Microfinance Focus, January 19, 2012: International cooperative microfinance investment vehicle, Oikocredit USA, has recently announced the addition of two social investment leaders to its board of directors.

Cheryl I. Smith, Managing Partner and Investment Manager of Trillium Asset Management Corporation, and Corinne Florek, Fund Director of both the Religious Communities Investment Fund and the Mercy Partnership Fund, will provide the board with hands-on experience in the promotion and administration of funds dedicated to sustainable and responsible portfolio management.

Cheryl Smith, Managing Partner, Chief Compliance Officer, and Investment Manager at Trillium Asset Management, LLC, provides sustainable and responsible portfolio management for institutional and individual clients.  An economist and former assistant professor of economics at the University of Denver, she has also served as Vice President of the United States Trust Company of Boston, now known as Walden Asset Management, where she managed the Women’s Equity Mutual Fund and the Calvert Social Investment Fund Bond Portfolio.

She brings considerable non-profit board experience, as former Board Chair of US SIF, the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investing, and as former Trustee and Chair of the Investment Committee for the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Corinne Florek has spent 30 years working in the field of community economic development as a manager, educator, consultant, financial administrator and strategic planner.  Her work spans the administration of a 50-member craft cooperative in Appalachia to management of a national and international loan fund for the Sisters of Mercy.

She also brings a range of relevant experience, as Loan Fund Manager, then Interim Executive Director, of the Women’s Initiative for Self-Employment, and Coordinator of Justice Organizers, Leadership and Treasurers (JOLT), in addition to consultancies in business and community economics.

Other members of Oikocredit USA’s current board include:  Chair Kay Hixson, Kay Hixson & Associates; Vice Chair Jesse Fripp, ShoreBank International; Secretary Paul Nelson, Graduate School of Public & International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh; Treasurer Paul Neuhauser, Finance and Investment Committees of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility; Susan Gottshall, American Baptist Home Mission Societies; and David Mesenbring, St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral.