Susan Perez, PhD

Susan is an economist, policy advocate, and social impact investment consultant. Currently, she is the CFO of Secure Justice, an organization focused on corporate and governmental accountability, and runs a client-centered practice helping early-stage founders of non-profits and social enterprises develop business strategies and demonstrate progress on metrics of impact and scale. Susan has worked in socially responsible investments as a wealth manager, investment advisor, and portfolio manager since 2014 and is a member of Women Investing for a Sustainable Economy (WISE-SF) and Racial Justice Investing.

She led shareholder and civil society coalition campaigns to move Tech corporations to assess and address harms to rights holders at multiple Fortune 500 companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Alphabet. Susan has worked at the state level in policy advocacy as a Researcher at the National Nurses United/California Nurses Association, advancing and passing public safety and labor standards. Before that, as the Economic Studies Fellow at the Institute for America’s Future/Campaign for America’s Future, she served as a participant and the organizational point for the coalitions that drafted the progressive consensus white papers pushed on the Hill for what would become the stimulus package (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

With non-profits, Susan’s worked in policy and corporate advocacy on issues ranging from trafficking in women to disaster relief, environmental justice, housing affordability, and equitable development.

She has a Ph.D. in Economics and an MA in Global Political Economy and Finance from the New School for Social Research, in New York City.  She received her B.A. in Women’s Studies and Community Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Susan is currently based in South LA with her husband and son.