NYAIR Episode 44 – Sustainability Investing in the Pandemic Era –Capital Allocation Issues

ByBritt Tunick

An in-depth webinar regarding new capital allocation strategies in the pandemic era featuring Erika Karp, Founder & CEO of Cornerstone Capital and Michael Kraten, PhD, Professor of Accounting at Houston Baptist University.

Topics discussed include:

  • How “pandemic risk” has entered the lexicon, and how it impacts the long term valuation potential of investment opportunities.
  • How investment horizons are evolving in response to current economic circumstances, and how quantitative measures of the trade-offs between “short term value” and “long term value” are reflecting these changes.
  • Why certain traditional parameters of success are more useful than ever, whereas other parameters must be revised or discarded by the investment community.
  • Why the field of Corporate Social Responsibility must evolve to reflect the changing demands, expectations, and priorities of external stakeholders.
  • How data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and “Big Data” trends are impacting the growth of sustainable investing.

Erika Karp is Founder and CEO of Cornerstone Capital, which strives to direct the flow of capital toward a more regenerative and inclusive global economy by focusing on investment performance together with social impact through rigorous research that systematically integrates Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors into portfolio design. Prior to launching Cornerstone, she was managing director and head of global sector research at UBS Investment Bank, where she chaired the UBS Global Investment Review Committee and served on the UBS Securities Research Executive Committee and the Environmental and Human Rights Committee of the UBS Group Executive Board. Erika is a founding board member of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), a member of CECP’s Strategic Investor Initiative Advisory Council and an advisor to the Omidyar Network’s Know the Chain initiative. She served as an advisor to the Clinton Global Initiative Market-Based Approaches initiative, a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Agenda Council on Financing and Capital, and as a member of the Program Design Advisory Council for Harvard Business School’s Executive Education Program on Innovating for Sustainability. She has been named among the nation’s “Top 50 Women in Wealth” by Advisor One; one of the “Purpose Economy 100,” the “Good 100” and one of 50 “Conscious Capitalists” who are “Transforming Wall Street.”

Michael Kraten, PhD, specializes in the analysis of business opportunities and risks with complex factors and highly uncertain outcomes. He is a professor of accounting at Houston Baptist University, where he designed and now teaches the graduate courses in entrepreneurial finance and advanced international accounting, and the undergraduate courses in advanced financial accounting and advanced auditing and internal control. He also serves as the chair of accounting, finance, and economics programs at HBU, and as the director of accreditation for all business programs and is the founder and director of the Campus Learning Community on Sustainability. Dr. Kraten began his career in the assurance, advisory, and management consulting practices of Deloitte, before going on to co-found the entrepreneurial boutique management consulting practice AQPQ –an acronym that referred to the firm’s academic and practitioner qualifications. Prior to joining Houston Baptist University, he taught at providence College in Rhode Island, Suffolk University in Boston, Maastricht University in the Netherlands, the University of Massachusetts, Sacred Heart University and the University of Connecticut. He is published in multiple industry journals and publications and serves on committees and task forces of the American Accounting Association, and is an officer of the Public Interest Section of the Association. He is on the Editorial Advisory Board of the CPA Journal, the Senior Planning and Operations Committee of the Sustainability Investment Leadership Council, and the Advisory Board of the Center for Professional Accounting Practices at Fordham University.