The Work of Friction

CPA, five-term Charlotte City Council member, Budget Committee chair, and the first Asian American and youngest woman elected to Charlotte City Council — Dimple Ajmera's story is the kind people love to hold up as proof the American Dream works. She has spent her career examining why it doesn't, for most people. Now she chairs the budget for one of the fastest-growing cities in America, trying to make long-term climate and housing investments survive short-term political pressure.In this episode, we get into the tensions that define that work: How do you build consensus without trading away your values? How do you keep climate commitments moving when the federal ground keeps shifting underneath you? We talk a lot about what things cost — but what about the cost of doing nothing? And as data centers reshape cities like Charlotte, who actually bears that burden — and is it the same communities that always have?

Dimple Ajmera, a former immigrant from India, shares her inspiring journey from cleaning hotel rooms to becoming a CPA and serving on the Charlotte City Council. She discusses the challenges of local government, climate action, and affordable housing, emphasizing the importance of long-term sustainability and community impact.

Nearly three decades in financial services, most recently as Managing Director of US Community Relations at Citi — Michelle A. Thornhill has watched billions of dollars move through community investment programs and has watched communities absorb those commitments without ever quite feeling the ground shift beneath them. In this episode, we get into the questions that don't have easy answers: Why does so much money move without moving much else? What actually gets lost when community relations is always the first budget cut — and it always is? And after all these years of cycles, is there a version of this work that holds, or are we just perpetually rebuilding from scratch?

Twenty-five years at Wells Fargo, most recently building sustainable finance and advisory within corporate and investment banking — Geneviève Piché knows what it takes to construct something from nothing inside a large institution, and what it feels like when that work becomes a liability. In this episode, we get into the questions that are defining this moment in sustainable finance: Where is the clean tech commercialization gap actually breaking down — and why? Does the "S" in ESG now function more like a scarlet letter than a strategic priority? And when the work you spent years building becomes politically radioactive, what do you actually do next?

NYU Stern professor, sustainability advisor to KKR and Unilever, and author of Higher Ground — Alison Taylor has spent years at the intersection of corporate ethics and the places it tends to break down. In this episode, we get into questions I've been sitting with for a while: Why do companies that genuinely want to do the right thing still get it wrong? Why does human rights keep getting pushed to the margins of sustainability work? And why is admitting something is hard and complicated actually the most powerful thing you can do with stakeholders? Alison's answers are sharp, honest, and a little uncomfortable — in the best way.

Twenty years working on decarbonization in some of the most resistant sectors — Niall Gleeson of Emerald Sustainability Corp. has seen what it actually takes to move corporate behavior on emissions, and what tends to get in the way. In this episode, we start with an unexpected question: what do wine and carbon credits have in common? And we follow it into harder territory — whether net zero commitments actually hold up, what drives meaningful corporate behavior change, and whether there's still a credible path to meeting global emissions reduction goals.

Executive Vice President and General Counsel at The Conservation Fund, former Chief Sustainability Officer at Persefoni, and the attorney who led the drafting of the SEC's climate disclosure proposal — Kristina Wyatt has spent her career at the exact intersection where law, regulation, and environmental impact either align or fall apart. In this episode, we explore what it actually takes to move the needle on conservation and climate in a political moment that makes both harder: why language matters more than most sustainability professionals admit, how climate and nature are finally being understood as inseparable, and where innovative capital strategies are opening doors that policy has closed. Kristina makes a compelling case that conservation work is less politically fraught than it seems — and that the path forward runs through economic development, not around it.

More than 15 years advancing sustainability and social impact strategies at companies including Freddie Mac, Groupon, Allstate, and OfficeMax — Matt Kruse has spent his career doing the unglamorous work of making ESG programs actually function inside large institutions. In this episode, we get into what that work really feels like from the inside: what friction does to a program, to your mindset, and eventually to your career choices. Why is sustainability so hard to sustain organizationally? What does it cost to keep showing up for this work when the incentives don't always align? And what would Matt tell someone just starting out who wants to do it anyway?

A 15-year career as a practicing attorney at a major financial institution — and then Dedria Harper Kolb walked away to build tiny home communities focused on sustainability, affordability, and neighbors actually knowing each other. In this episode, we get into what that transition really looked like: the vision, the trade-offs, and the moments where the old path stopped making sense. We talk about what friction feels like differently when you're inside a large institution versus when you're building something from scratch — and why knowing the difference between productive friction and harmful friction might be the most important skill in this work. Real estate development turns out to be a surprisingly sharp lens for everything sustainability practitioners navigate every day.