{"id":1954,"date":"2019-05-06T15:16:33","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T19:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/?p=1954"},"modified":"2019-05-06T15:42:42","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T19:42:42","slug":"reflections-on-winning-the-total-impact-portfolio-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/2019\/05\/06\/reflections-on-winning-the-total-impact-portfolio-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Winning The Total Impact Portfolio Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post was written by Alyssa Stankiewicz ’19, and co-written by Andrew Mallory ’19<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

EDITOR’S NOTE: <\/strong> A team of five students from The Sustainable Innovation MBA program recently took first place in the Wharton-sponsored Total Impact Portfolio Challenge, beating a field of finalists from Yale, Columbia, Fordham, and Boston University. Read more here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I came to this program in August 2018, I had never even heard the term \u201cimpact investing.\u201d I planned to focus my learnings on innovations in social justice and sustainable agriculture. I dreamed of founding a self-sustaining weaving center that provided support and reflection to folks through art therapy. While this is still an eventual dream of mine (stay tuned!), I realized that what really motivated me about this dream was the opportunity to help people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The mission of The Sustainable Innovation MBA program is using business as a force for good in the world, also described as \u201cdoing well by doing good.\u201d  Through the mentorship and encouragement I received from Dr. Chuck Schnitzlein, I began to realize that not only does the world of Finance provide this same opportunity, but I possess a natural knack for the work involved. He presented us with two extracurricular opportunities to test and demonstrate our skills and studies. The first project revolved around developing an impact strategy for the UVM Endowment (for more on that, see this article<\/a>), and the second was a Wharton-sponsored impact investing competition called the Total Impact Portfolio Challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The competition was stacked, to say the least. 26 teams from 19 business schools including Yale, Columbia, Booth (Chicago), and Wharton (Penn) entered the competition, and with this being just the 5th cohort of our Sustainable Innovation MBA program, our team was ecstatic to find out in March that we\u2019d been selected as Finalists. We had spent months taking extra classes with Dr. Schnitzlein in Portfolio Management and Evaluation, researching the companies who achieved \u201cbest in class\u201d accolades, and developing our investment philosophy and strategy in our copious free time (\u201ccopious\u201d might be an exaggeration). When they announced we won at the live competition in Philadelphia on May 1, we were completely over the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We like to think that we\nhad a competitive advantage because each of our professors integrates\nsustainability holistically into every single course. We learned about\nEntrepreneurial Business Design, Systems Thinking, and Cost Models from a\nsustainability perspective, so we were more fully prepared to incorporate\nsustainability into every piece of our portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Total Impact\nPortfolio Challenge provided us with two fictitious investor profiles from\nwhich to choose, and our team selected a Family Office who wanted to achieve\nmulti-generational wealth and sustainable impact in line with five themes,\nwhich we matched to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our team took\na unique and bold approach: we successfully invested the entire portfolio in\ncompanies and funds that are going beyond minimizing the bad; instead, each of\nour investments contributes to developing solutions for the greater good. We\nhighlighted the innovations of Mary Powell at Green Mountain Power and the\nReinvestment Fund\u2019s success in the City Mission Project. We developed methods\nfor measuring impact and adapted our findings to the unique characteristics of\nthe various asset classes. Peter Seltzer even coined the SI-MBA Score, which\ngoes beyond traditional ESG scoring systems to incorporate materiality. This is\nbecause, as we learned in our Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility course\n(and which was affirmed in this <\/a>study<\/a> written by Khan, Serafeim, & Yoon),\ncompanies that focus on the sustainability issues that are most material to\ntheir business actually see improved financial performance over the long term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where do we go from here?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I personally want to find\nways to help accredited and non-accredited investors deploy their finances in\nways that are more meaningful to them. I have a passion for efforts to\ndemocratize investment opportunities, and I\u2019m working on an idea that\nincorporates my Linguistics background with my Finance interests to create a\nmore effective system for financial literacy education. I look forward to\nexploring opportunities in place-based investing and community funding models\nas avenues to strengthen the resilience of local economies. Find me on LinkedIn<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo credit: Chris Kendig<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Emily<\/a> came to The Sustainable Innovation MBA program passionate about opening up venture capital investment to women and other underrepresented founders. Through projects studying everything from community capital initiatives to equity crowdfunding policy to this challenge on integrating materiality into ESG scores, she sees increasing opportunities to promote a more sustainable form of capitalism for investors and entrepreneurs. After the program, she is seeking a career in impact investing and hopes her involvement can promote responsible investment opportunities in the industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Andrew<\/a>, this challenge was a perfect blend of his two professional passions: finance and sustainability. Coming from a traditional finance background, he sees how important it is for impact investing and ESG integration to continue to evolve and grow, and he is encouraged by how many financial institutions are now incorporating ESG into their strategies. After graduation, Andrew is interested in pursuing public and private equity research, specifically analyzing companies who are embedding sustainability initiatives into their core operations to see how impact alpha can mitigate risk and provide long-term growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Peter<\/a> came to the program as a CPA with ten years of experience. Throughout his career, he has gravitated towards opportunities to support social causes, including serving on the boards of two non-profits and working for three years at The Food Trust, a Philadelphia based non-profit. While here, he discovered a passion for the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and began a certificate program in the fundamentals of sustainable accounting. The group utilized his research in developing the SI-MBA Score, which was a differentiating factor in our presentation. After graduation, he is pursuing opportunities where he can incorporate his SASB knowledge to help investors generate greater impact with their investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maura<\/a>, coming from the client services and business\ndevelopment side of the investment industry, saw the demand for responsible\ninvestment solutions from young investors and European clients. She hopes to\nuse the skills developed during her SI-MBA experience and her involvement in\nthe Total Impact Portfolio Challenge to re-enter the field and meet the needs\nand wants of the industry demand. Planting roots in Vermont, she looks forward\nto growing the responsible investing industry presence in the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had great support from all of our classmates, but special acknowledgement (in no particular order) goes out to Andrew Oliveri, Alyssa Schuetz, Ryan Forman, Elissa Eggers, Caitlyn Kenney, Esteban Echeverr\u00eda Fern\u00e1ndez, Alexa Steiner, Emily Foster, Jeffrey Lue, Matt Iacobucci, and Keil Corey. In the spirit of The Sustainable Innovation MBA, this was truly a collaborative effort, and I believe that\u2019s what ultimately gave us the competitive advantage. I\u2019m personally looking forward to seeing where we go from here, and I wish good luck to next year\u2019s cohort!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For other publications on this challenge and our approach, please see the initial post in the <\/em>SI-MBA Review<\/em><\/a>, as well as articles in <\/em>CNBC<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>UVM<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Poets & Quants<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Forbes<\/em><\/a>, and the <\/em>Wharton Social Impact Initiative<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post was written by Alyssa Stankiewicz ’19, and co-written by Andrew Mallory ’19 EDITOR’S NOTE: A team of five students from The Sustainable Innovation MBA program recently took first place in the Wharton-sponsored Total Impact Portfolio Challenge, beating a field of finalists from Yale, Columbia, Fordham, and Boston University. Read more here. When I … <\/p>\n

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