Amazon ESG Investment Head Defends Mission, Stigmatized Title

Amazon still has a place for an executive with “ESG” in her title, even as environmental and social corporate activism faces political headwinds.

Tessie Petion became Amazon’s first head of ESG engagement in 2020 during a pivotal moment in corporate responsibility. Larry Fink, chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc., touted climate change as the asset manager’s investment cornerstone that year, and the death of George Floyd at the hands of police fueled a corporate reckoning over the treatment of minorities.

But since then, President Donald Trump turned diversity programs into a legal liability shortly after taking office the second ...