Karen Fang is Managing Director, Global Head of Sustainable Finance at Bank of America. She works across Bank of America’s eight lines of business to drive the implementation of its firm-wide sustainable finance strategy and goal of mobilizing and deploying $1.5 trillion in sustainable finance capital by 2030.

Karen is a member of Bank of America’s Management Committee, Responsible Growth Council and Asian Leadership Council. Previously, she was the head of Global Fixed Income, Currencies & Commodities (FICC) Cross Asset Trading, and the head of Americas FICC Sales & Solutions prior to that.

Karen is a leader in global net zero and sustainable finance forums and taskforces. She serves as co-chair of the Finance and Infrastructure Taskforce for the B20 (the G20 member states’ official dialogue forum with the global business community), as co-chair of the Blended Finance Taskforce for the UN Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance and as a member of the G7 Just Energy Transition Partnership, Sustainable Markets Initiative, World Economic Forum (WEF) Net Zero Transition Steering Committee, U.S. Steering Council of 1t.org, Leadership Council of the Breakthrough Energy Catalyst program and Climate Advisory Council to the Rockefeller Foundation. Karen previously served as a national board member of LISC, one of the largest community development financial institutions in the U.S.

Prior to joining Bank of America, Karen was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in New York, where she was the head of the Pension, Endowment and Foundation Cross Asset Solutions Group. Earlier in her career, she held senior positions in derivatives structuring, including at Merrill Lynch in Tokyo and Deutsche Bank in London.

Karen was named one of Fortune’s “40 under 40”and a Young Global Leader by WEF. She is one of Crain’s New York Business’s 2024 & 2023 Notable Leaders in Sustainability and 2022 Notable Women on Wall Street. Karen is a recipient of the 2021 American Banker Most Powerful Women Standout Award, 2021 Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business Award and Business Insider’s 100 People Transforming Business Award in 2020. Previously, she was chosen by Investment Dealers’ Digest as one of its “40 under 40” bankers, and she is also a recipient of the Women’s Bond Club of New York’s Rising Star Award.

Karen holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Tokyo.

A recognized leader in the social impact space and a champion for moral leadership, Jacqueline Novogratz is the Founder and CEO of Acumen, a global organization focused on solving problems of poverty and building a world of dignity.

After working in international banking, Jacqueline moved to Rwanda in 1986 to co-found the nation’s first microfinance institution, Duterimbere. At the Rockefeller Foundation, she founded The Philanthropy Workshop and co-founded the renowned Next Generation Leadership program. And, in 2001, she launched Acumen to introduce the concept of patient capital as an effective philanthropy-backed investment approach to tackle the most challenging issues of our time.

A pioneer of impact investing, to date Acumen has invested more than $154 million of patient capital into 167 companies, leaders, and ideas impacting the lives of over 500 million people across Africa, Latin America, South Asia and the United States in the areas of clean energy, agriculture, education, healthcare, and more. Acumen also is responsible for $243 million in assets under management via its for-profit funds, including KawiSafi, a nearly $70 million impact fund focused on off-grid solar energy in East Africa, the Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund (ARAF), a first-of-its-kind $58 million fund focused on helping smallholder farmers mitigate the effects of climate change, and the Acumen Latin America Early Growth Fund (ALEG), a $28 million fund that energy access, workforce development, and agriculture throughout Colombia and Peru. To date, these Funds have impacted 32 million people and offset 18 million tons of carbon. Acumen also founded the concept of Lean Data, an approach to impact measurement that focuses on speed, repeatability, and comparability, which was carved out into a standalone social enterprise in 2019 called 60 Decibels.

Realizing that human capital is as critical as financial capital, Acumen also trains social entrepreneurs and innovators through Acumen Academy, officially launched in 2020 to identify, link, support, and inspire a generation of entrepreneurial builders committed to change. To date, Acumen Academy has trained 1,600 leaders in 61 countries whose collective work has impacted tens of millions. And, through its online courses, Acumen Academy has reached more than a million individuals from 193 countries, unleashing a movement of builders who stand as role models committed to putting humanity and the earth at the center of our systems – and with the skills and moral imagination to do it.

Jacqueline is the author of two award-winning books: the best-selling The Blue Sweater (2010), and Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: Practices to Build a Better World (2020). She is a member of The B Team and serves on the boards of KawiSafi and Species Unite. She also serves on several advisory boards, including the Development Finance Corporation Development Advisory Council, Oxford Saïd Business School Global Leadership Council, Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprise Institute, Pakistan Business Council’s Centre of Excellence in Responsible Business, Acumen America and Acumen Pakistan, and formerly on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board. She has been named one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy, one of Insider’s Climate Action 30 leaders, one of the 25 Smartest People of the Decade by the Daily Beast, and one of the world’s 100 Greatest Living Business Minds by Forbes, which also honored her with the Forbes 400 Lifetime Achievement Award for Social Entrepreneurship. She has received eight honorary doctorates and holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BA in Economics/International Relations from the University of Virginia.

Aaron Schlaphoff is a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP’s in the Corporate Department and a member of the firm’s Private Funds Group. He regularly represents many of the industry’s largest asset managers on a wide range of legal, regulatory and compliance matters. Aaron previously served as an attorney fellow in the Division of Investment Management at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Aaron has unique expertise in the broad spectrum of legal, regulatory and compliance regimes that apply to asset managers, including the Investment Advisers Act, Investment Company Act and the Commodity Exchange Act, as well as related securities and banking laws and regulations. He advises his clients on a wide range of matters. As a former regulator, Aaron offers invaluable insight into the SEC, including its policies, procedures, operations and processes. During his tenure, Aaron contributed to a wide range of matters relating to investment advisers and vehicles subject to SEC regulation, including private funds, registered funds, BDCs, mutual funds, and exchange traded funds and products (ETFs/ETPs). In addition to his work in the Rulemaking Office of the Division of Investment Management, Aaron also advised other SEC divisions and offices on matters specifically relevant to the private funds industry, including the Division of Examinations (formerly OCIE) and the Division of Enforcement. He also represented the SEC in its interactions with the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and the Financial Stability Board (FSB) relating to U.S. and international financial stability and systemic risk. Chambers USA recognized Aaron as an industry leader in Investment Funds: Regulatory & Compliance, being described as adept at advising on “complex regulatory issues” with “considerable experience” in all types of fund products.

Aaron is an active writer and speaker on issues pertaining to investment funds and regulatory compliance, including panels hosted by the Practising Law Institute and the New York City Bar Association, among others. He earned his B.A., cum laude, in Mathematics and Political Science from Macalester College and was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Cologne in Germany. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School.