Agenda

Table Topic 1: Active ownership: How does corporate engagement work and does it impact returns?

Mikayla Hart, Chief Sustainability Officer, Congruence Capital – Confirmed
Julia Lapitskaya, Partner, Gibson Dunn

Join us for a dynamic discussion on the current state of ESG and climate engagement between investors and public companies. As investors increasingly seek to enrich their economic and financial performance analyses, direct communication has become a key strategy for advocating important ESG issues. We’ll delve into ESG engagement strategies from both public debt and equities perspectives, exploring why these strategies matter, how they can be effectively implemented, and the key considerations for tailoring your approach to maximize impact. Be part of this engaging conversation and gain valuable insights into driving meaningful ESG and climate engagement and shaping the future of sustainable investing.

Table Topic 2: Culture as Capital – Sustaining the Advantage in a Politicized Era

Bhakti Mirchandani, Responsible Investing,Trinity Church NYC and co-Founder, Allocator Collective

This discussion brings together sustainable investors and thought leaders to explore how to navigate the evolving political and regulatory landscape, with a focus on diversity as a strategic advantage. In today’s polarized environment, diversity isn’t just a value—it’s a competitive edge. We’ll examine how diversity and inclusion can be meaningfully integrated into investment decision-making to deliver measurable results. The conversation will highlight emerging and expanding frameworks for evaluating diversity, strategies to eliminate bias in capital allocation, and approaches to sustaining impact in a politicized era. Participants are encouraged to bring questions, share perspectives, and engage in a candid, solutions-focused dialogue.

Table Topic 3: Capital as Catalyst: Trends in Impact Investing for Allocators

Anju Suresh, VP, Sustainable & Impact Investing, Glenmede
Julia Mattox, Director, Client Solution, Capricorn Investment Group

Explore key trends shaping mission-driven investing across individuals, families, and institutions, spanning the full portfolio. Address themes such as climate resiliency, equity, and community-based investing. Together, we’ll consider how allocators are balancing fiduciary responsibility with societal impact and redefining leadership amid a retraction of public funding.

Table Topic 4: Accessing Global Carbon Markets

Isabelle Myers, Carbon Product Specialist, Kepos Capital
Kristin Scherer, Director of Business Development, Kepos Capital

In this session we’ll dive into how carbon allowance markets are structured and how investors might approach them. Carbon allowance markets present a compelling investment opportunity. Each cap-and-trade market is designed with decreasing supply, which typically results in increasing prices. At Kepos, we believe that allocating to a diversified portfolio of carbon allowances built by an active manager with the experience and ability to use a full suite of instruments and portfolio construction and alpha-generating techniques is the best path to attractive risk-adjusted returns.

Table Topic 5: Investing in the Energy Transition

Sarah Wilson, Managing Director, Head of Climate Center of Excellence, Nuveen
Daniel Alterbaum, Partner, Gibson Dunn

How can investors shift from reducing financed emissions to also financing reduced emissions? What are ‘climate solutions’ investments that positively contribute to climate mitigation or adaptation? Come discuss emerging frameworks and approaches to increase exposure to this growing area.

Table Topic 6: Building Nature Based Investment Portfolios

Deborah Spalding, Global Head of Nature Finance, Conservation International

As interest in nature investing continues to grow, there are an increasing number of strategies available to capture returns from nature, including carbon, biodiversity, water, sustainable agriculture, impact bonds and other emerging financial instruments. While this has given investors a greater opportunity set for allocating capital, important questions remain around returns, risk, liquidity and verifiable, sustainable impact. This roundtable session will look across the investment landscape to help investors understand opportunities and challenges in building nature based portfolios while providing insights into successfully navigating this emerging area.

Table Topic 7: Mission Aligned to Catalytic Impact OR Full Spectrum Impact: From Mission Aligned to Catalytic

Stacey Faella, Sierra Foundation

Join Staey Faella, ED for Woodcock Foundation and Sierra Club Foundation Board member, to share stories of progress. and lessons learned, as we all work to have greater collective impact with all of our financial assets.

Table Topic 8: Sustainable Investing: What toolkits are fit for purpose today?

Karina Funk, Brown Advisory

To kick off an engaging discussion, the table will be asked for their “Reality Check:” What has changed in the world of sustainable/responsible investing in the past 3 years? If we knew 20 years ago that the ‘outlier scenarios’ (in terms of climate, political and public perception, energy expansion, affordability, etc) would materialize into today’s big issues, would we have made different investment decisions?

This should set the stage to elicit forward views. Participants will be asked to reflect on approaches to sustainable investing today, what it takes to identify the sustainability leaders of tomorrow, and remark on the sustainability “toolkit” that investors should build in order to best meet the needs of clients who are focused on performance and sustainability over the long term.

Table Topic 9: Impact Funds: Fund Formation and Negotiation with DFIs

Kira Idoko, Partner, Gibson Dunn
Eve Mrozek, Partner, Gibson Dunn

Join us and explore the strategic considerations in forming impact funds, with a focus on navigating negotiations with Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). We will share insights on aligning fund structures with DFI mandates, building out robust ESG protocols, managing relationships with impact advisors and leveraging DFI capital to catalyze private investment. The session aims to uncover best practices for building scalable, mission-driven funds that meet both financial and developmental goals.