Member Spotlight: Edie Allen

When Edie Allen read a New Yorker article about the tobacco industry's aggressive marketing to children in the developing world, with the support of the U.S. Department of Commerce, she was outraged.  But she thought that there was nothing she could do to stop these practices until Corporate Accountability (then INFACT) contacted her. After meeting with an organizer and learning about INFACT's work on an international treaty to regulate the marketing of tobacco, Allen joined the campaign.

But serendipity alone has not kept Allen, an artist and small businesswoman, involved for more than two decades. She appreciates that over the course of 20 years, staff have frequently taken the time to sit down with her, walk her through campaign strategies, elicit her input, answer questions, and get to know her. “I even got to help edit a documentary about Phillip Morris,” she added.

In addition to supporting Corporate Accountability International, Allen is a long-time board member of WAND (Women’s Action for New Directions) and the president of the Colombe Foundation, which works to create a peaceful world through changes in American foreign policy. Her artwork is featured in two artisans’ cooperatives in Massachusetts and at www.alphabetanimals.com.