Audrey Choi is a pioneer in the fields of corporate sustainability and sustainable finance. Her career has spanned the highest levels of finance, government and journalism — as a C-Suite officer of Morgan Stanley, as chief of staff of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and as bureau chief and foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.

Choi was the first ever chief sustainability officer on Wall Street. An early advocate for sustainable investing, she proposed, founded, and led Morgan Stanley’s Global Sustainable Finance Group and the Institute for Sustainable Investing. Her TED talk on Sustainable Investing has garnered nearly 2 million views. She served on leading sustainable finance initiatives, including the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, the Impact Investing Alliance, and His Royal Highness’s Sustainable Markets Initiatives. She also founded and led Morgan Stanley’s Community Development Finance Group, investing more than $20 billion to strengthen low-income communities. Choi also served as Chief Marketing Officer and was a member of Morgan Stanley’s Global Management Committee. As CMO, she is credited with stewarding the favorability of the venerable financial services brand to all-time highs across all global markets.

Choi is a trustee of the Kresge Foundation, StoryCorps, NewYork Cares and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. She graduated from Harvard College and was a Baker Scholar at Harvard Business School. She was a White House Fellow, a David Rockefeller Fellow, and a Fulbright Scholar. A first-generation Korean American, she is fluent in French and German.

Sook Nyul Choi was born in Pyongyang during the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula. As a young refugee during World War II and again during the Korean War, Choi learned to face injustice and cruelty with courage and determination. Choi’s novels, which are based upon her own experiences, have enr

Choi is the author of Year of Impossible Goodbyes, a novel about her dramatic escape from North Korea to South Korea in the aftermath of World War II. It has been translated into Korean, French, Italian, and Japanese. It is an American Library Association Notable Book and has received many other honors. Echoes of the White Giraffe and Gathering of Pearls complete her autobiographical trilogy, telling the story of living as a refugee amidst the sorrows of the Korean War and ultimately defying the odds to win a scholarship and emigrate to the United States for college. Her story brings to life the intense emotions of a people surrounded by turmoil and tragedy who nevertheless find hope and courage. Choi also wrote three children’s books: Halmoni and the Picnic, Yunmi and Halmoni’s Trip, and The Best Older Sister. She is an accomplished lecturer, speaking to schools, universities and business leadership groups about Korea and its history.

Choi graduated from Manhattanville College and served as a teacher in New York and Massachusetts for 30 years while raising her two daughters. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 2004, the 2009 Literary Lights for Children Award, the 2012 Manhattanville Distinguished Alumnae award, and the 2018 StoryCorps Courage Award.

Hamdi Ulukaya was raised in a dairy-farming family in a small village in eastern Turkey. After moving to the United States, he launched Chobani in 2007 with the mission and vision of making good-quality food more accessible. Five years after selling the first cup of yogurt, Chobani was a billion-dollar brand, and today is the #1 selling yogurt brand in the U.S. The company has since expanded to an innovative modern food portfolio, adding dairy and plant-based creamers, oat milk, and coffee.

As a leader in the food manufacturing industry, Ulukaya built Chobani on the foundation that it would do well by doing good. In 2020-2021 alone, the company donated 10.5 million products to fight food insecurity across America, and advocated for policies that work toward ending hunger for 17 million American children.

Ulukaya is well-known for his employee-first policies, including instituting innovative profit-sharing and paid parental leave programs for Chobani’s 2,000-plus employees, and implementing competitive hourly wage increases well above the federal rate. He has also become a leading voice in the movement to hire refugees, having discovered through his own experience hiring them that “the minute a refugee gets a job is the minute they stop being a refugee.”

That inspired him to start the Tent Partnership for Refugees in 2016, a foundation that mobilizes the business community to connect refugees to work. Tent’s 300 corporate members include Amazon, H&M, adidas, Hilton, L’Oréal, and Pfizer. Ulukaya also signed the Giving Pledge, committing the majority of his personal wealth to help bring an end to refugees’ crisis.

For those efforts, Ulukaya was named an Eminent Advocate by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and received the United Nations Foundation Global Leadership Award, among other recognitions. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has also named him as a Sustainable Development Goals Advocate. Ulukaya has received the Oslo Business for Peace Award and George H.W Bush Points of Light Award, is a Global Citizen Prize winner, and was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World for his work on the refugee crisis and his innovative approach to business.