LIz Michaels

Advisory Board Member

Liz Michaels is an experienced operator, advisor, and ESG expert who partners with growth-stage companies to help them scale with clarity, purpose, and operational discipline.  She has held senior positions in three fast-growing startups - Morningstar (investment data, COO), Jellyvision (computer games, President) and Aperio (boutique asset manager acquired by BlackRock, co-CEO at time of acquisition) - where she worked side-by-side with founders to translate vision into execution.  Her expertise lies in strategic prioritization, scaling business operations, and building client-centric organizations with integrity and focus.

At Aperio, Liz led the firm’s client relations and operations including driving the implementation, adoption and evolution of Salesforce across business development, operations and portfolio management in order to streamline communication, collaboration and business intelligence.  In addition, she built the Values/Mission-Aligned Investing practice, developing customized public equity solutions for institutional clients.  This work deepened her knowledge of ESG data and the complexities of measurement and definition.  

Liz has also served as an Executive-in-Residence at the Rustandy Center for Social Innovation at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  Most recently she served as a mentor for a consulting management class focused on proposing sustainability solutions for three global companies and served as a judge for new venture competitions.  She is also a co-founder of the Chicago SRI-ESG-Impact Investing Breakfast Group — a 15 year old group that holds quarterly sessions on topics of interest to the investing community.

Liz lives in Chicago, where she recently initiated a composting and plastic recycling pilot at her local food pantry network.  Her hobbies  - scuba diving around the world, open water swimming and running on the Chicago lakefront - have intensified her concerns around plastics and commitment to environmental issues.