Archives: People

MARK HODGE | VICE PRESIDENT

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JENNY HOLDCROFT | DEPUTY DIRECTOR, BUSINESS ENGAGEMENT

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As Deputy Director of Business Engagement, 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. Most recently, 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.

SUBAJINI JAYASEKARAN | ADVISOR

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MAIREAD KEIGHER | ADVISOR

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As an Advisor with Shift, Mairead works hand-in-hand with companies and other strategic partners to build capacity to identify, prioritize and mitigate human rights risks. She blends her background in business, technology, CSR and human rights disclosure to help companies fulfill their responsibility to respect human rights. From 2016-2019, she managed Shift’s Reporting Program, a flagship initiative aimed at developing corporate capacity for improved human rights disclosure in line with the UNGPs and equipping other stakeholders to understand and interpret this disclosure, particularly through the expansion of the UNGP Reporting Database. As part of this program, Mairead worked closely with Mazars LLP through the development of the UN Guiding Principles Assurance Guidance.

Prior to joining Shift, Mairead worked for 16 years for Microsoft in Europe in both strategic and operational positions, the second half of which as Corporate Affairs Manager for Central and Eastern Europe. In this role Mairead coordinated across Microsoft’s 28 subsidiaries to engage with governments and bring a consistent policy and corporate social responsibility strategy to life. She participated on behalf of Microsoft in multi-stakeholder initiatives on key topics linked to business and human rights. Prior to this role, Mairead led Partner Marketing across Central and Eastern Europe and had European operational responsibility for the company’s Anti-Piracy programs.

BARBARA KONEVAL | OPERATIONS AND FINANCE MANAGER

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As Shift’s Operations and Finance Manager, Barbara manages the financial, administrative and logistical aspects of our collaborations and activities. She is responsible for financial management and accounting, contracts, human resources, grants and operational compliance, information technology and office administration.

Barbara brings over fifteen years of experience in operations roles with sustainability organizations focused on environmental and social responsibility. She previously managed the training program for the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), a national network of over 675 colleges and universities committed to tracking greenhouse gas emissions and planning for climate neutrality.

Prior to her work with the ACUPCC, Barbara worked on climate and sustainability research and the development of a sustainability rating system for Fortune 500 companies. She spent four years at the Oregon Natural Step Network, coordinating operations and professional development events for a network of over 300 businesses, higher education institutions, government agencies and non-profit organizations interested in sustainability.

Barbara has an MBA in Sustainable Business from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, the first graduate program in the US to offer an MBA focused on environmentally and socially responsible business practices. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Human Ecology from Rutgers University. Barbara is also a licensed “SCORE” assessor – a tool that helps organizations evaluate the effective integration of sustainability into their operations. She is a United States national.

MICHELLE LANGLOIS | ADVISOR

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As an Advisor with Shift, Michelle’s work includes supporting financial institutions and real economy companies, across a range of industries, on their disclosures and reporting.

Michelle played a central role in developing Shift’s UN Guiding Principles Reporting Database and is a leading expert on the analysis of the maturity of human rights reporting and the application of the UN Guiding Principles to new and emerging legislation and standards. Her work includes analyzing the implications of these emerging standards for leading companies and financial institutions that have commitments and practices that are aligned with the UNGPs. She is also involved in Shift’s work supporting the development of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (EFRAG) under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. As part of Shift’s Business Learning Program she supports financial sector and FMCG partners, working closely with partners on the identification of salient human rights issues, E&S risk assessment frameworks and internal capacity building – including for procurement departments, portfolio managers and front-line teams.

Michelle is a lawyer specialized in international human rights law and clinical legal education. Michelle completed her articling position at Blake, Cassels & Graydon, a Canadian corporate law firm and graduated summa cum laude from the Master of Laws program in International Human Rights Law at the University of Notre Dame. Michelle speaks English and French.

LLOYD LIPSETT | SENIOR ASSOCIATE

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As a Senior Associate with Shift, Lloyd engages with our collaboration partners on an everyday basis, with a particular focus advising companies in the extractives sector and in emerging markets. As a leading expert on human rights impact assessments, Lloyd has a deep understanding of the impact on communities and workers of large scale infrastructure, extractives and natural resources projects.

Lloyd is an international human rights lawyer with 25 years of experience working with companies, governments, national human rights institutions, civil society organizations and indigenous peoples on corporate impacts on people.  Lloyd has led or participated in over 75 on-the-ground assessments in challenging contexts around the world.

Lloyd has particular expertise on indigenous peoples rights, economic, social and cultural rights, stakeholder engagement and grievance mechanisms. He regularly publishes and makes presentations on a wide range of human rights issues relevant to companies, industry associations and governments.

Lloyd previously served as the senior assistant to three presidents of the Canadian human rights organization Rights & Democracy from 2003 to 2008, and participated in all aspects of the organization’s management and programming, including the development of a community-based human rights impact assessment methodology. He began his career as a corporate litigator at McMillan Binch in Toronto. He successfully represented clients at all levels of the courts of the province of Ontario and in the Canadian federal court system and developed a specialization in class actions, mediation and dispute resolution. Lloyd is a graduate of Queen’s University and McGill University and is a member of the Law Society of Ontario. He is a Canadian and United States national and speaks English and French.

ZUZANA MOCILENKOVA | ADVISOR

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

Prior to joining Shift, Zuzana worked as an independent business and human rights consultant, and as Principal Consultant at Labor Solutions, a social enterprise using technology to advance human rights throughout company value chains. In these roles, Zuzana supported businesses across different sectors to use worker voice tools and developed training content on effective grievance mechanisms in line with the UNGPs.

Prior to being a consultant, Zuzana was Head of Ethical Trade and Human Rights at Stella McCartney for over 7 years. In this role, Zuzana led the practical implementation of the UNGPs across the full due diligence spectrum and traveled extensively throughout the company’s sourcing regions in Europe and Asia. Here she gained hands-on experience working with suppliers, workers and local experts to identify root causes of human rights risks and design and deliver capacity building programs. This included carrying out stakeholder engagement, improving purchasing practices and encouraging company participation in collaborative industry programs. Zuzana has particular expertise in small, artisanal and informal fashion supply chains.

Zuzana holds a Master of Applied Human Rights from the University of York. In her thesis, she researched participatory approaches to addressing discrimination against the Roma minority population in Slovakia. Zuzana is a Slovak and British national.

JANA MUDRONOVA | ADVISOR

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As an Associate, Jana contributes to our Valuing Respect Project focused on finding better ways to evaluate companies and investors’ efforts to respect for human rights. She also provides advisory support in our work with businesses.

Prior to joining Shift, Jana led and contributed to assessments of socially responsible investments in microentrepreneurial space in Johannesburg and mining investments in South Africa. She has experience in advising companies, social enterprises and NGOs in designing strategies for delivering positive outcomes for affected stakeholders. Her prior research contributed to hands-on recommendations to improve poverty-reducing and growth-inducing policies, including implementation of the first national minimum wage in South Africa, and policies to finance industrial development and to manage natural resources in developing and emerging economies.

In her previous roles, Jana gained a wide range of experience in on-the-ground stakeholder engagement, including conducting in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with worker representatives and local communities. She has experience in monitoring and evaluation (M&E) from rights-holders’ perspectives and training in political economy. Jana is an author or a contributor to several peer-reviewed publications on inequality, impacts of international investments and development finance. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, with studies also conducted in the Netherlands, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Jana is a Slovak national.

CAROLINE REES | PRESIDENT AND CO-FOUNDER

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As the President and Co-Founder of Shift, Caroline leads our organizational strategy and development and drives our thought leadership work on key challenges and opportunities in advancing corporate respect for business and human rights. Caroline speaks extensively at events around the world and frequently facilitates dialogue and debate amongst companies, governments, investors and civil society. In recent years, Caroline has focused on improving corporate human rights reporting as a catalyst for better human rights risk management, and on improving the data and methods used in evaluating companies’ social performance as part of ESG (environmental, social and governance) analysis. She has written and spoken extensively on the relevance of business respect for human rights, and the UNGPs specifically, to movements that seek to advance sustainability, equality, ESG investing, stakeholder capitalism, and human and social capital.

Caroline previously spent 14 years with the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. From 2003 to 2006 she led the UK’s human rights negotiating team at the UN and she ran the negotiations to establish the mandate of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on business and human rights. The success of this initiative led to Professor John Ruggie’s appointment and from 2007-2011 Caroline was a lead advisor on his team and deeply involved in the drafting of the Guiding Principles.

From 2009 to 2011 Caroline was also the Director of the Governance and Accountability Program at the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School and she remains a Senior Program Fellow there. Caroline is a Commissioner on the Business Commission to Tackle Inequality, a member of the Advisory Committee of the Investor Alliance for Human Rights, the Advisory Group to the Workforce Disclosure Initiative, the Advisory Council to Harvard Business School’s Impact Weighted Accounts Initiative and the Advisory Panel of the Capitals Coalition.

Caroline’s prior British foreign service career covered Iran, Slovakia, the UN Security Council in New York and the European Union in Brussels. Caroline has a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from Oxford University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Caroline is a British national and speaks English, French and German.