A Conscious Conversation on Stakeholders: Investors

A Conscious Conversation on Stakeholders: Investors

Financial capital serves an indispensable role in free-enterprise capitalism. For free-enterprise capitalism to evolve successfully, financial stakeholders must become conscious and reconnect with their higher purpose. – Conscious Capitalism

In this special roundtable, we examine Conscious Capitalism through the eyes of investors. Providers of capital are evolving, taking a broader look at how the principles of conscious capitalism can help them carry out their fiduciary duties. Different investment strategies are growing in popularity:

• negative screening to exclude certain industries or companies
  
• environmental, social and governance (ESG) approaches to asset allocation, security selection or risk management
  
• socially responsible investing (SRI) as an investment strategy
  
• impact investing to generate social or environmental impact alongside financial return
  

In this conscious conversation, we’ll have intimate discussions with members of the investment community who can speak to trends in conscious investing. We’ve selected leaders for our panel who can speak to different places in the spectrum of investment strategies. Then we’ll shift into small groups to discuss the challenges faced by the attendees. Bring your questions and challenges around conscious investing to share with the group.

Speakers

Paul A. Hilton, Partner, Portfolio Manager, Trillium Asset Management

Paul is a Partner and Portfolio Manager at Trillium Asset Management. Prior to joining Trillium in 2011, he was Vice President of Sustainable Investment Business Strategy at Calvert Investments and also previously held senior positions within Calvert’s Equities and Marketing Departments. Paul is former chair of US SIF, former Treasurer of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI), and founder of the Social Investment Research Analysts Network (SIRAN), the first U.S. network of sustainability analysts. A member of CFA Society Boston and a Chartered Financial Analyst, he holds Master’s degrees in Anthropology from New York University and Education from Roberts Wesleyan College. Paul is a frequent speaker on topics related to approaches to SRI/ESG investing and the growing market for products in this space.

Brett Juliano, Vice President, Client Coverage, MSCI

For the last six years, Brett has helped global investment firms view ESG (environmental, social, governance issues) as part of an their risk, product, and/or reporting strategies. Brett’s exposure to socially responsible investing (SRI) began in 2008 when he led the transformation of a not-for-profit into a social impact business that continues to provide hundreds of thousands of people with access to safe water in Nepal and India. Brett is scheduled to take the CFA Level III exam this June, holds a BA in Economics, International Relations, and French from Connecticut College, and holds an executive education certificate from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Pat Tomaino, Director of Socially Responsible Investing, Zevin Asset Management

Pat leads Zevin’s cor­po­rate engage­ment pro­gram, ana­lyz­ing port­fo­lio com­pa­nies and push­ing them to address crit­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal, social, and gov­er­nance risks. To that end, Pat dia­logues with exec­u­tives, builds coali­tions with NGOs and peer firms, and files share­holder pro­pos­als on behalf of our clients. He also iden­ti­fies emerg­ing sus­tain­abil­ity issues and over­sees proxy vot­ing. For sev­eral years, Pat was a Senior Ana­lyst on the respon­si­ble invest­ment team of F&C Asset Man­age­ment, where he led the U.K. firm’s work in Latin Amer­ica and Canada. He has held research roles for sev­eral pro­gres­sive groups, includ­ing Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth Warren’s 2012 cam­paign and the Ser­vice Employ­ees Inter­na­tional Union (SEIU). Pat recently com­pleted a fel­low­ship as a pub­lic radio pro­ducer for WBUR’s Open Source with Christo­pher Lydon. A grad­u­ate of Har­vard Col­lege, Pat is inter­ested in racial jus­tice, eco­nomic inequal­ity, and labor rights in the U.S. and overseas.

About the Conscious Conversations series  Our Conscious Conversations are designed to facilitate peer exchange about a specific aspect of Conscious Capitalism. Each event consists of a short panel discussion, followed by small group discussions to allow participants to share ideas, challenges and solutions. We leave plenty of time to make new connections with other conscious capitalists.

Who we are  Our mission is to connect, educate and inspire leaders and workers to consciously build businesses that positively impact the world. Members of the Boston chapter of Conscious Capitalism are diverse individuals who recognize the power of capitalism to improve the human condition and create enduring value for all stakeholders. We come from organizations large and small, at different stages of our careers, from CEO to student. We’re bound by our common curiosity about these ideas and the desire to create change in organizations and society.

This event is brought to you with the special support of ImpactHub Boston.