Blaine Townsend | Source | Executive Vice President, Director, SRII at Bailard

Blaine serves as an Executive Vice President and the Director of Bailard Wealth Management’s Sustainable, Responsible and Impact Investing (SRII) group, as well as a portfolio manager of Bailard's small cap value ESG equity strategy. Blaine is on both Bailard’s fundamental and SRII investment committees, conducts social research, oversees corporate engagement efforts and maintains client relationships.

Blaine began researching and writing about corporate social responsibility in the late 1980s. He started his career in Socially Responsible Investing in 1991 at the Muir Investment Trust, the nation’s first environmentally screened bond fund. In 1996, he opened the California office for Trillium Asset Management, which he led for thirteen years. While at Trillium, Blaine managed socially responsible and sustainably focused portfolios, served on the firm’s investment committee and worked on corporate engagement efforts on a host of social and environmental issues from deforestation to media reform. Blaine also led the effort to create the “Joan Bavaria Awards for Building Sustainability in the Capital Markets”, which are presented each year at the Ceres annual conference and was part of the working group that created OpenMic to address net neutrality and media reform. In 2009, he joined Nelson Capital Management, where he was a partner and a senior portfolio manager. He also served on the firm’s leadership team and investment committee. Blaine chaired the company’s corporate engagement committee and was on the Extraction-Free and Animal-Welfare model teams. Blaine joined Bailard in 2016.

Blaine currently serves as an Advisory Board member for The Journal of Impact and ESG Investing. He holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and CIMC® and CIMA® credentials. His writings and commentary on social investing have appeared in numerous publications including Reuters, the San Francisco Chronicle, MarketWatch, Real Leaders, American Banker, and the San Jose Mercury News. Blaine has three children in college and lives with his wife and two dogs in San Rafael, California. He has an eclectic taste in music and is an avid sports fan.