Save the Children (and Your Investments) From Apocalyptic Thinking: Why the Bad News is Mostly Wrong

Doomsday scenarios can cloud our thinking and misguide our investments. Why do so many people fear the future? Is their concern justified, or can we look forward to greater wealth and continued improvement in the way we live?

Many people believe that our world is experiencing stagnant economic growth, climatic deterioration, dwindling natural resources, and an unsustainable level of population increase. The world is doomed, they argue, and there are just too many problems to overcome. 

But is this really the case? The world is full of challenges, and we need to tackle them head on. But we need to teach our children, and adults, the facts about how we went from an almost entirely impoverished world to a moderately affluent one in the last 250 years, and how they can help that trend to continue and flourish in those parts of the world that have not benefited as much as we have. 

And, to become better investors, we need to understand how to take advantage of the progress that is almost certain to take place within our lifetimes and beyond.

Things we discussed:

 - Where and why the world has improved-and will continue to improve

 - How the dramatic slowing in global population growth spreads prosperity from the developed to the developing world

 - How technology is helping billions of people rise above levels of mere subsistence

 - How to develop independent thinking and find your own fact based position

 - How to build resilient portfolios which also capture the upside of technological growth and innovation.

As global momentum builds towards thinking about the effects of climate change, we are beginning to see early innings of convergence between regulations, global policy, and alignment between businesses and public institutions in trying to find solutions to help mitigate a potential "green swan event." What are these inflection points that are driving early innings of change? Join us to better understand the physical and transition risks associated with climate change, along with the opportunities that could arise from a clean energy transition.

We also discuss how companies can move towards establishing credible net zero strategies and the difference between being carbon-neutral vs net-zero, as well as how investors can better interpret and analyze a company's climate strategy and assess climate risk for their own portfolios.

To reach net zero emissions by 2050, annual clean energy investment worldwide will need to more than triple by 2030 to around $4 trillion. 

• Where are we now, and what are the physical impacts we are starting to see?
• What are the tipping points in climate physical risks? 
• Regulation / financing / technological innovation all appear to be key drivers of the paradigm shift. 
• What is driving the energy transition? What do we see in terms of viable disruptive energy technologies out there, including those being made by major oil and gas and heavy industrial players to date? 
• Why conventional nuclear isn't the solution. Updates on new nuclear power technologies.
• Will developing countries have to carry more weight than others in moving towards achieving the UN SDGs? 
• What is the difference between “net zero” and “carbon neutrality”? Why have net zero solutions not been deployed already?
• Are net zero pledges becoming more of a “check-the-box” exercise or a true pathway to achieve these goals? 
• Where does a company begin in terms of establishing a transparent and credible climate strategy? 
• What needs to happen after companies / investors have announced net zero ambitions?
• Do we anticipate we see more situations like Engine No. 1 / Exxon come to market?
• Given the risks around competence greenwashing, is there a major roadblock or risk for the movement we are seeing in sustainable finance?
• Risks and opportunities of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that are part of leading brands’ value chain as they move towards net-zero/deep decarbonization plan.
• How does a company in the heavy industrial and / or oil and gas space achieve net zero? Can we achieve net zero via divestments and/or can we achieve via shareholder engagement?

Climate Risk Disclosure – Auditing Opportunity or a Complete Nightmare?

There are a host of global regulations pointing us towards increasing climate risk disclosure but many corporations and investors are not yet well equipped to address risk. 57% of companies globally still rely on sustainability reports vs filings, which makes comparisons very challenging until we have a more global standardized system.

• How to define types of risk (climate, transition, etc.) and how companies would begin to address them properly without becoming greenwashers?
• How would auditors begin to think about addressing those risks if companies are struggling to collect information and guidelines are still being set globally?
• Stranded assets has been a key long-term concern and risk; how do you go about identifying and quantifying stranded assets? What scenario analyses would you advise companies and even investors to consider? 

With Nidhi Chadda, Julie “Mae” Gabato, Dr. Mathew Hampshire - Waugh, Henrik Jeppesen.

With Nidhi Chadda, Kristen O’Grady and Megahan Peterson

Discover how incorporating sustainability measures can improve your personal portfolio’s investment performance and lead to positive outcomes in the world.  

Many of us unknowingly support the very companies that aren’t practicing what we believe in and are inconsistent with our own personal core values.  What can we do about it? From large corporations and investment funds, to financial advisors and investors, we can all make slight changes to how we invest to both grow wealth and drive positive change in the world.  How you spend and invest your dollars matters. Now is the time where we have the ESG data and tools to invest in companies that care about all stakeholders, not just shareholders.

• How does a retail investor begin to think about aligning their values to their personal portfolios? Where do they start?
• What data shows that investors owning companies with better ESG profiles are likely to outperform over the long-term?
• Looking at the more recent performance of ESG funds to date, many believe that the skew towards owning technology stocks drives the outperformance. What is your observation?
• 2/3 of millennials believe their advisors should include ESG investments in their portfolios but only 1 out of 3 do so. Why the disconnect? Why aren’t financial advisors incorporating ESG into their advisory work to match this demand?
• How do you address the lack of transparency and consistency across ESG standards in your work? Will regulations requiring disclosure help address this roadblock?
• As ESG investing is becoming more popular, so are the investment options and fintech solutions for both individuals and financial advisors, How do we begin to evaluate these platforms? What should we look for? 
• AMAZON (AMZN): An example of how ESG plays out in a company's operations and financial viability 
• Measuring Impact: How does an investor know that their portfolio is really having a positive impact on the world?

Nidhi Chadda is a generalist growth investor and advisor across public and private markets. She is currently the Founder and CEO of Enzo Advisors LLC, a global sustainability consulting firm focused on helping companies build best-in-class sustainable business models within an ESG construct and works closely with institutional investors to codify and integrate ESG policies and frameworks across their investment processes.

Kristen O'Grady is a finance executive and entrepreneur, currently COO and Head of Product for Seeds (www.seedsinvestor.com), a fintech platform for financial advisors that aligns investor personal values and wealth. Prior to that, Kristen spent nearly 15 years at BlackRock and JPMorgan designing & launching investment products for wealth advisory and private bank clients.

Megahan Peterson is Director of Sustainability at Enzo Advisors LLC. She has been involved in sustainability and impact through management consulting, research and project management across the from private investors, companies, foundations and multi- and bi-lateral institutions for over 13 years. 

A Masterclass in Skillful Investing with Prof. François-Serge Lhabitant and Panayiotis Lambropoulos, CFA, CAIA, FRM

Key Content:

• The erosion of alpha in a challenging return environment - how can investors think differently or creatively?
• Hedge Funds make sense - but you need the right process to select them
• Seeking alternative sources of return from smaller managers
• Emerging managers: The Why and How. Case studies and advice on how to research and approach this segment
• Alpha is dynamic - but you can still track, identify and use it
• Markets change - some strategies (managers) weaken, others emerge
• Genesis and purpose of the Employees Retirement System of Texas' emerging hedge fund manager program (Launchpad): Objectives, Process and executed investments
• Advice for Investment Managers that are trying to raise capital. How can they stand out in all the noise?

François-Serge Lhabitant is a Professor of Finance at the Edhec Business School and a Visiting Professor of Finance at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He has been researching hedge funds since 1994 and is considered a specialist in alternative investments, known globally for his work on hedge funds and emerging markets.

 Panayiotis Lambropoulos, CFA, CAIA, FRM, is a Portfolio Manager at the Employees Retirement System of Texas - a $28 billion retirement plan - located in Austin, Texas. His responsibilities include sourcing, analyzing and evaluating potential third party managers deploying all types of alternative investment strategies. 

Panayiotis' focus is on the Trust’s Absolute Return Portfolio as well as Opportunistic Credit allocation. Lastly, he is responsible for the Trust’s Emerging Hedge Fund Manager program – ERS Launchpad - which he proposed and spearheaded.

Hear investment veterans Rachel Brannan, Francesca Whalen and Nidhi Chadda on:

- Investing in areas like FemTech and female entrepreneurship are increasingly seen as ESG opportunities. We'll discuss the investment opportunity and potential for outsized returns in these areas, and share success stories.

- What specific sectors within the women's health and/or the life sciences are underfunded and ripe for innovation?

- What can the venture capital industry do in general to help support female investors, female entrepreneurs, and women's health? 

- The current state of the Venture Capital market in Latin America - opportunities & unicorns

- How is ESG integration applicable to venture capital and what are some misconceptions by VCs on ESG?

- “Women on Wall Street (i.e. Finance)”: How to make it in a male-driven environment. 

James R. ("Jim") Hedges, IV has been an active art collector and patron for over 25 years. His activities in the art world led Art and Antiques magazine to name Mr. Hedges as one of "The Top 100 Collectors in America.” With a specialized focus on photography by Andy Warhol, Jim has acquired and placed more Warhol photography than any other collector, private dealer or gallery in the world. 

In this session, Jim shares his thoughts and insights about:

- How big is the art world in financial terms?

- Who are the participants in the art market?

- What parts of the world are transparent and/or regulated?

- What is the art world investment grade universe?

- How do you invest in contemporary art?  With how much money?

- Where are the best opportunities?

- How do you value artwork?

- What sort of returns can be expected by investing in the artworld?

- Art and  Blockchain:

Blockchains, Smart Contracts, DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organization ) and ICOs have interesting use cases for artists and the art industry alike. 

For example, Blockchain could revolutionize art markets by solving questions of provenance, transparency, copyright and ownership issues. Art start-ups are already building real-world applications on blockchain.

Blockchain and smart contracts can also be used by artists to fund their project through token sales, creating their own artist coin or using it as a crowdfunding or crowd-investing tool.

Jim explains his take on those initiatives and what impact they are likely to make in the artworld.

Jim has served on The Drawings Acquisition Committee at the Museum of Modern Art, as a National Council Chair for the Aspen Art Museum, a member of the National Committee of The Anderson Ranch, a Director of The Aspen Institute’s Arts Panel, as a Trustee for The Drawing Center, a Founder of The American Friends of the Tate Gallery, a Founder of The Aspen Conversations, a Trustee of The DIA Foundation, a Trustee of ArtPace, and member of the National Committee for the Whitney Museum of American Art. He is also a former Director of The National Public Radio Foundation (NPR).

In 2016, Hedges made a gift to The Archive of American Art at The Smithsonian of “The Jimmy Hedges Papers on Outsider Art,” the largest collection of curatorial research materials on Outsider Artists. Hedges has also assisted in the publishing of artist monographs including Sigmar Polke, Robert Mangold, Sol LeWitt, Ed Ruscha and numerous others. Hedges has supported artist’s retrospectives including Roni Horn at The Whitney Museum of American Art and Sol Lewitt, at the same venue. Support has also been provided to Carl Andre and Sol Lewitt exhibits at The Aspen Institute. Hedges has also made donations of numerous artworks to major institutions such as The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Menil Collection, The Dia Foundation, The Tate Modern, The Newport Art Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Hunter Museum of American Art, The Baylor School, and Girls Preparatory School.

Meet Gabriela Herculano who created a new ETF (CLMA) that focuses on companies that directly enable CARBON AVOIDANCE in order to reach climate change goals, unlike other ESG or climate change products that might focus on companies reducing their own carbon footprint or lack quantification of potential carbon avoidance.

It is therefore the world’s first climate change UCITS ETF that shifts the focus from companies’ emission reduction actions, to companies offering products and services that directly enable CO2e avoidance solutions and shines a spotlight on climate change innovators.

CLMA tracks the iClima Global Decarbonisation Enablers Index which is designed to measure the performance of securities from five sub-sectors including green energy, green transportation, water and waste improvements, decarbonisation enabling solutions and sustainable products.

In this session we also examine:

- What's the universe of "carbon avoiders" (number of companies and sub-sectors) the ETF covers?
- How are the positions weighted?
- What has been the performance?
- How is the data sourced to identify the "carbon avoiders"?

Many studies, some more recent and also older ones, demonstrate the solid outperformance of female managed funds versus their male counterparts. 

The idea of today's show is to break it down and make it real by presenting you three outperforming female managers on the panel. We discuss how they invest and also try to examine what is behind this outperformance. 

Kim Forrest has had an unusual path that led her to this point – where she started her own asset management firm, Bokeh Capital Management.  Kim’s first career, enabled by a dual degree computer science and math degree, was as a software engineer.  She worked in math-oriented areas – computer aided design and drafting in the world of engineering and then Artificial Intelligence.

When she did her MBA, she was introduced to the topic of finance and was later hired as a sell-side analyst to cover software stocks – in 1999.  Her work at a small regional broker/dealer was recognized nationally several times during her 5 year career, including in 2002 when she was the #2 software analyst in the Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Street analyst survey.  Her picks in 2001, which was a bad year for software, returned 66%. She transitioned to the buy side in 2005.

Michelle Leung is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of  Xingtai Capital Management. 

Michelle founded Xingtai Capital with the philosophy of investing in  growth with a value overlay. The firm manages Xingtai China, a long only China equity fund. Xingtai China adopts a fundamental, bottom up strategy and has achieved strong outperformance versus the index and ranks top decile amongst peer funds. The firm has emerged as one of leading China funds and a leading woman-owned business. 

Shikha Gupta is based in London where she is the portfolio manager of Astra Asset Management, a specialist credit manager that has consistently delivered outsized return to its investors since inception in 2012. She has received several hedge fund performance awards for the funds she managed. 

Prior to Astra, Shikha successfully managed a very large credit book at Deutsche Bank in London with exposure to variety of complex credit instruments from derivatives such as credit default swaps to various cash investments in US and European mortgaged backed securities.

Hear Kim speak about trends in technology that can benefit investors and listen to her doubts if value investing, the old style that Warren Buffett espoused, ever coming back..
Michelle explains how she has achieved strong outperformance and what she means by "investing in growth with a value overlay". 
Shikha's fund was just listed in Opalesque’s top 50 Consistent Performers and so she will go over her investment thesis that has delivered high returns for the past several years.

We also discussed possible reasons, why, in finance - even on the retail side IRAs run by women outperform - women tend to perform better? 

 And, lastly, is this fact actually recognized and honored by investors?