Ben Cushing
Campaign Director
(he/him)
Ben is the campaign director for the Fossil-Free Finance campaign. His work focuses on engaging with and advocating for major financial institutions to stop financing fossil fuels and support the transition to a clean energy economy. Ben sits on the steering committee of Stop the Money Pipeline, a coalition of 200+ organizations working to hold the financial backers of the climate crisis accountable. Ben has been leading the Sierra Club’s advocacy with major Wall Street banks and investors since 2017. Before joining the Sierra Club, Ben worked at Climate Advisers on campaigns to stop tropical deforestation. Ben got his start as an environmental organizer with Green Corps. He is a graduate of Carleton College, where he received his bachelor’s in environmental studies and political economy. He is originally from Oakland, CA and lives in Washington, DC. Follow Ben on Twitter at @bmcushing.
Jessye Waxman
Senior Campaign Representative
(she/her)
Jessye is a senior campaign representative in the Fossil-Free Finance campaign, where she focuses on asset managers and financial regulation. Prior to joining the Sierra Club, she served in staff and/or advisory roles for Green Century Capital Management, Majority Action, and Principles for Responsible Investment. She has extensive experience in both shareholder advocacy and corporate campaigning, and has helped secure environmental commitments from multi-billion dollar corporations, spearhead sovereign engagements, and mobilize hundreds of grassroots activists and trillions of dollars to advance environmental and climate protections. She is currently pursuing a master’s in international political economy and development at Fordham University, and is a graduate of Duke University, where she received her bachelor’s in environmental science and policy, focused on environmental security. She lives in Boston. Follow Jessye on Twitter at @jessyewaxman.
Adele Shraiman
Senior Campaign Representative
(she/her)
Adele is a senior campaign representative in the Fossil-Free Finance campaign, where she focuses on the banking sector. Prior to joining the Sierra Club, she was a policy fellow at Evergreen Action, where she focused primarily on climate risk and financial regulation. Previously, she worked for the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee and the Center for International Environmental Law. She has a master’s of science in environmental policy from the London School of Economics, where her dissertation research focused on Arctic exclusion policies in the financial sector. She received her bachelor’s in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Follow Adele on Twitter at @ajshraiman.
Allie Lindstrom
Senior Campaign Representative
(she/her)
Allie is a senior campaign representative on the Fossil-Free Finance campaign, where she focuses on public funds and state climate finance legislation. Prior to the Sierra Club, Allie worked at Future Coalition, where she helped build the Youth Climate Finance Alliance, which trained and supported a diverse set of youth organizers in climate finance campaigning. She is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, where she earned a bachelor's degree in environmental policy, with an emphasis on university divestment campaigning.
Mahima Dave
Senior Fossil-Free Finance Analyst
(she/her)
Mahima is a senior analyst in the Fossil-Free Finance campaign, where she provides strategic research and financial analysis to strengthen the campaign’s goals. Prior to joining the Sierra Club, she worked for nearly seven years as a Fixed Income and Equity investment analyst for Vanguard, one of the biggest asset managers in the US, and as a banker for Bank of America, one of the biggest banks in the US. She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Finance and Responsible Investment from the Sustainability Management School, Switzerland; focused on Environment, Social and Governance factors and their role in shaping the future of the finance industry.
Ginny Cleaveland
Deputy Press Secretary
(she/her)
Ginny is the deputy press secretary in the Fossil-Free Finance campaign, where she supports the team’s strategic communications on banks, asset managers, and financial regulation. Prior to joining Sierra Club, she worked as a media director at Stand.earth and in support of local environmental organizations focused on clean energy, clean water, and land conservation in the Pacific Northwest. She is a recovered journalist turned climate communicator who still isn’t quite sure how she feels about oxford commas or en dashes. She is a graduate of Western Washington University, where she received her master’s in environmental education, and the University of Montana, where she received her bachelor’s in journalism. She lives in Washington state. Follow Ginny on Twitter at @virginiainwa.
Kyle de Beausset
National Distributed Organizer
(he/him)
Kyle is a national distributed organizer in the Fossil-Free Finance campaign, where he works alongside the digital organizer to engage the Sierra Club’s supporters in taking action to pressure the financial sector to do better on climate change. He got his start at the Sierra Club in 2018 as an online organizer in the Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign. Prior to joining the Sierra Club, he worked as a digital strategist, primarily in the immigrant rights movement.