Ambassadors - Transparency Task Force

Charlie Atkins

Charlie Atkins is an economist by training with a specialization in International Monetary Economics, Finance and Operations Research.

He was a Morehead Scholar at UNC Chapel Hill where he was a Summa Cum Laude graduate and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a Marshall Scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Mr. Atkins was a partner at Cherokee Investment Partners, the largest private equity investor in brownfield properties and is experienced in the rigorous quantification of environmental liabilities and risks.

Greg Rogers

Greg Rogers, J.D., CPA, is author of a comprehensive 384-page desk book on financial reporting of environmental liabilities and risks published by John Wiley & Sons and a internationally recognized expert on environmental and climate-related financial disclosure.

He is an advisor to the Master of Accounting Program and honorary Fellow at the Cambridge Judge Business School, visiting lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, past Chairman of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Environmental Disclosure.

Greg is also an original member of the Sustainably Accounting Standards Board (SASB) standards council.

Adam Choppin

Adam Choppin is an Investment Officer and Assistant Portfolio Manager of Emerging Markets Strategies at FIS Group, a $5.5bn Philadelphia-based manager-of-managers and global tactical allocation specialist. Mr. Choppin joined FIS in May 2013. Mr. Choppin is also on the leadership team of the Association of Professional Fund Investors as its Lead Representative for North America.

From 2008-2013, Mr. Choppin founded and ran a boutique investment advisory firm which advised on private investments in South America, Africa, and the Middle East. Previously, Mr. Choppin worked for several U.S. Government agencies including as a trade and economic affairs liaison in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cape Verde, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Mozambique. Most notably, in 2008 he organized the first official U.S. Government trade mission to Iraq in over 25 years.

Mr. Choppin earned his B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC); his M.A. in International Economics and Business from Yale University; and a post-graduate Diploma in Finance from the London School of Economics.

While a student at USC, Mr. Choppin also read in Latin American economics and politics at the Universidade de São Paulo. He speaks Portuguese and Spanish.

Lorelei Graye

Lorelei is Founder of Leodoran Financial and independent consultant to private capital market organizations in venture, emerging markets, LBO, and real estate.

As a subject matter expert, industry leader, and advisor, Ms. Graye serves market participants through strategic management consulting, communications expertise and market intelligence; but she is probably best known for leading industry efforts such as the ADS Initiative to improve private fund fee transparency, reporting efficiencies, and to advocate LP operational needs.

Formerly, a reporting officer for the South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission (RSIC), Lorelei spearheaded the development and implementation of the pension’s annual investment cost collection, validation, and reporting process which was featured in a prominent 2015 CEM Benchmarking study¹“The Time Has Come for Standardized Total Cost Disclosure for Private Equity”.

Ms. Graye has travelled extensively to promote best practices and educate market participants building an extensive global network of institutional investors, trustees, general partners, service providers, academic leaders, regulators, and policymakers.

Presentations and media coverage include organizations such as the WSJ, PEI, FundFire, Governing, Pensions & Investments, The Hedge Fund Law Report, Staying Ahead of the Curve (Cammack), NCTR, ILPA, APPFA, IMDDA, SURS of IL, TRS IL, TRS of TX, GAIM Ops Cayman, the Regulatory Fundamentals Group, The Spaulding Group, and the Lowell Milken Institute at UCLA School of Law.

A key participant and supporter of the ILPA Transparency Initiative²and organizer of the latest cross-collaboration, the Adopting Data Standards (ADS) Initiative, Lorelei has over 20 years of business experience with strong entrepreneurial roots and holds dual business degrees: a BS in finance and a BA in accounting, summa cum laude.

¹ Dang, Andrea CFA; Dupont, David CFA; Mike Heale. “The Time Has Come for Standardized Total Cost Disclosure for Private Equity”

² See www.ILPA.org

Chris Tobe

Chris Tobe is a global leader in Transparency and fighting

Corruption in U.S. state & local government pension plans and

investments in general, including state regulated insurance products.

He is working on his 5th book on transparency entitled Wall Street Corruption in State & Local Governments targeted to a broad US Audience. This is a related book to Kentucky Fried Pensions 2018 targeted to Kentucky and Public Pensions Secret Investments targeted to Trustees, Staff, regulators.

His 1st book “Kentucky Fried Pensions” was cited by Pulitzer prize winner Gretchen Morgenson of the NY Times and Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone. He has been quoted and works regularly on public pension corruption stories with Neil Weinberg of Bloomberg, David Sirota of YoungTurks, Travis Waldren of

the Huffington Post, and currently Gary Rivlin formerly of NY Times now with the Intercept.

His other book “Consultants Guide to Stable Value” is on fixed income 401(k) insurance based investments in the U.S.

Chris does legal expert work in the areas of investment corruption and excess fees in both US Public & Corporate pension plans. He also serves as Chief Investment Officer for a Pension consulting firm out of New Orleans the Hackett-Group where he has provided project consulting to a number of public pensions in MD, NC and TX.

From 2008-2012 he served as a Trustee and on the Investment and Audit Committees for the $14 billion Kentucky Retirement Systems. From 2008-2009 he was a Sr. Consultant with New England Pension Consultants and worked with a number of public pension plans in Oklahoma, Missouri, Michigan and the District of Columbia. From 1997-1999 with the Kentucky State Auditor he published a 40 page report on the investments of both major Kentucky Pension plans.

National Public pension speaking engagements include the National Council on State Legislature National Association of State Treasurers, the Public Pension forum at the Ohio State Law School, DePauw University in Chicago, and at the National Press Club for Governing Magazine.

As a public pension trustee he completed the Program for

Advanced Trustee Studies at Harvard Law School and Fiduciary College held at the Stanford University. He holds a BA in Economics from Tulane University, and an MBA in Finance & Accounting from Indiana University – Bloomington. He is the past president of the CFA Society of Louisville. He has the taught the MBA investment course at the University of Louisville and finance and accounting classes at Bellarmine and Webster.

Darby Hobbs

Darby Hobbs is a visionary, social innovator, motivational presenter, educator, author, and strategic marketeer. Focused on Relationship to LIFE, Oneself and Mankind and building the bridge between what individuals value through understanding their LivingWell^TM Model and their whole life plan including investments.

It’s about connecting the heart, to the mind, to the wallet.

Working with company business leaders, investment firms and financial advisory groups to develop a deeper understanding of how to apply ESG/SRI and Impact Investing criteria into business decisions and to understand the value drivers of individuals ready for being part of the new investment experience – fusing brand and sustainability principles for asset growth.

Darby has also developed programs geared towards academia; targeting social entrepreneurship and innovation as well as student-led impact investing funds.

Through SOCIAL3 ‘Telling the Story’ – Conscious Business Show – becomes paramount as she produces this through various mediums to educate, build brand awareness and engagement with the marketplace.

Her passion in creating positive change, along with the belief that businesses exist for profit and purpose, and that the financial system and the value drivers connected to this today is both a key challenge and opportunity to unlock.

Jon Lukomnik

Forbes calls Jon Lukomnik one of the pioneers of modern corporate governance. Jon serves as executive director of the IRRC Institute, whose research has been widely praised for objectively examining fundamental corporate governance and capital market issues.

He is also the managing partner of Sinclair Capital LLC, a strategic consultancy to asset owners and asset managers. He co-founded the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) and GovernanceMetrics International (now part of MSCI), and served as interim chair of the Council of Institutional Investors’ executive committee.

Jon served as investment advisor for New York City’s pension funds in the 1990s and has invested or overseen more than $100 billion in institutional assets during his career. He has been a director for various public companies, private companies, not-for-profit corporations and litigation trusts. He has consulted to major institutional investors with aggregate assets of more than half a trillion dollars including the New York State Common Retirement Fund, Maryland State Retirement and Pension System, Nikko Asset Management, International Finance Corporation, Legg Mason, and Savings Bank Life Insurance USA.

Jon currently serves as a trustee for the Van Eck mutual fund complex in the United States and related investment trusts in Ireland, as a member of the Standing Advisory Committee for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and on Deloitte’s Audit Quality Advisory Committee. He was a member of the official creditors committee which rehabilitated WorldCom following its fraud and bankruptcy.

Mr. Lukomnik has been honored by the International Corporate Governance Association, National Association of Corporate Directors, Ethisphere and Global Proxy Watch.

More than 200 of Jon’s articles have been published in academic and practitioner journals. His most recent book, What They Do With Your Money: How the Financial System Fails Us and How To Fix It, has been praised by legendary investors including Yale CIO David Swensen and Vanguard Founder Jack Bogle.

Stephen Davis

Stephen Davis, Ph.D. is associate director of the Harvard Law School Programs on Corporate Governance and Institutional Investors, and a senior fellow at the Program on Corporate Governance.

He has also been a nonresident senior fellow in governance at the Brookings Institution. From 2007-2012 he was executive director of the Yale School of Management’s Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance and Lecturer on the SOM faculty.

Davis served on the US SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee. He is a trustee of ShareAction and was for nine years chair and a board member of Hermes EOS, the shareowner engagement arm of Hermes Pensions Management. Davis was also co-director of the Brookings’ World Forum on Governance.

Winner of the 2011 ICGN Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance, Davis is co-author of What They Do With Your Money: How the Financial System Fails Us and How to Fix It (Yale University Press, 2016) and The New Capitalists: How Citizen Investors are Reshaping the Corporate Agenda (Harvard Business School Press, 2006).

His Shareholder Rights Abroad: A Handbook for the Global Investor (1989) was the first study comparing corporate governance practices in top markets. Davis is a co-founder of the International Corporate Governance Network and co-author of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment. Davis earned his doctorate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and completed undergraduate studies at Tufts and the London School of Economics.

George Kinder

George Kinder is a Harvard educated economist, philosopher, financial planner, Buddhist teacher, and the founder of the Kinder Institute of Life Planning, a network of over three thousand financial advisers on six continents trained to inspire consumers to recognize and achieve their lives of greatest meaning.

The recipient of many financial industry awards including the first ever Heart of Financial Planning Distinguished Service Award from the 29,000 member Financial Planning Association, he was recently named the first of fifteen most transformational financial advisers whose vision most changed the financial planning industry.

His latest book, A Golden Civilization, combines his decades of financial leadership with his lifetime of mindfulness practice to create new principles of economics and pose the question: What would it take to create a civilization that thrives with freedom for a thousand generations?

At the core of his solution is transparency, not just in financial services but in every structure of society.

George’s expertise has been widely featured in the press across six continents including The New York Times, Forbes Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Time Magazine, Fortune, NPR, and many others.

Press Release – George Kinder appointed Ambassador to the Transparency Task Force
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Matthew Murray

In January 2017, Matthew Murray completed his second assignment for the Obama Administration – as a Senior Advisor on Governance and Rule of Law at the Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance at the U.S. Agency for International Development. As a Senior Advisor, Mr. Murray helped the Center develop strategies and design development assistance programs to counter systemic corruption in critical nations.

From 2012-2015, Mr. Murray served the Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Mr. Murray led the Department’s efforts to apply commercial diplomacy, strengthen the rule of law and build mutual prosperity with 117 countries in the EMEA region as well as the European Union and African Union. Mr. Murray developed innovative programs to build good governance and champion entrepreneurship in Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Tunisia, Kenya, and Nigeria.

Throughout his career, Mr. Murray has worked at the intersection of U.S. foreign policy, international law, commerce, and political economy. Upon graduating from Tufts in 1979, he was selected in a national competition as a Research Assistant to Dr. Leslie Gelb at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He subsequently served as Legislative Assistant for National Security to Senator Edward Kennedy, focused on nuclear arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union and diplomacy towards the Middle East and Northern Ireland.

In 1984, he was awarded a scholarship as an International Fellow at the Columbia University School of Public and International Affairs; he graduated in 1988 with an MIA and JD from the Law School.

From 1988-91, Mr. Murray was as an Associate Attorney at the international law firm of Baker & McKenzie, where he helped the firm launch a Russia law practice and establish one of the first western legal offices in Moscow. In 1991, Matthew Murray founded Sovereign Ventures, Inc., a management consulting firm that advised Fortune 100 companies, government agencies and multilateral organizations in Russia/Eurasia on how to counter corruption risk and engage in dispute resolution. In 2000, Mr. Murray co-founded the Center for Business Ethics and Corporate Governance, a non-profit dedicated to building rule-based markets in the region.

Between 2007 and 2009, Mr. Murray served as Corruption Risk Manager at TNK-BP Management Ltd., then the third largest producer of oil and gas in Russia, leading a corporate task force to establish a new system of compliance with anti-corruption laws and ethics performance throughout the 65,000 person workforce.

Mr. Murray’s work in the field of political economy includes writing, teaching, speeches and testimony on the importance of voluntarily adopting best practices of ethics, corporate governance, and social responsibility. In 2011, he was invited by the Brookings Institution to help launch the World Forum on Governance and to co-write a research paper, “Freedom from Official Corruption as a Human Right”, published in 2015.