Before coming to HBS, I worked for a number of years in financial services in Asia. It was not uncommon for me to wonder what real benefit, other than to provide my clients with the ability to make more money, I was providing to the world. That desire is one of the reasons I wanted to come to HBS. I recently took the class “Investing in the 21st Century: Return, Risk and Impact,” taught by Professors Shawn Cole and Vikram S. Gandhi. Through this class I learned that my previous career could actually provide a positive impact on the world, and that impact investing is becoming more mainstream in the United States. There are many impact funds that manage to achieve market rates of return while at the same time generate positive impact. In the past decade, the ability to measure impact has improved, enhancing the investor’s confidence in this sector. [...]

This year, we will be highlighting the work of social enterprise related student clubs at HBS. In this blog, hear from 2018-19 Impact Investing Club co-presidents: Katie Guidera, Mike Murray, and Alex Thinath (all HBS ’19). [...]

In 1987, I completed my studies at HBS and headed west for San Francisco, inspired by every class I took on the topic of entrepreneurship and seeking to make my own mark creating and advancing companies, which has been my career’s work, both as a principal and advisor. [...]

Twenty years ago, I graduated from Harvard Business School (HBS) taken by an idea that financial capital markets and for-profit business models could create positive social and environmental impact. Ten years later, the term “impact investing” was coined to define a movement that would see investors weigh those impacts alongside financial returns. Just as my personal anniversary aligns with this shared milestone, my career has paralleled two decades of evolution in finance and investment management. [...]

“Anyone who will want to enter the field of finance or investment must be conversant in investing for impact. We believe this is the case, even if you are not yet convinced or don’t plan a career focused on this practice of investing.” This is the proposition faculty members Shawn Cole and Vikram S. Gandhi made to the approximately 50 students in the inaugural “Investing for Impact” course launched this past semester in the MBA elective curriculum. [...]