Board of Directors

Robin Mann, Chair - Robin is a long-time environmentalist and Sierra Club leader. She has served on the Sierra Club Board of Directors 2006-2019, including terms as President and Vice President. She resides in Pennsylvania and is active locally in a variety of grassroots organizing efforts. She enjoys hiking, kayaking and organic gardening.

Eva Schulte, Vice Chair - Eva has dedicated her life’s work to bringing capital to underserved communities and advancing the social sector. She began her work supporting migrant workers, led public policy gains in California for affordable housing, built and grew nonprofits and civic engagement campaigns in the heartland, and launched impact investing funds for Indigenous communities across the country. Eva now works to protect and preserve the San Juan Islands and Salish Sea for people and nature as executive director for Friends of the San Juans.

Kathleen Simpson, Treasurer - Kathleen is the chief executive officer of the Russell Family Foundation (TRFF). She helped transition TRFF's investment portfolio from 7% to nearly 95% impact aligned, led the foundation's Net Zero commitment, and supported education for climate-positive investing. Prior to TRFF, Kathleen was director of finance for an independent wealth management firm and foundation and operated a public accounting firm. She is a Certified Public Accountant and holds an MBA. She serves on the board of directors for Confluence Philanthropy and American Leadership Forum of Tacoma Pierce County and on the investment advisory committees for the Bainum Family Foundation and Children's Equity Fund. 

Rebekah Saul Butler, Secretary - Rebekah is managing partner at Gratitude Railroad, an investor community-driven impact firm, where she serves as co-CEO. Prior to Gratitude, Rebekah was co-executive director and chief investment officer of The Grove Foundation and managing director of Grove Action Fund. Prior to working with the Grove organizations, Rebekah was a management consultant at Deloitte Consulting and started her career at The Guttmacher Institute in Washington, D.C. She holds a BA with distinction in sociology and Spanish from Stanford University, an MBA and MPH from UC Berkeley, and the Certified Investment Management Analyst® certification. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

Mark Walters, Member-at-Large - Mark Walters is a Research Associate at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine where he conducts translational research on brain cancer. He is a long-time Sierra Club volunteer and past chair of the Florida Chapter. He is a founding trustee of the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust, established by the City of Miami to protect the historic landmark. Located on a barrier island in Biscayne Bay, the park is a living record of the rich legacy of Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities’ connection with southern Florida since the 1920s. Mark currently resides in Florida.

Allison Chin, Sierra Club President - Allison is president of the Sierra Club, a role she has held three times prior between 2007 and 2013. She previously served on the Sierra Club Foundation Board; her most recent term ended in 2020 after serving as Board Chair. She is a retired biologist who led multidisciplinary domestic and international project teams focused on discovery and development of novel therapeutics. Since retiring in 2008, Allison has been immersed in non-profit governance, organizational and leadership development. She is a founding member of the Green Leadership Trust, a network of people of color and Indigenous people who serve on environmental boards.

Gabe Gonzalez - Gabe Gonzalez is the Senior Director for State Campaigns at the Economic Security Project. Gabe has worked as a community organizer, strategist and leader for more than three decades. In that time he has addressed issues as diverse as banking, mass incarceration, housing, and education policy. Gabe spent 15 years working on immigration reform in the United States, first as the Organizing and Political Director for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and then as National Campaign Director for the Center for Community Change in Washington D.C. Gabe worked at the Sierra Club in a number of positions, notably as Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to the Executive Director. Gabe believes deeply in the power of community and sees the work of the Sierra Club Foundation as integral to building community through a connection to the land. He lives in Chicago with his wife, son, and two cats.

Peter Liu - Peter is the co-founder and managing partner of Meridian Clean Energy, which acquires and develops assets critical to the reliability of a decarbonized power grid. Previously, Peter co-founded Clean Energy Advantage Partners with New Energy Capital and New Energy Nexus, which worked with RE100 leaders such as Apple, Google, and Chanel to invest in renewable energy projects in the US and Asia. Peter was also the founder of New Resource Bank, the first green commercial bank in the US. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs.

Christian Okoye - Christian is a principal at Generate Capital responsible for investments in emerging sustainable infrastructure opportunities. Prior to Generate, Christian was a partner at Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners. Before Sidewalk, he was a director of Venture Investments at Emerson Collective where he managed venture capital and growth equity investments across energy and environmental solutions, including waste to energy, distributed energy resource management, and energy efficiency technologies. Christian holds an MBA and MS in Energy and Environmental Resources from Stanford University, and a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago. He resides in California.

Sanjay Ranchod - Sanjay is the chief legal officer at Renew Home, a company building the world's largest residential virtual power plant. He has more than a decade of experience in leadership roles at other mission-driven companies, including SolarCity and Tesla. Sanjay serves as a commissioner of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, a state agency, and previously served on the board of the Sierra Club. He is a graduate of Brown University and Stanford Law School. He resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Paul Rissman - Paul is co-founder of Rights CoLab, a nonprofit that advances environmental and human rights through social enterprise, technology, and finance. He was formerly Executive Vice President of AllianceBernstein, and before that an archaeologist conducting field research in India and Oman. He resides in Massachusetts and enjoys walking in the woods whenever he can.

Steph Speirs - Steph is the Co-Founder and CEO at Solstice, which works to put community solar and clean energy in the hands of historically excluded households in America. She previously deployed solar microgrids, lanterns, and home systems in India and Pakistan. Prior to renewables, she managed field operations on the Obama campaign and developed policy at the White House National Security Council. She was selected as EY New England’s Entrepreneur of the Year, C3E’s Entrepreneur Award, Inc Magazine’s Female Founder 100, and Elle’s US Woman Entrepreneur of the Year. She holds degrees from Yale, Princeton, and MIT.