmental and social due diligence (ESDD) and monitoring. Francesca is also experienced in designing and delivering training and capacity building on social performance, human rights and sustainable finance.

Francesca holds an MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and a MA in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University. She is from Trinidad & Tobago.

As a Senior Associate, Anthony contributes to Shift’s work with governments, business enterprises, and other partners to put the Guiding Principles into practice and advises on opportunities to expand the impact of Shift’s work advancing respect for human rights.

Anthony is a business advisor, attorney, and teacher with two decades of experience counseling senior executives in the private and non-profit sectors on crisis management, corporate responsibility, and strategic communication. He has advised clients in a range of industries, including healthcare, technology, financial services, energy and manufacturing. In the non-profit sector, he has worked with the International Labour Organization, the Executive Office of the UN Global Compact, the International Secretariat of Religions for Peace, the International League for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and an international development organization in Central America.

Anthony teaches business and human rights at Columbia Law School. He co-founded the Teaching Business and Human Rights Forum, a platform for collaboration among teachers worldwide, is a member of the Editorial Board of the Business and Human Rights Journal, and is editing a guide on Teaching Business and Human Rights (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., forthcoming 2022).

Anthony holds a B.A. in political science from Yale University and a law degree from Columbia University, where he was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. He is a United States national.

FEDERICO BURLON | DIRECTOR

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As Director at Shift, Federico engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

Prior to joining Shift, Federico was Head of Delivery at Impactt. Federico managed a portfolio of clients, supported by a team of consultants. He led human rights assessment and remediation projects in the construction, energy, food and shipbuilding industries. This resulted in positive outcomes such as the return of passports and reimbursement of recruitment fees to workers and the strengthening of companies’ employment practices. Federico led Impactt’s engagement with the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy in Qatar as external monitor of worker welfare in the construction of venues for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. He also developed Impactt’s Diagnostics community of practice, delivering for clients as well as building internal capacity to execute human rights assessments around the world, with a focus on worker voice.

Prior to Impactt, Federico was a Sustainability Manager at Tesco plc. He contributed to the roll out of Tesco’s ethical trading programme to the goods-not-for-resale value chain. Federico engaged with hundreds of product and services suppliers and internal purchasing and sourcing teams to raise awareness of human rights issues and to prioritise and address the findings from third-party social audits. He also worked on climate change to develop a roadmap to achieve Tesco’s carbon reduction commitments related to direct and supply chain emissions.

In prior roles, Federico worked with a variety of human rights organisations in the United Kingdom and United States.

Federico holds a MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and a BA in Political Science and International Studies from Macalester College, with a focus on human rights law and international migration. He is a United World College Adriatic alumnus and is from Argentina.