Caroline Rees

Caroline Rees is President and Co-Founder of Shift, a non-profit organization working globally with companies, investors, lenders and standard-setters to embed respect for human rights into business and build a fairer economic system. Among other roles, her work has focused on how to advance corporate reporting as a catalyst for better human rights risk management, and on improving the data and methods used to evaluate companies’ social performance. Caroline was a British diplomat from 1992 to 2006. While heading the UK's human rights team at the United Nations, she chaired the negotiations that established the mandate of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on business and human rights. She became lead advisor to John Ruggie after he was appointed to that role, and was centrally involved in the drafting of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. From 2009 to 2011 she was also Director of the Governance and Accountability Program at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Corporate Responsibility Initiative. Caroline is a member of the Unilever Sustainability Advisory Council, the Imperatives Board of the WBCSD, and the Board of the Capitals Coalition.