Leadership
John Fullerton is the Founder and President of Capital Institute, a collaborative space working to transform finance to serve a more just, regenerative, and sustainable economic system. Through the work of Capital Institute, regular public speaking engagements, and university lectures, John has become a recognized thought leader in the New Economy space generally, and the financial system transformation challenge in particular.
John is also a recognized leading practitioner in the “impact investment” space as the Principal of Level 3 Capital Advisors, LLC. Level 3’s direct investments are primarily focused on sustainable, regenerative land use, food, and water issues. Through both Capital Institute and Level 3, John brings a unique theory and practice approach to financial system transformation.
Previously, John was a Managing Director of JPMorgan where he worked for over 18 years. At JPMorgan, John managed various capital markets and derivatives business around the globe, then shifted focus to private investments and was subsequently the Chief Investment Officer of LabMorgan through the merger with Chase Manhattan before retiring from the bank in 2001.
Following JPMorgan, and after experiencing 9-11 first hand, John spent years embarked on more entrepreneurial ventures as an impact investor while engaging in deep study of our multiple interconnected systemic crises that led to the founding of Capital Institute, officially launched in 2010.
John was a member of the Long Term Capital Oversight Committee that managed the $3.6 Billion rescue of the distressed hedge fund in 1998. He is a Co-Founder and Director of Grasslands, LLC, a holistic ranch management company in partnership with the Savory Institute, and a Director of New Day Farms, Inc., New Economics Institute, and Savory Institute.org. He is also an Advisor to Armonia, LLC, a Belgian family office focused on impact investments, and to Richard Branson’s Business Leader’s initiative. He sits on the steering committee for the New America Foundation's Smart Strategy initiative as well.
John writes the bi-weekly Future of Finance blog, which is widely syndicated on platforms such as The Guardian and The Huffington Post. He has appeared on Frontline, and been interviewed by Bloomberg, The Laura Flanders Show, The Real News Network, INET, and WOR radio.
John received a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the Stern School of Business at NYU.
The Capital Institute Team
Susan Arterian Chang, Director of Content Development and the Field Guide to Investing in Regenerative Economy Initiative, has worked in the world of both global capital markets and local economies. As a financial writer she covered the evolution of derivatives and risk management for a variety of investment and corporate finance publications, produced white papers on international taxation issues and performance management for KPMG, and worked as a foreign exchange analyst and on the strategic trading desk at MHT Bank. From 1997 to 2005 she published a National Newspaper Association award-winning community newspaper in White Plains, New York, where she championed local ownership and quality of life issues in a small city struggling to revitalize. As publisher she received the Business Ethics Award from the Rotary Club and Entrepreneur of the Year Award from New York State’s Small Business Development Center. Her combined experiences give her a unique perspective on the importance of focusing finance and investment on long-term, place-based business models. Susan holds a BA in English Literature from Reed College, and did graduate work with a concentration in finance in the MBA program at NYU’s Leonard Stern School of Business.
Emily Walsh, Director of Communications, brings a diverse communications and marketing background with both agency and in-house experience to Capital Institute. She previously held the position of public relations and marketing manager for the U.S. arm of the global non-profit Slow Food and account supervisor for a mid-sized integrated public relations agency, where her clients included LEED-certified commercial and residential real estate developers. She has also worked with a wide variety of other non-profit clients. She holds a B.A. in International Political Economy from Fordham University at Rose Hill and a professional certificate in Digital Media Marketing from New York University.
Marie McCann, designer of the Field Guide to Investing in a Regenerative Economy initiative, is an artist, graphic designer, and environmental advocate. Marie holds dear the belief that if we can envision the world that we want to live in, we can realize it. A graduate of Parsons School of Design, she brings her expertise in design and digital media to the presentation of the Field Guides and is passionately pursuing new formats for digital storytelling. She is also an exhibiting artist and co-founder of “Eco-Neighbors,” a grassroots environmental advocacy group in White Plains, New York, that collaborates with local government to implement sustainable practices.
Capital Institute Fellows and Interns
Tim MacDonald, Senior Fellow at Capital Institute, is a theorist-practitioner in the evolving new field of purposeful investment by stewardship investors. A lawyer by vocation, Tim integrates diverse experiences in finance, investment, and associated commercial transactions and their regulation, across multiple capital formation systems. A student of history, anthropology, and philosophy by avocation, Tim brings a multi-disciplinary, multi-generational, evolutionary worldview to the great challenges of our time presenting at the intersections of law, economics, and technology.
Tim is a summa cum laude graduate of Boston College (BA Philosophy) and holds a JD degree, magna cum laude, from Boston College Law School. He is the principal of stonebridgepartnerships.com, the base for his work on a new investment architecture, “the equity split in a negotiated base case cash flow waterfall,” that enables a more direct connection between values-driven business leaders and stewardship investors. Capital Institute is working closely on a proof-of-concept on Tim's equity split model. It will be the subject of the first study in our upcoming FIeld Guide to Investing in a Regenerative Economy Finance series.
For ten years, Tim was part of the new products team at Meridian Investments, Inc., a boutique financial advisory firm based in Boston and Washington that specializes in institutional tax partnership investments. As President of Meridian’s Renewable Energies practice, Tim drove a number of firsts in the use of institutional tax partnership structures for wind power projects, residential rooftop distributed solar power projects, solid oxide fuel cells distributed power projects, biomass, and geothermal power production. Tim has worked internationally, with companies based in the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, and Italy.
Tim resides in the seaside town of Tiverton, Rhode Island, with his wife, Kelley, her pug, Paco, and two cats, in close proximity to their three children, now grown and on their own.
Dan Thompson joined Capital Institute in 2011 after a year with New York public policy think tank Demos and a host of student organizing experiences at Berklee College of Music. His interests include alternative economic theory. He left his role as Director of Communications at Capital Institute in the Fall of 2012 to pursue a Masters Degree in Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, but continues on as a fellow of the Institute as a contributor to our thought leadership pratice.
Evan Lozier joined the Capital Institute as a summer intern in 2011 as the youngest member of our team, and we welcomed him back enthustiastically for a return engagement in the summer of 2012. Evan was previously active at the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai Hospital, an organization that focuses on the identification and prevention of toxic childhood environmental exposure. He is currently entering his third year at Lehigh University where he is studying finance. Evan’s interests include new economic theory, history, and environmental science.
Devin McIntire has advised, founded and run social ventures in India, Tanzania and the US. He is working at Capital Institute for the summer and is currently an MS/MBA dual degree student in the Erb Institute at the University of Michigan. His research is focused on identifying and describing "Coordinations"-- a new type of organization that is emerging at the intersection of "peer-production"/"co-creation" and "collaborative consumption"/"sharing economy." He is also the founder of Real Good Food-- a new, web-based food exchange for enthusiastic home cooks.
David J Nicola, Capital Institute Fellow, spent seven years on Wall Street working as a portfolio manager at BlueMountain Capital Management and as an investment banking analyst at Salomon Smith Barney. After stepping away from Wall Street in 2009, David spent time traveling abroad, volunteering, and pursuing photography. During that time he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, studied lions with the Earthwatch Institute in Kenya, participated in the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in India, and created a self-published photo book — http://www.blurb.com/user/dnicola. He is a co-founder and former board member of The Nature Conservancy's Young Professionals Group in NYC. Currently, David attends The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University where he is a student in the MBA program, Class of 2013. Please see links to his photo website: www.davidjnicolaphoto.com and travel blog: www.dnicola.blogspot.com. David's photos grace the pages of the Capital Institute's Field Guide to Investing in a Regenerative Economy Grasslands Study and can also be found in the Field Guide multimedia slide show, "Meet the Ranchers of Grasslands."
Liana Scobie, Capital Institute Fellow, first became interested in new economics while a student at Colorado College where she wrote her Senior Thesis on the triple bottom line. She is now the Executive Team Associate at TerraCycle, Inc., a sustainable business headquartered in Trenton, NJ and operating in over 20 countries around the world that is eliminating the idea of waste by recycling the previously non-recyclable. She is currently pursuing a Certificate in Financial Analysis from NYU in preparation for graduate studies in sustainable finance and systems design.