In this episode, Melanie Rua of Bloomberg Intelligence sits down with Randall Strickland, a sustainable investment advisor to philanthropic organizations, and Jesse Gerstin, faculty at the Bard MBA in Sustainability and community finance practitioner at the nonprofit Inclusiv.

Together, they untangle the differences between ESG, sustainable finance and impact investing; and discuss how the field is evolving amid political backlash and shifting narratives. Despite the headlines, they argue that the underlying work of aligning finance with environmental and social outcomes continues—often under different names.

The conversation covers public and private markets, the long-term opportunity in clean energy, and the financial fluency today's sustainability leaders need to drive meaningful change across every sector.

This episode captures the energy of Bard's 'Inside Sustainability Live' series, where real-world practitioners and academics come together to build community and share strategies for advancing sustainability work in challenging times.

Bard’s Graduate Programs in Sustainability cultivate leaders who break through existing systems, innovating solutions to critical social, environmental and economic challenges. 2023 marked the 20th anniversary of the first graduating class from M.S. in Environmental Policy degree at Bard CEP and the 10th graduating class from the Bard MBA in Sustainability program. The 2024 graduating MS EP, MS CSP, MEd and MBA classes brought the Bard GPS alumni community to over 500!

MEET THE SPEAKERS

Randy Strickland

Randy is a Director at Westfuller Advisors and faculty at the Bard MBA in Sustainability, where he focuses on sustainable and impact investing. At Westfuller, he partners with philanthropic organizations and family offices to develop and manage mission-driven investment portfolios, supporting sourcing and due diligence across asset classes to build ESG and impact portfolios.

Previously, he held leadership roles at Pathstone Family Office, Cornerstone Capital Group, City National Bank of New Jersey (now Industrial Bank), ImpactAssets, Principal Global Investors, and Commonfund. Randy is a member of the Impact & Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium, a Fellow of Trinity Church Wall Street’s Allocator Collective, and was named to the 2025 Who’s Who in Impact Investing by the Impact Finance Center and the Denver Business Journal.

Jesse Gerstin Jesse is Vice President of the Center for Resiliency and Clean Power at Inclusiv and faculty at the Bard MBA in Sustainability, working at the intersection of impact investing and renewable energy. He previously led sustainability at SimpliPhi Power, expanding energy storage solutions and improving energy access for underserved communities globally.

Earlier in his career, he led the Clinton Climate Initiative’s work accelerating utility-scale renewable energy in island nations, strengthening climate resilience, and supporting sustainable economic development for Native American nations. He has also worked with an impact investor in Indonesia and at Echoing Green in New York City supporting social entrepreneurs. Melanie Rua Melanie is a Senior Associate at Bloomberg Intelligence, where she leads ESG research focused on nature-related risks such as water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and deforestation, and how these issues shape corporate performance and capital allocation. Her work uses geospatial data, predictive modeling, and materiality frameworks to analyze environmental risks and opportunities across sectors including energy, chemicals, and packaged food.

In addition to her research, Melanie manages a team of associate analysts and regularly shares her insights through industry panels, guest lectures, and Bloomberg Intelligence’s ESG Currents podcast. She holds an MBA in Sustainability from Bard College and the CFA Institute Certificate in Sustainable Investing.

In this episode, Bard MBA faculty member and Lead the Change host Renay Loper sits down with colleague and fellow Bard MBA instructor Ayana Pilgrim-Brown, founder and CEO of the Talent Cornerstone, for a candid conversation about the seismic shifts reshaping the future of work. Drawing on decades of experience leading global talent initiatives, Ayana examines the dangerous intersection of declining DEI commitments and the rapid rise of AI in hiring. She introduces the concept of "divine dualism" to describe AI's simultaneous promise and peril, makes the case for why soft skills are actually the essential skills of the new economy, and offers practical guidance for employees and job seekers on how to shift from an employee consciousness to an ownership mindset and lead themselves well in an era of relentless change.

In this episode, Bard MBA director Eban Goodstein interviews Alejandro Juárez Crawford and Miriam Plavin-Masterman, co-authors of One Size Fits None, about how VC-driven scale and corporate cost-cutting have created unresponsive systems that squeeze consumers and workers alike. They share stories of grassroots innovators using platforms like Rebel Base to solve local problems—from disability employment in the Philippines to vegan leather made from jackfruit peels in Bangladesh—and discuss alternative funding models that keep capital and decision-making in communities. Their message: structured opportunities to experiment can awaken entrepreneurial capabilities everywhere, because "there's no Hollywood hero riding in to save us.