Impact for Hire #3: Ashley Scott

Our Impact for Hire series highlights purpose-driven professionals looking either to break into an impact career or looking for their next opportunity after a layoff. This is meant to pay it forward by helping foster a community of support for purpose-driven professionals. If you lost your job or are looking to break into an impact career and would like to be highlighted in a future article, please complete this form. 

Ashley Scott is as passionate about helping companies achieve 2030 net zero goals as she is about hitting her gym goal of squatting 300 pounds by her 34th birthday.

This self-professed “Jackie-of-all-trades” has flexed her sustainability strategy muscles in a variety of roles across industries — from food to clean energy. Having worked both in-house at Campbell’s and in consulting roles, Ashley has a versatile understanding of helping companies develop and deliver ESG strategies.

Having been raised in a single-parent household and by a tiny village of elders who lived through the Great Depression, Ashley learned the meaning of hard work and sustainability when she was very young.

“I learned the concept of waste not want not at a very young age and I think that concept was the impetus for what we now call sustainability,” Ashley says. “Adding to that, systems-thinking came very easily to me because my mind already saw the world as a series of wholes and relationships, and sustainability is such a connected web of complex relationships and problems that require a holistic approach to solve.”

Ashley was recently laid off from her ESG role at Catalyze after investor pressure to reduce headcount led to her role’s elimination.

For her next role, Ashley would like to lead strategy and program implementation for a smaller organization. “While I am open to all sectors and industries, I really enjoy the challenges of the consumer goods industry,” she says.

Ashley has experience with greenhouse gas accounting, program and project management, leading by influence and stakeholder engagement. Like many successful ESG professionals, Ashley doesn’t have a linear career path and she acquired many of these skills the hard way by working in a variety of roles that didn’t have “sustainability” in the title. 

While navigating the absurdities of corporate sustainability job-hunting, Ashley has maintained a fierce and determined attitude. 

She tells me: “​​While a formidable opponent, fear of failure is no match for fortitude. Simply, get out of your comfort zone and get it!”

Ashley is open to opportunities in Philadelphia, where she is based, or remote work. Learn more about Ashley by checking out her LinkedIn.