Who We Are

ROBERT BROOKE ZEVIN

Chairman, Chief Investment Officer, & Portfolio Manager

Robert has been a leader in socially responsible investing since 1967.  At the same time he also pioneered the use of modern portfolio theory seeking to protect his clients against the losses that are so often the result of conventional investment approaches. Robert has mentored and trained many people in the social investing movement as employees and as friends. He started what is now Walden Asset Management in 1975, making it the first explicit socially responsible unit in any bank. He was also a principal architect of the first Calvert Social Investment Fund in 1982. Robert was a leader in the movement to divest from apartheid South Africa. His 1987 expert testimony in defense of the Baltimore pension funds’ right to divest led to a precedent-setting decision. He gave testimony, performed studies and engaged in debates in numerous cities, states and universities.

His activism and commitment to civil disobedience has led to arrests and beatings as well as boardrooms. He has founded, co-founded and led numerous social change organizations such as Resist (against the war in Vietnam), United States Servicemen’s Fund (anti-war GI coffee houses), Haymarket Foundation (change not charity), Affirmative Investments (direct community investments), and Shared Interest (support for informal economy in South Africa since 1996) as well as the School for Community Economic Development at Southern New Hampshire University. Robert is also a Harvard PhD in economics, who has taught at Berkeley, Columbia, Harvard, Boston University, UMass Amherst, and Simmons College. He has published two books and numerous articles about economic history and social policy. His strongest current interests, beyond socially responsible investing are encouraging the anti-war movement among servicemen and women and their families and working for campaign finance reform.

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