Welcome our new Director of IEHN, CFP Program Manager, & Technical Researcher to CPA
We are very excited to announce new members to our Clean Production Action (CPA) team:
- Alexandra McPherson returns to be the Director of the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN)
- Dr. Angela Pinilla steps in as our new Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) Project Manager
- Agnes Cheng fills our new position of Technical Researcher
Alexandra McPherson, Co-Founder of CPA and our first Executive Director, is now the Director of IEHN. She brings over twenty years of experience in scaling environmental solutions through the development of organizations, projects and partnerships.
- In her new role with CPA, Alexandra transitions from the Consulting Program Manager of IEHN into the Director role. IEHN is CPA’s membership-based investor collaborative that promotes market development of safer chemicals to enhance shareholder value, public health, and the environment. Over the past four years, she successfully managed the transition of IEHN into CPA and worked with investors to increase disclosure and transparency on the use of:
- petrochemicals and their impact on climate change, plastic pollution, and environmental racism;
- pesticides that impact biodiversity and human health; and
- per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the “forever chemicals” that contribute to cancer and infertility.
In the Director role Alexandra will lead the scaling of IEHN’s impacts in synergy with our GreenScreen, Chemical Footprint, BizNGO programs by:
- Scaling new investor tools that move companies to explicitly address environmental justice in their policies and practices.
- Defining Environmental/Social/Governance (ESG) metrics for chemical footprints and green chemistry.
- Creating a bigger tent of investors working to secure the transition to safer, greener chemicals in products, manufacturing, and supply chains.
- Alexandra will continue in her role as the Principal at the consultancy Niagara Share, where she co-leads the Collaborative for the Regenerative Economy (CoRE) with the University at Buffalo's Materials Design and Innovation Department and CPA. CoRE is investing in a multi-million dollar material innovation, and clean production program for clean energy technologies.
- She currently serves on the board of Clean and Healthy New York and is a trustee for the Nichols School based in Buffalo, NY. Alexandra earned her BA in Communication from the University of New Hampshire.
We look forward to having Alexandra’s strategic thinking, excellent facilitation and communication skills, and diverse network of leaders from the EJ, environmental health, investor, and corporate communities joining the CPA team. When not working, you can find Alexandra running, hiking, and skiing with family, friends, and her four-pawed furry friends.
Dr. Angela Pinilla is our new CFP Program Manager. She brings a range of international experience on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and Environmental Social Governance (ESG) work to CPA. Her accomplishments include:
- Being a Fellow for Human Rights and Business at Harvard University’s Carr Center for Human Rights and Business where she researched the issue of water rights and the social license to operate in mining areas in developing countries.
- Working with the Institute for Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cambridge as an Assessor for the Business Sustainability Management Course; a course that educates the next generation of sustainability leaders in collaboration with an international network of small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs).
- Writing a policy document for implementing “Corporate Social Responsibility Practices for the Mining Sector” for the Colombian Mining Ministry.
- Working with the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, European Commission, and the United Nations Environment Programme on a range of CSR and ESG research projects and conferences.
- Leading a global fundraising project for the New England Association for Colombian Children to sponsor three local NGOs that benefit children in impoverished areas in Colombia.
Angela’s PhD is in Business Management from the University of Nottingham Business School. She also has a BS in Chemical Engineering and MS in Environmental Engineering from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Agnes Cheng fills our new Technical Researcher position where she will provide the critical backbone to our GreenScreen and Chemical Footprint programs. GreenScreen certifications, methodologies, processes, criteria, and benchmarks along with Chemical Footprint Project surveys, scoring, and guidance documents are all part of Agnes’ portfolio. She arrived at CPA from:
- A research role at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard, where she studied infectious disease.
- Brown University where she:
- Graduated with a BS in Biology, concentrating in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, where she developed a passion for organic chemistry
- Explored the relationship between environmental hazards and health during her undergraduate studies.
- Developed her interest in sustainable solutions during an internship at Brown University’s Office of Sustainability.
Agnes is passionate about environmental and human health, and seeks to build a career which centers these concerns. She is committed to understanding and prioritizing the lenses of diversity, equity, inclusion and environmental justice in all of her personal work and in her role at Clean Production Action.