AnnaMaria DeSalva
AnnaMaria DeSalva

Hill+Knowlton Strategies has launched Better Impact, the umbrella for the firm’s global citizenship and sustainability offer. Better Impact’s efforts will draw on H+K’s sustainability, philanthropy; diversity and inclusion; disaster relief and humanitarian aid; community engagement; and environmental, sustainability and corporate governance expertise. It will allow businesses to benchmark their progress in these areas through such offerings as the Better Impact scorecard, which launched in 2017 and measures companies’ progress against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Services will also include strategy and program development; issues and crisis management; and executive visibility and positioning. “This global offering strategically supports our client-centric approach to drive growth, build reputation and mitigate risk for clients around the world,” said H+K global chairman and CEO AnnaMaria DeSalva.

Ari Rubenstein
Ari Rubenstein

Profile Advisors handled the launch of ClearList, a digital trading platform geared toward helping “level the playing field for investors.” The platform will provide the investor bases of its private-company clients with access to a network of global investors, and is set to deploy a system for accredited retail investors to invest side-by-side with the largest investors in the world. Its ClearPrice feature will use proprietary technology “to continuously calculate a fair and transparent price where buyers and sellers can transact.” Its first client is Cibus, a company that develops advanced plant-breeding technologies. ClearList is majority-owned by Global Trading Systems, which will provide it with technology and market expertise. It “will bring unprecedented transparency to private-company pricing, enabling growth and smoothing the road to a successful IPO,” said ClearList chairman Ari Rubenstein, who is also co-founder and CEO of GTS.

Larry Selzer
Larry Selzer

Nonprofit venture Leading Harvest has been launched by a group of farmers, conservationists, landowners, managers and investors to develop a universal benchmark of agricultural sustainability. With input from growers and agricultural experts, the organization says its “ground-up approach” sets the stage for a benchmark that can be adopted across the agriculture industry. To ensure that required outcomes are being met, Leading Harvest requires that independent, third-party experts audit producer performance in all aspects of the standard. Leading Harvest is launching with over two million farmland acres committed to being enrolled. “With meaningful and measurable sustainability practices, the United States agricultural sector will rise to the challenge to ensure food security and environmental benefits,” said Leading Harvest board member and president and CEO of The Conservation Fund Larry Selzer.