Diana Propper de Callejon

Diana Propper de Callejon

Managing Director

Diana has more than 25 years experience investing in and building sustainability market leaders and purpose-led companies, and is a recognized thought leader on the market growth of these opportunities and how businesses that create stakeholder value can outperform their peers over the long term. Diana’s sector expertise includes energy efficiency, green building, and natural health and wellness.

 At Cranemere Diana focuses on identifying, evaluating and executing on opportunities driven by sustainability and social impact trends, as well as supporting Cranemere’s operating companies in strengthening their environmental and social performance to build business value. Diana joined Cranemere because she believes that companies can capture their full potential and grow into their next chapter when they are partnered with a long term, stable capital partner that is values aligned.

Prior to Cranemere, Diana was co-managing partner at Expansion Capital Partners, providing growth capital to and serving on the board member of companies in sustainability markets including green building, energy services, and resource efficiency. While at Expansion Capital, Diana took companies public and also sold businesses to large corporations.

Diana is a producer of documentaries that profile businesses whose success is integrally tied to their leadership in sustainability and social wellbeing, including the award winning “Beyond Zero.”  Diana is on the Board of Trustees of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) where she chairs the investment committee, and is also on the Advisory Board of Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. She has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts Summa Cum Laude from Duke University, where she is an Executive-in-Residence. She will be teaching a course at Duke entitled “Investing in Climate Solutions” in the fall of 2023.


My upbringing influenced who I am today because I am the child of immigrants and grew up in the U.S. speaking several languages with my extended family overseas. I learned early on that there were many perspectives in life and it was important to put myself in other people’s shoes to understand and learn from the diversity of views. I realized at an early age that there was no “normal” or “right or wrong perspective” and this helped me become a more empathetic person.

If I weren’t in finance, I’d be a photographer. I am an insatiably curious person and love learning about other cultures. Photography is about observing and learning new insights. I would also spend half my time as a wilderness photographer of nature. There is nothing more inspiring, moving and humbling than photographing nature’s great gifts.

What motivates me most is harnessing the power of business and capital to address some of our toughest challenges – climate change and social and economic inequities. I joined Cranemere because being a long term owner of companies is the best way to fully capture the opportunity to partner with sustainability and social impact leading companies and to more fully harness the business value from ESG initiatives within companies.

I am a big fan of baseball. My older brother made me a diehard NY Yankees fan but given my youngest son’s passion for the LA Dodgers, I’ve achieved the difficult feat of being a loyal fan of both teams!