Stephone Coward

Hip Hop Caucus

Stephone Coward is the Economic Justice, Justice Paid in Full Campaigns Director at the Hip Hop Caucus. Prior to that, he spent the last two decades in the banking industry and as an economic empowerment advocate for underserved communities. Stephone is a Just Economy Institute Fellow. The Just Economy Institute educates and connects a growing movement of financial activists who are shifting the flow of capital and power to support the well-being of all people and the planet.

He is the co-founder of COWRIE Initiative and BankBlackUSA. COWRIE is a non-profit organization that empowers Black communities by providing culturally-tailored financial literacy resources, fostering economic justice, and promoting regenerative economic models that close the racial wealth gap. BankBlackUSA is social activation that actively monitors the integrity, demonstrated commitment, and performance of financial institutions serving our communities, ensuring that they genuinely address the unique financial needs of Black individuals and families. The program strives to hold these institutions accountable while fostering a positive relationship between them and the communities they serve.

Stephone lives in Dallas Fort Worth, where he graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with his Bachelors in History & Masters in Sustainability.

Ben Cushing

Sierra Club

Ben Cushing is the Director of the Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance Campaign. He manages the Sierra Club’s work to push banks and investors to stop funding fossil fuels and harness the power of finance to accelerate a just transition to a clean energy economy. Ben has been leading the Sierra Club’s advocacy with major Wall Street firms since 2017, and has served on the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition steering committee since its founding in 2020. Ben has been working on campaigns in the climate movement for more than a decade. He graduated from Carleton College with a degree in Environmental Studies and Political Economy. He is originally from Oakland, CA and now lives in Washington, DC.

Jackie Fielder

Stop the Money Pipeline

Jackie Fielder is Lakota, Hidatsa, and Mandan and a citizen of the Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota. She previously worked with Mazaska Talks and organized Divest the Globe in 2017, a major international day of action targeting banks funding fossil fuels. In the Bay Area, Jackie helped to found the San Francisco Defund DAPL Coalition & the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition and has worked on a wide variety of campaigns. She is based on Yelamu, Ramaytush Ohlone land, in so-called San Francisco.

Amy Gray

Stand.earth

Amy is the Associate Director of Climate Finance at Stand.earth, her focus is the Climate Safe Pensions Network supporting pension divestment campaigns. A former organizer at 350.org, 350 Colorado and Stop the Money Pipeline, Amy is an expert in organizing mass mobilizations and forming diverse coalitions. She is a trainer in anti-oppression and intersectional climate justice organizing and is passionate about divestment and climate finance. Amy also sits on the Board of Directors for 350 Colorado Action and The Chinook Center. She was the recipient of the 2020 Climate Warrior Award from the El Paso County Democratic Party for her work on decommissioning the coal plants in El Paso County.

Tara Houska

Giniw Collective

Tara Houska (Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe) is a tribal attorney, founder of Giniw Collective, and a former advisor on Native American affairs to Bernie Sanders. She spent six months on the frontlines fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline, and is currently engaged in the movement to defund fossil fuels and a years-long struggle against Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline. She is a co-founder of Not Your Mascots, a group committed to positive representation of Native peoples.

She is a TED speaker, the 2017 Harvard “Public Interested” keynote, received an “Awesome Women Award” from Melinda Gates and a 2019 Rachel’s Network Catalyst Award, is featured in “Women: A Century of Change” by National Geographic, and was named an “Icon” on the cover of Outside Magazine’s 40th Anniversary edition. Tara has contributed to the women-led climate anthology “All We Can Save”, the New York Times, the Guardian, Vogue, Indian Country Today and been featured on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, Democracy Now, and BBC. She lives in a pipeline resistance camp in Northern Minnesota.

Alice Hu

New York Communities for Change

Alice Hu is Senior Climate Campaigner at New York Communities for Change. Her organizing centers building movement power to fight Big Oil and create a political economy that puts people and planet over profit. Her protest and direct action work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and other local, national, and international outlets, and – on one fun occasion – satirized on Saturday Night Live.

Christina Liu

Oil and Gas Action Network

Christina is an organizer with Oil & Gas Action Network, where she pressures Wells Fargo and Wall Street banks to stop funding fossil fuels. Her work is locally driven, with a focus on expanding mobilization capacity and training NVDA in the San Francisco Bay Area. Christina is also a factory farm and slaughterhouse investigator with Direct Action Everywhere. She kayaks with the Rich City Rays, which organizes communities most harmed by fossil fuel operations in the Bay Area to take direct action on the water.

Jake Lowe

Fossil Free Research

Jake (he/him) is the Director of Fossil Free Research, an international coalition of students and faculty dedicated to ending Big Oil’s toxic influence on higher education, especially climate-related research. He first got involved in the climate justice movement as a student organizer at George Washington University where he helped develop the Sunrise GW No Fossil Fuel Money Campaign, one of the world’s first Fossil Free Research campaigns. Jake also researched the Koch network’s role in perpetuating climate disinformation and obstructing climate action as a student organizer with UnKoch My Campus. He grew up on Ute land in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

Doug Norlen

Friends of the Earth

For 18 years, Doug Norlen has conducted successful advocacy to achieve environmental, developmental and accountability policy reform of multilateral trade and finance institutions, export credit agencies and private banks. His work has been instrumental in successful efforts to achieve improvements in U.S. bilateral financing policies, beginning with reforms at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation announced in 1997 by President Clinton.

More recently, his efforts have helped establish and implement climate change and accountability reforms at OPIC and the U.S. Export-Import Bank. Doug is also a leader in international NGO coalition efforts to reform export credit agencies. His work has helped lead these agencies to adopt environmental and social policies that, since 2002, have been applied to over $130 billion in financing for environmentally risky projects worldwide. Doug has also worked extensively with local communities to address environmental and developmental impacts of extractive and energy projects funded by public and private finance institutions. Doug received a master’s degree in International Studies from the University of Oregon.

Roishetta Ozane

Texas Campaign for the Environment / the Vessel Project

Roishetta Sibley Ozane has over a decade of experience representing organizations as a community outreach specialist. She is the founder, director and CEO of The Vessel Project of Louisiana and the Gulf Fossil Finance Coordinator for Texas Campaign for the Environment. Roishetta is a She Leads Fellow Alum for the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, where she empowers women of color to go out into their communities and make positive change. She is a member of the McNeese State University Black Alumni Association, a member of the National Association of University Women-NAUW, a Participatory Working Group Member for the Hive Fund, and an Americorp Vista alum. She has an Associate Degree in Business from Strayer University, a Bachelor’s of General Studies with an emphasis in Behavioral Science and a Master’s of Science in Criminal Justice from McNeese State University. Most importantly, she is a mom to 6 children. 3 girls and 3 boys and she is making the world a better place for them.

Scott Parkin

Rainforest Action Network

Scott Parkin is the Organizing Director at Rainforest Action Network (RAN). In his time at RAN, he has led campaigns against Wall Street banks, mountaintop removal coal mining and the Keystone XL pipeline. He is also organized with Rising Tide North America and its San Francisco Bay Area chapter Mt. Diablo Rising Tide.

Matt Remle

Mazaska Talks

Matt Remle (Hunkpapa Lakota) lives in Duwamish Territory – Seattle, WA with his family.He is the editor and writer for Last Real Indians and works for the Office of Native Education for the Marysville School District. He is the co-founder of the group Mazaska Talks which focuses on global divestment from banks and corporations that negatively impact social welfare and the environment. Matt is the author of Seattle’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution, Seattle’s resolution calling on Congress to engage in reconciliation with Tribes over the Boarding School Era policies, Seattle’s resolution to oppose the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline and Seattle’s ordinance to divest from Wells Fargo.

He’s currently serving on the City of Seattle’s stakeholders committee to establish a public bank and served on Seattle’s Green New Deal Steering Committee. In 2014, Remle was awarded Seattle’s Individual Human Rights Leader award.In 2017, he was awarded the National Indian Education Association’s Educator of the Year, the Billy Frank Jr. Natural Resource Protection Award and was named one of Seattle’s Most Influential People. In 2020, he was named by the Seattle Times as one of the top ten most influential people to watch for in the next decade.”