Impact & Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium Grows and Attracts Pioneering Speakers

June 18, 2021 by Megan Kashner

The Impact & Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium will meet (virtually) on June 29th, June 30th, and July 1st this year and will bring together educators in the fields of impact invesitng and sustainable finance from around the globe. 

This will be the fifth annual convening of faculty who teach impact and sustainable finance courses at the university level. During three 3-hour sessions, the group will focus on best practices in the pedagogy of sustainable and impact finance, the newest developments in the field, and the process of moving that expertise into the classroom. The convening is closed - only open to members of the Consortium. Those who wish to join can apply at: https://www.impactandsustainablefinance.org/index.html 

The Plan

Each day will include networking sessions, a deep dive into an important new topic in the field, lightning talks featuring experts from outside the consortium, and a "How We Teach This" session in which members share best practices in the classroom. All sessions will be highly interactive and member led. The summary of the agenda is as follows:

The Agenda

Day 1: Tuesday, June 29 

  • Convening Opening: State of the Community
    • How has our approach to teaching impact and sustainable finance has changed in the past year?
  • Lightning Talk: Learning from Our Students
    • Three former students will share their experience.
  • How We Teach This: Conceptual Overviews of Courses
    • Faculty members will share their course approaches, then we’ll discuss course evolution as a group.
  • Networking Breakouts
    • We’ll self-select into topically themed breakout rooms for open discussion.

Day 2: Wednesday, June 30 

  • New Ideas: Risk Measurement and Impact Weighted Accounts
    • A discussion of the most recent developments in measurement and pricing risk and impact and their relevance in the classroom.
  • Lightning Talk: The Responsible Corporation
  • How We Teach This: Approaches to Essential Topics
    • We’ll self-select into two rounds of breakout rooms for open sharing of approaches to teaching key topics in impact and sustainable finance.
  • Lightning Talk: Public-Private Partnerships in Developing Economies
  • Networking
    • We’ll self-select into topically themed breakout rooms for open networking discussion.

Day 3: Thursday, July 1

  • New Findings: Accountability and Greenwashing
    • Authors of notable recent papers will unpack to what extent the influx of capital to impact investments is merely greenwashing.
  • Lightning Talk: The Role of Community Voice
  • Networking
    • We’ll self-select into topically themed breakout rooms for open networking discussion.
  • Rethinking Capitalism: Current Debates
    • A moderated full group discussion about the ways capitalism is—or isn’t—working in our world today
    • Contextual breakouts: how we influence our institutions, weave these ideas into the classroom, implications for the field.
  • Convening Close & Reflection

The Speakers, Moderators & Presenters

  • Andrea Armeni: Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Service, NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service; Co-Founder and Executive Director, Transform Finance
  • Thierry Deau: Founder, Chairman, CEO, Meridiam
  • Marjolijn Dijksterhuis: Senior Lecturer Extra-ordinary, Stellenbosch University; Director, Comersion
  • Barr Even: Investment Professional, Dalio Foundation
  • Daniela Gabor: Professor of Economics and Macro-Finance, UWE Bristol
  • Janine Guillot: CEO, SASB
  • Bart Houlahan: Co-Founder, B-Lab
  • Phillip Krueger: Associate Professor, Geneva Finance Research Institute; Senior Chair at the Swiss Finance Institute
  • Hao Liang: Associate Professor of Finance,  Singapore Management University; PGR Co-ordinator, Finance;DBS Sustainability Fellow
  • Basma Majerbi: Associate Professor of Finance, Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria
  • Bhakti Mirchandani: Adjunct Professor, Columbia University; Director of Responsible Investing, Trinity Wall Street
  • Nora Pankratz: Senior Economist, European Central Bank; Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, University of California Los Angeles Luskin Center for Innovation
  • Ethan Rouen: Assistant Professor of Finance, Harvard Business School; Faculty Co-Chair of the Impact-Weighted Accounts Project
  • Megan Starr: Global Head of Impact, The Carlyle Group
  • Andrew Siwo: Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Service, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, NYU; Director of Sustainable Investments and Climate Solutions (SICS), New York State Common Retirement Fund
  • Tensie Whelan: Clinical Professor of Business and Society, NYU; Director, Center for Sustainable Business, NYU
  • David Wood: Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and the Director of the Initiative for Responsible Investment (IRI) at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations
  • Aaron Yoon: Assistant Professor of Accounting & Information Management, Kellogg School of Management
  • Luigi Zingales: Robert C. McCormack Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance, University of Chicago Booth School of Business; Director, Stigler Center; Faculty Research Fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research; Research Fellow, Center for Economic Policy Research; Fellow, European Governance Institute; 

Contact us

Get in touch with the facilitators of the Impact & Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium