Impact

More than $23 trillion assets globally are subject to a non-traditional (environmental, social, and governance and impact screen), including over 25% of all professionally managed assets. This approach is growing, for example, in 2018, Larry Fink, CEO of the world’s largest asset management firm, Black Rock, wrote in a public letter: “To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.”

This statement reflects an increasingly broad-based sentiment that asset owners should include ESG and impact criteria in their investment process. Most large asset managers (e.g., Goldman Sachs, Bain Capital, TPG, Blackrock, State Street) are establishing sustainability, “ESG” or impact investment practices, and developing products to meet the demands of capital owners, including pension funds, endowments, and family offices.

Through teaching, research and engagement with practitioners and alumni, we are critically examining questions such as: What is the purpose of investing for impact? What return profiles are realistic? How do different strategies actually create social value? How is and how should social value be defined and measured? What does it mean in practice to be an impact investor?

An active community of faculty are teaching on and researching these topics from various perspectives, including Shawn Cole, Vikram Gandhi, Michael Chu, Kash Rangan, George Serafeim, Julie Battilana, and others. As importantly, our alumni are shaping, accelerating and leading investing for impact across the globe – from BlackRock, to Root Capital, to Social Finance, to Omidyar Network to Wellington Asset Management.