Jean Rogers looking for private-sector opportunities after leaving SASB

Sustainable accounting stalwart Dr Jean Rogers will be seeking new opportunities in the private sector following her resignation from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) – the body she founded in 2011.
Rogers was Chair of SASB, a globally-recognised standards-setting body focused on disclosure in US capital markets, until earlier this month, when she stepped down to make way for Jeffrey Hales – previously Vice-Chair, and a professor of accounting at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Rogers will provide consultancy services to SASB until August, “to ensure a smooth transition”, the body said in a statement.
Rogers founded SASB with Harvard University, in a bid to promote high-quality disclosure of material sustainability information. She was CEO until last May, when it was overhauled to improve governance and accountability.
SASB now has a budget of $5.8m and has developed accounting standards for 79 industries in 11 sectors. Having concluded a public comment period on its standards recently, it is readying itself to codify them over the summer. It says that once this is complete, by the end of the year, SASB will “focus on maintaining and continually improving the standards through independent research and practical feedback from corporations, investors, and other market participants” .
Rogers told RI she was “exploring opportunities in the private sector that will take the concepts of SASB forward,” adding that she had “no immediate plans” and wanted to spend some time with family before returning to the industry.She will be travelling to Paris in June, having been awarded a ‘medal laureateship’ from the Society of Progress, an academic initiative led by France-based business school Insead, which seeks to celebrate innovations that help better align capitalism with “society, humans and nature”.
“I will be looking at other opportunities for the fall,” Rogers said. “There is a lot to be done and many exciting opportunities at the intersection of sustainability and finance. I will take some time to evaluate how I can best contribute to the advancement of the field going forward.”
Prior to SASB, Rogers was a Principal at Arup, the engineering firm, and a management consultant at Deloitte.
SASB has seen changes at its Foundation, too. It named Michael Bloomberg the Chair Emeritus of the SASB Foundation Board. He has served as Chair for the past four years, and will be replaced by Robert Steel – a partner and CEO at New York-based asset manager Perella Weinberg Partners. Steel was Deputy Mayor of NYC for Economic Development under the Bloomberg administration, and former Under-Secretary for Domestic Finance at the US Department of Treasury. Before that, he served as President and CEO of Wachovia and as co-head of the US Equities division and Vice Chair of Goldman Sachs. He’s been Co-Vice Chair of the SASB Foundation Board since January 2017.
SASB has recently received funding to the tune of $2.4m from Bloomberg Philanthropies to “help ensure SASB has the voice and the resources needed to succeed in this next phase”.