JESSE NISHINAGA

Jesse Nishinaga is a seasoned business and human rights and corporate sustainability professional with nearly 20 years of diversified industry experience advancing responsible business policies, strategies, and processes. As Director of Operations & Advisory Services at Article One, Jesse helps clients develop and implement management frameworks and tools to operationalize human rights and ESG principles within core business functions. Jesse also leads Article One’s operational effectiveness.

Previously, Jesse served as Program Director of UC Berkeley’s Human Rights and Business Initiative, a joint program of the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law and the Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of Business. In this role, Jesse led all strategic and programmatic components of the initiative, organized and co-chaired the Annual Microsoft Conference on Business, Technology, and Human Rights, and advanced new partnerships, curricula, and research on salient business and human rights topics, such as the role of technology in addressing human rights challenges in global supply chains.

Prior to UC Berkeley, Jesse oversaw Corporate Citizenship’s U.S. West Coast practice, where he advised Fortune 500 clients on ESG issues, conducted regional socioeconomic impact studies, and developed internal roadmaps to drive corporate action on key sustainability issues, such as responsible sourcing, climate change, and diversity and inclusion. Before Corporate Citizenship, Jesse was a manager at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), where he launched BSR’s Procurement Leadership Group, directed grant-funded research on mobilizing CSR for population health, and developed integrated solutions, frameworks, tools, and scorecards for materiality, stakeholder engagement, reporting, sustainable procurement, and human rights due diligence. Jesse also worked with member companies to advance science-based climate targets and global living wages.

Jesse began his career in international corporate retail at Gap Inc., where he served in a variety of business-critical roles to deliver operational and financial impact. While at Gap Inc., Jesse spent several years in Tokyo, Japan, to help expand Gap and Banana Republic’s in-country operations. While in Japan, he founded Net Impact Tokyo, a platform for local professionals to share innovative ideas and best practices on making a positive impact on society through the power of business. Early on, Jesse also spent time in corporate and field roles at PepsiCo, Nike, and Johnson & Johnson.

Jesse holds an M.B.A. and B.S. from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where he focused on corporate responsibility and received a certificate in global management. He and his family are based in Seattle, Washington, to serve Article One’s clients in the Pacific Northwest.