Meet Kat and Mike: Transformational Leaders And Social Justice Advocates For Business And Banking
Editor on 
With the launch of Building Banking on Values, a new VoiceAmerica radio series I’m hosting that goes behind the scenes to tell the stories of the people, passion and positivity within the values-based banking and financing sector; I thought to introduce you to some of our guests. Listen to the show now!
Meet Kat Taylor: Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer, Beneficial State Bank (USA)
Kat works in service of restoring social justice and environmental well-being. She is active in a variety of social enterprises, public benefit and philanthropic ventures on the West Coast of the USA. Currently, she serves as Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Beneficial State Bank, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) whose mission is to bring beneficial banking to low-income communities in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner. Beneficial State Bank is the result of a merger between OneCalifornia Bank, which Kat and her husband, Tom Steyer, founded in Oakland, CA, and ShoreBank Pacific, with offices in California, Oregon and Washington. The bankâs revolutionary ownership mandates that any distributed profit be invested in the low-income communities it serves and environment upon which its communities and customers depend. Learn more.
Kat is also a Founding Director of TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation (TKREF), dedicated to inspiring a sustainable food system through ranching, training, tours, research, and school food and garden programs. TKREF owns the social enterprise LeftCoast GrassFed, raising humanely cattle and other livestock for the benefit of people and the planet. Kat serves and has served on many non-profit boards including the Harvard Board of Overseers, Ecotrust, Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, ProPublica, CuriOdyssey, Insight Prison Project, KQED and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She graduated from Harvard College and earned a JD/MBA from Stanford University. Tom Steyer, Kat’s climate/energy activist husband, and she have four grown children, each pursuing their one wild and precious life.
- Does this triple bottom line bank set the new standard for banking?
- Kat Taylor Does It Her Way: Banking The Underserved – Forbes
Meet Mike Townsend: Chief Executive Director, Earthshine (USA)
Mike is a business and economic transformation leader, advisory Board member, speaker, teacher and author of The Quiet Revolution.
Mike is Founder/CEO with Earthshine â an international business consultancy/think-tank that integrates sustainability principles into the heart of business strategy and operations â enabling sustainable business success and the transition to a sustainable & low carbon economy. He is passionate about making a real difference.
In addition to running Earthshine, Mike serves on an advisory board with University of Oslo, he teaches courses/lectures on Sustainable Development, Business & Economy, and delivers inspirational keynote speeches.
Mike is author of The Quiet Revolution, Editor of Reframing the Game (2015), Lead author of A Journey in Search of Capitalism 2.0 (2013). He is also a regular contributor for Huffington Post, 2-Degrees, The Guardian, Edie.net and others.
Mike holds an MBA from the University of Birmingham Business School (UK) and a bachelor degree in Civil Engineering Management from the University of Wolverhampton (UK), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Learn more.
- Getting over peak delusion: four shifts in strategic governance
- On Purpose: Time to Change Our Story of Business?
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Don’t forget to tune into Building Banking on Values. My VoiceAmerica radio show airs on Thursdays 15:00 PDT on the Business channel. Learn more.
#BankingOnValues @CatalystWarrior @bankingonvalues @VoiceAmBusiness @ZuidDave  @mike_earthshine  @beneficialstate
http://beneficialstate.com/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/kat-taylor-28a6974b, https://www.linkedin.com/company/79855, https://www.facebook.com/BeneficialStateBank, http://www.earthshinesolutions.com, https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-townsend-08b1b614 , https://www.linkedin.com/company/5174875
Cyrille represents Credit Coopératif on the boards of investment companies like, Coopest and Coopmed, InPulse (a Credit Coopératif subsidiary active in impact investing), Microfinance Solidaire (a micro finance subsidiary of a French NGO), Entrepreneurs du Monde, and FEBEA. He is also currently a board member of Babyloan Networks, an association that promotes social entrepreneurship and microfinance in French schools, and a board member of the French international solidarity NGO, ACTED.
Vince currently leads New Resource Bank in serving values-driven organisations working to achieve well being for community and the planet. A longtime environmentalist and finance leader, Vince has served as CEO at International Savings Bank of San Diego; president and CEO of the Danielson Trust, a $1.5 billion company providing investment management services; and COO at First National Bank. Under his management as CEO, 1st Pacific Bank of California was named the best-performing de novo bank in California by The Findley Reports, a banking consulting firm.
Whitni also worked in Mexico for a year helping to run a microcredit programme. Whitni started her career at JP Morgan where she worked for six years in New York and London structuring leveraged finance for management buy-outs. 
Brett is a Fellow at the WWF/ICAEW Finance Innovation Lab, an initiative drawing alternative finance peeps together. He is always keen to meet people pioneering new economic experiments. He was also a member of the start-up team for an intrepid new financial brokerage specialising in illiquid derivatives and securitised products, developing the business in the midst of the financial crisis. Brett spearheaded the creation of a property derivatives brokerage desk, as well as being involved in a variety of special projects and sales efforts with other exotic derivatives (e.g. inflation, longevity).
Lampert founded the 
Blake has nearly a decade of experience researching Islamic finance and working in the financial sector in a compliance and investment officer role for a small US-based investment advisor and broker-dealer. Prior to joining Middle East Global Advisors and RFI Foundation, he was the Community Leader for the Thomson Reuters Islamic Finance Gateway. At Thomson Reuters, he conducted research and analysis on Islamic finance and the Islamic economy, crafted discussion points and drafted white papers for large-scale events and one-on-one sessions with leaders of the Islamic finance industry including IILM roundtables in London, UK and Washington, DC and was a principal author of the GIES 2013 Review following the Global Islamic Economy Summit organised in collaboration with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre.
Her professional experience and interests are focused on supply and demand-side solutions to extend access to capital and economic participation. Professionally, Laurie has more than 25 years of experience as a strategy and transaction services professional, with significant experience in capital raising, M&A, and private equity transactions. Over the past decade, Laurie has developed a particular focus on access to capital for double and triple-bottom line businesses.
Jim started his career in banking with JP Morgan Chase (the former Chemical Bank) in New York. At Bank of America he worked in New York, Los Angeles, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Germany and Paris in positions of increasing responsibility until he was appointed Senior Vice President for Continental Europe. During his time at the bank, he also headed the Financial Institutions Group for EMEA, overseeing 1100 banking relationships. He later served for 5 years as an Executive Vice President and then President of the Heller International Group, one of the worldâs largest SME lenders, operating in 22 countries in a JV structure with major international banks in Asia, Latin America and Europe. More recently Jim has been actively engaged in the Microfinance sector in Mexico and India. He is currently a Director and Chairman of the Risk and Asset and Liability Committees of Bhartiya Samruddhi Finance Limited in India. He has been President of the US Chamber of Commerce in Brussels, President of the American Council of European Chambers of Commerce, and was appointed by the US Ambassador to Belgium to be Chairman of the United States Trade and Investment Center, which focused on expanding trade with Central and Eastern Europe.
Not being bound by the demands of investors means the bank acts in the best long term interests of their customers. Put simply, as a customer and part owner of the bank, they are answerable only to customers. ‘We respect your point of view, which is why our customers each have an equal say in how we go about our business. Customers have been banking with us since 1957 and today nearly 130,000 people and community sector organisations choose to bank with us. Our profits are reinvested in the bank to provide fairer fees, better interest rates, and the responsible products and services that our customers expect. And be reassured, we have to meet the same prudential standards that apply to all Australian banks, so you can be certain that banking with Bank Australia is safe and secure.’Â 
Charles received his masters and doctorate degrees from the Harvard Business School and was the recipient of the Douglas McGregor Memorial Award, as well as the Columbia University Prize for the Study of the Corporation.
Currently, Olaf supervises Sustainability Management students and PhD students working on the three research questions and teaches courses in Environmental Finance, Sustainability Accounting and Reporting, and Theories and Tools for Sustainability Management. Olaf also collaborates with banks, such as
Marloes continues to participate in grassroots, creative activism in the UK, and is particularly interested in drawing on the arts and community organising to provide accessible ways for the public to engage with money and the financial system. Marloes is also an active member of the New Economy Organisers Network (NEON) and guides Occupy London Tours of Mayfair.
