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Further information: Contact John McAndrew
Public Relations Office, (570) 208-5958
October 2, 2019 - “Finance for the Common Good: Activating Strategies of Responsible Investing” will be the topic of the annual Feast of St. Francis Lecture to be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, October 17, in the Burke Auditorium of the McGowan School of Business at King’s College. Sponsored by the McGowan Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility at King’s, the lecture will be open free to the public.
The speaker will be Mary Beth Gallagher, executive director of the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment, a non-profit organization established in 1975 to form and encourage coalitions of businesspeople to align their investments with Catholic social teaching. Comprised primarily of investors in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, the organization is also an advocate for ethical and sustainable business practices with regard to social, economic and environmental justice.
Gallagher will discuss examples of issues that coalition members have recently discussed with public companies, including the adoption of a Human Rights Policy to address child labor in the cocoa industry with Hershey, the financing of private prisons that housed immigrants in inhumane conditions with JP Morgan Chase, and the cessation of sales to governments of facial recognition surveillance technology with Amazon.
Gallagher is active within the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and is on the Steering Committee of the Investor Alliance for Human Rights. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston College and a Juris Doctorate from American University Washington College of Law.
The McGowan School of Business is located on the corner of North River and W. Union streets. Parking will be available in on-campus lots. For more information, please contact Dr. Bernard Prusak, director, McGowan Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility, at (570) 208-5900, ext. 5689.
Mary Beth Gallagher