Core TEAM

Jacob A. James • Founding Partner

Danielle Stilz • Partner

Alexandra Rubin • Associate

Taylor Ferguson • Associate

Of Counsel

 Lashanti Jupp • Advisor, Conservation

Erin Demorest • Senior Advisor, Government Affairs

Lynn Gape • Senior Advisor, Conservation

Sary Stefanki • Senior Advisor, Strategy

Strategic Partners

Animals | Environment PLLC (AELaw) • Bruce Myers

MedReAct (Mediterranean Recovery Action) • Domitilla Senni

Lester Lab Florida State University (FSU) • Sarah Lester, PhD

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Core Team

Jacob A. James

FOUNDING PARTNER - DUDLEY & FINCH, LLC

Jacob has spent his career building the power and influence of organizations seeking to create global change. As a professional advocate and external relations expert, Jacob regularly engages legislators, regulators, heads of state and government, The United Nations, corporations and executives, political campaigns and a myriad of NGOs. As a public affairs and management strategy consultant, Jacob’s specialty is swiftly understanding a client’s full-picture agenda and developing intuitive solutions to expedite advocacy, nature conservation, and commercial outcomes.

Prior to founding Dudley & Finch Public Affairs (D&F), Jacob served as the Managing Director of the Waitt Foundation, as primary advisor to Gateway, Inc. co-founder Ted Waitt, and as a board member of the Waitt Institute.  There he was responsible for strategy, operations, public relations, network development, grantee relationships, and advocacy around nature conservation and disaster management.  Having designed and executed local, national and multilateral government relations programs to advance international agreements and domestic policies, Jacob was instrumental in building the foundation’s reputation and impact in a complex, visible, and high-stakes setting.  Previously Jacob worked in US politics, first in municipal political campaigns and later on the legislative staff of Congresswoman Susan A. Davis (CA-53). Jacob obtained his MA in Government from Georgetown University and his BA in Biology from Point Loma Nazarene University.

 A native of San Diego, CA, Jacob is an active civic volunteer and lives in the Ocean Beach neighborhood where he can be found playing tennis, practicing yoga, or at the beach with his Barbudan rescue dog “Hurricane José.”

Danielle Stilz

PARTNER - DUDLEY & FINCH, LLC
OWNER - STILZ STRATEGIES, LLC

Danielle founded Stilz Strategies, LLC in 2017. With over twenty years of experience in the politics, government, and philanthropic sectors, she helps individuals and entities drive meaningful, systemic change through strategic philanthropy. Danielle is passionate about helping clients develop social impact and business strategies that empower them to become a more powerful force for good.

She works nationally and internationally providing best-in-class expertise on increasing operational effectiveness and building organizational sustainability.  Danielle has experience on all sides of the philanthropic landscape– from increasing revenue, to allocating program funds, to helping top philanthropists refine their impact. Danielle currently supports a wide array of clients from international NGOs to global philanthropists.

Danielle previously served as the Chief Development Officer for the Clinton Foundation where she worked as a member of the executive team, making strategic development decisions for a global organization focused on poverty alleviation in 70 countries worldwide. Danielle oversaw and directed the Clinton Foundation’s development department’s vision and goals. Her focus was on fostering relationships and partnerships with ultra-high net worth individuals, foundations, and corporations in order to advance the mission of the Foundation.

In addition to overseeing an annual budget of $30M, Danielle was key in mapping and executing strategy for the Clinton Foundation’s Endowment campaign, which raised $250M in less than two years. She played a pivotal role in managing high-level donor relationships with Foundation principals, including President Clinton, Secretary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton while navigating several periods of dynamic change. Danielle obtained her BA in Political Science from the University of Iowa.

Danielle is a marathon runner who resides in Chicago, Illinois with her Golden Retriever “Ziggy.”

Alexandra Rubin, M.E.

ASSOCIATE - DUDLEY & FINCH, LLC

Alexandra (Ali) has a background in engineering principles and a passion for environmental conservation and fighting climate change.  She brings a unique blend of analytical thinking and creativity to the firm.  After some time as an environmental engineer, in 2021, Ali uprooted to live and work in Costa Rica at Innoceana, a grassroots marine conservation and community organization in Ojochal, Puntarenas.  She provided support across the organization ranging from field research, to grant writing, to hands-on education and outreach.  While abroad, Ali worked on community engagement projects to eliminate ghost fishing nets to support local ecotourism initiatives as well as monitor ecosystem health via water quality studies. Ali spent 1.5 years as the full-time Associate, and now works for D&F part time while she obtains her second Masters Degree in Ocean Science Conservation and Innovation at Universite Cote dAzur in Nice, France. Starting this March, she will begin an internship with the Sorbonne University at their oceanography laboratory. She received her first Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Florida in December 2020.  Born and raised in San Diego, CA, Ali enjoys surfing, cooking vegetarian meals, volunteering with local conservation organizations, and  spending time with her cat “Cheeto”.

Taylor Ferguson

ASSOCIATE - DUDLEY & FINCH, LLC

Taylor hails from Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, The Bahamas and brings to the D&F team and clients a depth of experience from her two-decade career in journalism, marketing and project management in The Bahamas and Turks & Caicos. Taylor has been part D&F’s extended family for some time as a communications advisor to Waterkeepers Bahamas.

Of Counsel

Lashanti Jupp, MPhil

ADVISOR, CONSERVATION POLICY & COMMUNICATIONS
FOUNDER - SIREN SUNDAYS

Born and raised in the Bahamas, Lashanti is a marine conservationist, science communicator, project and grants manager. She has a decade of experience in environmental outreach and provides deep knowledge of stakeholder engagement and consultation in The Bahamas, including an understanding of the unique subcultures and hierarchies that exist in different island communities. Lashanti holds a MPhil in Conservation Leadership, a BSc in Marine Biology and a certificate in Social Psychology.

Erin Demorest

SENIOR ADVISOR, LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS & PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Erin has 18 years of experience in local government and politics, providing strategic guidance and counsel for elected officials and executives, along with policy development and implementation.  She served as Director of Policy for the Land Use and Environment Group at the County of San Diego, California and as Chief of Staff to the San Diego City Council President and Director of Legislative Affairs for the San Diego City Council. She was instrumental in infrastructure projects to address stormwater and ocean pollution in the San Diego region, the implementation of State marine protected areas off the coastline, the management of marine mammals at local beaches, and the deployment of first-in-the nation same-day water quality testing along the San Diego coastline.

 Lynn Gape

SENIOR ADVISOR, CARIBBEAN CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT

Lynn is a former school teacher in The Bahamas and former Deputy Executive Director of the Bahamas National Trust (BNT).  She has a wealth of knowledge of the history of conservation in The Bahamas, is a highly regarded conservation champion who is renowned for her groundbreaking

work to save the Bahama Parrot, and is an expert in education, outreach, community relations, and curriculum development.  Lynn is currently a Special Projects consultant to the BNT Executive Director and BNT Council and assists the Bahamian Government on process management, regulatory policy, and stakeholder engagement.

Sary Stefanki Brunner

Senior advisor, corporate & Global strategy

Sary Stefanki Brunner is a tech executive who has played leadership roles at corporations through their dynamic startup phase to Initial Public Offering (IPO), to full-scale billion-dollar global execution. Sary has built and run a world-renowned customer success organization that supports hundreds of thousands of brand-customers as those companies grow and optimize their own customer relationships. Today, Sary leads communications for the CEO of a Fortune 500 tech firm, where she also plays a central role in seeing corporate advocacy reflected in internal policy. Before corporate life, Sary worked as a speechwriter for Congresswoman Susan A. Davis (CA-53) preceded by a stint in the news industry at ABC World News Tonight. Sary is a native of Sacramento, CA where she lives with her two sassy daughters and husband. The Stefank-Brunner family is legendary in Sacramento's tennis community.

STRATEGIC PARTNERS

Animals | Environment PLLC (AELaw)

AELaw is a public interest law practice and consultancy established in 2016 in Washington, DC which solves problems of people and organizations striving for a better world for animals and working to protect the environment.

Bruce Myers is the Principal of AELaw and assists governments, nonprofits, and stakeholders seeking to protect and better manage marine spaces of island states through marine protected areas (MPAs), marine spatial planning (MSP), and related governance tools. He has spent over a decade as a senior policy attorney for the nonprofit Environmental Law Institute (ELI), a national research and education organization. Bruce is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law; licensed to practice in Washington, DC and California.

MedReAct (Mediterranean Recovery Action)

MedReAct was launched in 2014 by a group of activists and organizations committed to fighting biodiversity loss in the Mediterranean Sea with the mission to catalyze action for the recovery of Mediterranean marine ecosystems and fish stocks.

Domitilla Senni is the President of MedReAct and worked for Greenpeace International’s Mediterranean campaign, then as director of Greenpeace Italy. Later she managed the development of the OCEAN2012 coalition in various European countries, driving large coalitions of NGOs and the public sector to pass the European Union’s (EU) ground-breaking fisheries laws. In addition to her role at MedReAct, Domitilla has served as a senior advisor and consultant to both US and European foundations, conservation organizations at the local and global scale, and various EU governments and commissions.

Lester Lab - Florida State University

The Lester Lab has an interdisciplinary research program addressing questions related to coastal and marine natural resource management, marine conservation science, ecosystem sustainability, and applied marine ecology.

Sarah Lester, PhD is anassociate professor, Department of Geography at Florida State University (FSU) and Principal Investigator at theLester Lab. Her current scientific work includes mariculture development in the United States and globally, the effectiveness of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), developing spatial planning approaches to inform mariculture siting and ecosystem restoration, and designing ocean zoning and fisheries management around Small Island Developing States (SIDS).