Gaia Human Capital Consultants Team
Dawn E. Dzurilla, Founder & Managing Partner
Since Dawn Dzurilla founded Gaia Human Capital Consultants in 2007, she has become highly recognized as a leader at the nexus of executive search, talent leadership & talent acquisition in The Green Economy - ESG, sustainability impact tech, cleantech, clean and renewable energy industry.
Bringing over 25 years of vast executive search, talent management and talent acquisition experience to each client, Dawn has conducted scores of fascinating and challenging client searches for CEO's, CXO's, Directors, divisional leaders and subject matter experts for transformative, disruptive and impactful technology companies, investment and services, cleantech, renewable energy, environmental sustainability & private equity impact investors, financial institutions & information technology companies and non-profit organizations.
At Recurrent Energy, a utility-scale Solar Energy Development firm, Dawn served in-house as Senior Talent Acquisition Partner. Collaborating with stakeholder executives, she executed best-practice scalable and proactive recruitment solutions across the entire company, attracting coveted passive candidates. At Recurrent, she executed multiple searches, including the Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) division — in support of Recurrent's over 4.3 GW of large-scale solar energy projects development pipeline.
Her foray into Environmental impact, technology and sustainability began in 1990 when Dawn served as Director, Corporate Development & Investor Relations of an early-stage, pioneer medical waste technology company, that provided fully-integrated, innovative technology and services, that enabled hospitals and healthcare facilities to treat onsite, verifiable decontaminate and dispose of regulated medical and infectious waste, to then be converted into sterile, unrecognizable material suitable for recycling and disposal as municipal waste.
Prior to launching Gaia Human Capital Consultants, Dawn In 2003, co-founded H3 Capital Partners, a pioneer Alternative Impact Investment / Wealth Management firm that promoted ESG and Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) to institutional & pension investors, investment search & asset management consultants, financial wealth planners and HNW accredited investors.
Immediately prior, she owned a successful retained search practice focused in the investment banking, investment management, wealth management, mutual fund and banking sectors. She originated several multi-year, long-term client relationships with financial institutions and, led and executed scores of U.S. and U.K. searches, built teams of Senior Executives, Portfolio Managers, Bankers, Investment Research, HR, Financial Management, Operations and Technology Executives. She also started and directed an Investment Bank's University and MBA Recruitment program.
Earlier in her retained executive search career, Dawn served as Vice President, Executive Search Consultant for a pioneering, boutique retained search firm highly specialized in the global financial institutions, wealth management and investment management industry.
In San Diego, Dawn served in-house as Director of Corporate Recruitment & Talent Acquisition of Eastridge Workforce Solutions, as the firm’s senior corporate recruitment leader. In support of the firm’s growth and executive-level high hiring demand, Dawn created and drove strategies that attracted a pipeline of diverse and inclusion top-talent in highly competitive markets.
Dawn began her career in New York City as a Financial Analyst at Smith Barney, today known as Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
As a past National Chair of The Cleantech Open (CTO) and Director of Human Capital, Dawn provided HR organizational leadership to scores of entrepreneurial CEO’s and CXO’s at start-ups while also internally leading CTO’s Talent Management and HR functions.
Dawn is presently an Advisory Board Member of The Solstice Initiative, an award winning community solar company launched by scholars of Princeton University.
Passionate about diversity & inclusion (DEI) leadership, impact, environmental sustainability investing and social change, Dawn has authored several articles and has presented at numerous venues including Stanford University, Columbia University, Princeton University, Net Impact, American Council on Renewable Energy, Evergreen State College, Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy and The Cleantech Open.
A native of New York City, Dawn graduated from St. John’s University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Management and Business Administration. Dawn resides in San Francisco, CA.
Dawn Dzurilla
Managing Partner
415-535-3496
Twitter: @cleantechsearch
Dawn and Penny Dzurilla
Zoe Van Schyndel, CFA, Partner - Seattle, WA
Zoe Van Schyndel has been involved with Gaia Human Capital Consultants since its founding in 2007, when she originally spearheaded the practice's Green Employee Benefits program.
A Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Zoe leads Gaia Human Capital Consultants' ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) Investment Executive Search Practice. Zoe partners in retained executive search and talent management with a broad array of client financial institutions, investment management and wealth management company leaders. Zoe conducts executive search engagements with public and private investors, including pension funds, endowments and foundations seeking to create positive, meaningful impact and to increasingly make their investments towards sustainability-focused companies.
What is ESG? Environmental, social and governance criteria?
Environmental:
How a company mitigates issues including, its greenhouse gas and fossil fuel emissions, waste reduction and, reduces the stress on the planet's natural resources.
Social:
Prioritizing human rights everywhere a company does business and considering diversity and equal employment opportunity in its hiring practices.
Governance:
Company’s leadership and board's executive pay, diversity of board of directors and a company's responsiveness to its shareholders.
Zoe's background is in the investment industry as a practitioner in the mutual and hedge fund arena along with several ventures focused on ESG investing, including her experience in the private sector leading several entrepreneurial companies. A pioneer in the socially responsible investment (SRI) sector, Zoe Co-Founded and served as Chief Investment Officer at H3 Capital Management - an alternative investment start-up, and previously lead a team of analysts at KLD Research & Analytics, an Impact Investment research firm.
Zoe was responsible for the creation of the first SRI exchange traded fund (ETF) which now has more than three billion in assets.
Early in her financial career, at the Securities & Exchange Commission, Zoe conducted field reviews of mutual funds, investment advisers, and brokerage houses. Subsequently, she focused on risk management at one of the world’s largest money management firms, State Street Global Advisors.
Zoe has also held business school faculty positions at several academic institutions, including Northeastern University, The University of Miami, and The Evergreen State College. She has also worked with the investment industry’s premier self-regulatory and educational association, The CFA Institute for nearly three decades.
She was also an active member of the Boston Security Analysts Society, where she organized, and also taught a number of educational sessions on financial topics ranging from ethics to real estate investments.
Zoe Van Schyndel, CFA
Partner
Gaia Human Capital Consultants
360-515-8234