Center Welcomes Jo Mackness as New Executive Director; Kellie McElhaney Becomes Co-Faculty Director



September 9, 2008


We're delighted to welcome Jo Mackness as the new Executive Director of the Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of Business. Jo was most recently the Corporate Responsibility Integration Leader at Ernst & Young, and she brings a breadth of corporate and consulting experience to this role. Jo takes over from the founding Executive Director, Kellie McElhaney, who has transitioned into a new role as co-Faculty Director at the Center.

 

For the past six years, Kellie has provided tremendous vision and leadership of the Center, which has led the Haas School to be ranked the #1 MBA program in corporate responsibility by the Financial Times and #2 by The Wall Street Journal. As a member of the Center's Faculty Board and a co-faculty director alongside Professor Ben Hermalin, Kellie will remain very much involved with the Center, focused on furthering Haas's academic leadership, research, and curriculum in the area of responsible business.

 

As the new executive director, Jo is well positioned to build on the Center's success to-date and lead it to new heights, particularly in the areas of corporate engagement, program development, and academic integration. At E&Y, Jo worked to embed socially responsible thinking and action into core firm activities and to identify and execute on new opportunities that a responsible perspective brings. She is a strong supporter of environmental sustainability and was integral to the creation of a new function focused on minimizing EY's environmental footprint.

 

Prior to EY, Jo was a human capital consultant working in the US and the UK, primarily serving professional services and financial services firms on transactions, corporate governance and executive compensation issues.

 

Jo is a Haas alumna and has worked closely with the Center for Responsible Business since its inception in 2003 - both as a corporate sponsor, and most recently as the instructor for the Strategic CSR & Consulting Projects course. Jo is also a national board member of Net Impact - an international organization whose mission is to make a positive impact on society by growing and strengthening a community of new leaders who use business to improve the world. Jo officially takes over the Center reins on September 15.