Our Team

Mary Cerulli is the founder of Climate Finance Action formed May 6, 2020 after 18 months of climate finance work in conjunction with an investor-led (former New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer) campaign to decarbonize the 20 largest electric generating utilities in North America and efforts to press JPMorgan to replace lead independent director Lee Raymond, the former CEO of Exxon.

Prior to entering the nonprofit sector, Mary worked as an analyst and consultant for over twenty years in the financial services industry. She began her career at a subsidiary of New York Life to create tax-advantaged packaged products in oil and gas and real estate and later helped to found Cerulli Associates, Inc. where she concentrated on retail distribution dynamics, packaged products, and the retirement markets. She authored Cerulli reports on the wealth management industry, high-net-worth market, and the annuity industry. She worked on client projects on emerging manager expansion strategies and independent registered investment advisors (RIAs).

Mary now uses her experience in the financial sector to research and decode financial information and empower advocates to wage smart effective campaigns to push the financial sector to address the climate crisis. She serves on the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board’s ESG Committee.

Mary has an MBA from Boston University and a BA in Geology from Skidmore College. She completed the University of California Berkeley Law/Ceres course on ESG: Navigating the Board’s Role.

Beverly A. Ortiz comes to CFA from two decades as a labor, immigrant, and community organizer. Her work has focused on developing predominantly women of color leadership in their organizing efforts.

For 10 years, she worked at SEIU Texas organizing janitorial, multi-service, fast food, and hospital, security officers & airport workers to fight for economic, immigration, environmental and racial justice. She was key in leading the Fight for 15 campaigns in Houston, Austin, and Dallas.

Bev also served as Executive Director for two broad-based, multicultural coalition- building groups: Good Jobs Great Houston and Real Values for Texas. Their work focused on creating broader strategic campaigns to hold corporations accountable to their fair share in taxes, provide good quality jobs, and push the state to reform the property tax system. She also worked closely with key allies on post Hurricane Harvey recovery work.

Beverly has a BA in History from University of Texas- Rio Grande Valley.

With more than 20 years of experience in organizing, campaigning, and policymaking, Danielle is driven to build communities and opportunities that bring people together to strengthen their advocacy skills, examine their power, and harness their passion toward more just policies and systems. She is thrilled to join CFA to activate shareholder power and wield capital as a force for tackling climate change and advancing economic justice.

Prior to joining CFA, Danielle worked as the campaign director with the Union of Concerned Scientists. There, she ran impactful campaigns to activate science as a force for more evidence-based, equitable policies and democratic processes-- from environmental justice and voting rights to public health regulations. She also built the UCS Science Network, a national community of 25,000 scientists and technical experts seeking training, leadership development, and action opportunities to advocate for policy change.

Danielle also worked as the research director for the Massachusetts State Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Service, which spearheaded policy reforms for pension and healthcare coverage. She was also the national student program coordinator for Physicians for Human Rights, where she built a network of 75+ chapters and ran campaigns for early career health professionals to advocate for health and human rights policy.

She has an MSPA from the University of Massachusetts Boston and a BA in international development and social change from Clark University.

Natalia Daies is a Certified Marketing and Project Management Professional with over ten years of experience in communications. Natalia has an MDiv from Mercer University and a BS in Public Relations from Georgia Southern. She leverages her social justice, ethics, and community organizing foundation to design and implement mission-driven campaigns, content strategies, and processes that amplify the voices, stories, and impact of underrepresented and historically excluded people.

Natalia is excited to raise awareness about the intersection of climate and publicly held capital and activate stakeholders at every level as advocates for economic and environmental justice.

Susan Drury is an experienced campaigner, research director, and COO. She has spent the last twenty-five years supporting and leading campaigns and organizations focused on workers’ rights, health care access, public education, and climate justice. Susan spent over fifteen years as staff and consultant at SEIU and has deep experience with the politics and finance of pension funds.

Susan has a B.A. from Carleton College and an M.Ed. from Vanderbilt University.