Maximizing Your BSR Membership

BSR Members Only

Date and Time

March 19, 2025
11:00 am-12:00 pm EDT

Location

Webinar

Event Resources

Event resources are for BSR members only. Members, please log in to access the resources.

Are you making the most of your BSR membership? This session will explore how to leverage BSR’s extensive resources—including insights, advice, and collaboration opportunities—to gain a clearer understanding of a changing world, create long-term value, and scale impact. Join us to learn the many ways you can engage with BSR to help you drive meaningful progress towards your sustainable business goals.

Scheduled Speakers

Charlene Collison, Director, Collaboration, BSR

Director, Collaboration, BSR

London

As Director, Collaborations, Charlene develops and implements strategies to engage BSR member companies and other stakeholders in high-impact collaborations for sustainable development. She specializes in building collaborative approaches between consumer-facing companies and their value chains to embed long-term sustainability, build resilience in the face of disruption, and increase equity, inclusion, and justice.

Charlene brings over 20 years of experience in sustainability, systems change, futures, and collaboration. Prior to BSR, Charlene was associate director for sustainable value chains and livelihoods with global sustainability non-profit Forum for the Future, where she directed collaborative system change initiatives in cotton, tea and other commodities, and led strategy projects with partners across the fashion and textile, agricultural and food sectors.

Charlene has an extensive background in futures, including working with the UK government’s futures unit developing and testing strategies across government departments.

Charlene holds an MSc in Sustainability and Responsibility from Ashridge Management College (UK), a BA in International Relations from the University of Puget Sound (US), and a Diploma in Organisation Development from Henley Business School (UK).

Recent Insights From Charlene Collison

Full Bio

Laura Gitman, Chief Impact Officer, BSR

Chief Impact Officer, BSR

New York

Laura is a global expert on corporate sustainability, with two decades of experience in strategy consulting and has advised senior executives at global companies across a range of industry sectors and sustainability issues.

As Chief Impact Officer (CIO), the first in the organization’s 30-year history, Laura focuses on maximizing the impact of BSR’s work with its network of over 300 members, both through direct engagement on project work and as a mentor for teams throughout the organization. She also oversees BSR’s collaborative initiatives and the Center for Business and Social Justice, and a recognized thought leader and innovator in strategic business.

She has been an instrumental leader in BSR’s organizational growth and impact. She launched BSR’s financial services practice and New York office, and she served as Chief Operating Officer for five years, leveraging her strengths in strategy, organizational change, and people management. Laura works with leading global companies to develop and enhance their sustainability strategies to maximize value for business and society, and she is sought after to facilitate senior-level strategy workshops and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

She previously worked for Deloitte Consulting, where she acquired extensive strategy experience advising multinational financial services companies. She also worked on several community and economic development projects in Latin America.

Laura holds a MBA from Stanford University and a BS in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. She is an adjunct professor in the Bard MBA in Sustainability program, a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and a member of the UN Global Compact Expert Network.

Recent Insights From Laura Gitman

Full Bio

David Stearns, Managing Director, Marketing and Communications, BSR

Managing Director, Marketing and Communications, BSR

New York

David leads BSR’s marketing and communications initiatives, working with a global team to amplify the organization’s mission and showcase its activities, impacts, and thought leadership to members, partners, and the wider business and policy community.

David previously worked for The B Team, a group of global business and civil society leaders working to catalyze a better way of doing business for the well-being of people and the planet. Throughout his 20-year career, he has worked with businesses and nonprofits in economic development, public health, and sustainability to define and communicate their purpose and impacts. .

He has built high-impact communications campaigns for a collaboration to improve maternal health in Zambia and Uganda, driven top-tier media coverage for a major economic development project in upstate New York, and helped strengthen parliamentary capacity and voter education efforts in South Africa and Zambia. He began his career as a newspaper reporter.

David earned his M.A. from The Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University and his B.A. in Journalism and Political Science from Michigan State University.

Recent Insights From David Stearns

Full Bio

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