Leading Shareholder Association Names Interim Executive Director

15 September 2000

The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility today announced the appointment of Valerie Heinonen, o.s.u. as Interim Executive Director to begin 2 October 2000. Sister Heinonen's appointment follows the retirement of Timothy Smith, ICCR Executive Director since 1976.

"We are indeed fortunate to have an accomplished leader and administrator who can step in and lead our organization during transition," declared Francis G. Coleman, Chair of ICCR's Governing Board. "Sister Heinonen is a veteran of the corporate responsibility movement with a record of lifelong achievement and commitment to peace, social justice and environmental stewardship."

Sister Heinonen has a Bachelor of Business Administration from St. John's University and a Masters in Education from Fairfield University. An Ursuline Sister of Tildonk, Sr. Heinonen directed ICCR programs on militarism, global finance and community economic development, sweatshops and child hunger for ICCR for over twenty years between the mid 1970s and 1990. 

She returns to ICCR after five years at Nazareth Housing, Inc. where she served as Assistant Administrator, responsible for fundraising, board and technology development, education and vocation programs. Nazareth Housing creates affordable housing and provides education and career development programs for homeless women and families in New York City.

ICCR's Governing Board named an interim director to lead the organization as it conducts a global search for a successor for Mr. Smith, one of the corporate social responsibility movement's most widely recognized figures. ICCR has engaged an executive search firm to assist with its search and expects to name a permanent executive director in early 2001. 

ICCR is an association of nearly 300 faith-based institutional investors who use their portfolios, sponsoring shareholder resolutions and voting proxies, to press corporations to be socially and environmentally responsible. ICCR members include national denominations, religious communities, pension funds, endowments, healthcare corporations, foundations, dioceses and publishing companies with combined portfolios worth an estimated $110 billion dollars. 

For more information contact: Diane Bratcher 212-870-2296.