The Future of Finance Podcast

What LPs Should Be Asking GPs About AI Right Now | Emily Goldstein McGowan, Malk Partners

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Emily Goldstein-McGowan, Vice President and Head of Growth & Venture Capital at Malk Partners, the foremost ESG advisor to private market investors, joins Georges Dyer to examine how institutional asset owners and GPs are navigating the governance, risk, and due diligence dimensions of responsible AI. Drawing on Malk's landmark 2024 quick guide for asset owners (developed with ILPA) and two years of evolving LP-GP conversations, Emily offers a grounded, practitioner-level view of where responsible AI integration stands today and where it is headed.
Key themes covered in this episode:
How LP questions have shifted from "are you using AI?" to "how are you governing it?" — and what best-practice oversight structures look like at the GP level
The five responsible AI risk categories for private market investors (bias, privacy, job displacement, carbon emissions, lack of diversity) and which are gaining urgency
AI-native companies vs. AI-adopting portfolio companies: why the diligence framework differs and what LPs should be requiring from GPs during holding periods
The regulatory landscape — EU AI Act, U.S. state-level proposals, and why investors should be preparing portfolio companies now, regardless of enforcement timelines
The Future of Finance podcast is produced by the Intentional Endowments Network, advancing the alignment of institutional capital with long-term value and systemic resilience.
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Resources References:
ILPA x Malk Partners: Responsible AI Quick Guide for Asset Owners - https://ilpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Responsible-AI-Quick-Guide-for-Asset-Owners.pdf
ILPA ESG Quick Guide Overviews - https://ilpa.org/resource/esg-quick-guide-overviews/
Malk Partners: Responsible AI in Private Markets - https://malk.com/responsible-ai-in-private-markets-risks-regulations-and-best-practices/
NIST AI Risk Management Framework - https://www.nist.gov/itl/ai-risk-management-framework
Partnership on AI (PAI) -  https://partnershiponai.org/
EU AI Act: Official Overview - https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai
Reframe Venture: Responsible AI Due Diligence Toolkit - https://www.reframeventure.com/vcs/ai-dd
IEN Responsible AI Investor Hub -  https://intentionalendowments.org
Planet Money Podcast (NPR) — https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet-money
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General Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction & Overview of Malk Partners
04:10 Origins of the ILPA Responsible AI Quick Guide
08:30 Five Core AI Risk Categories for Private Market Investors
14:00 The Evolution of LP-GP Conversations on AI Governance
19:45 Best Practices: Oversight Structures, Policies & Training
25:20 AI-Native vs. AI-Adopting Companies: Diligence Differences
31:00 Data Center Environmental Impact & Net Zero Considerations
36:15 AI Regulation: EU AI Act, U.S. State Laws & Investor Preparedness
42:00 Frameworks & Resources for Resource-Constrained Teams
46:30 The Future of Finance: Moving Beyond Labels to Materiality
 
The Future of Finance podcast is produced by the Intentional Endowments Network, advancing the alignment of institutional capital with long-term value and systemic resilience. The information presented in this episode reflects the views and opinions of the guest and does not constitute investment, legal, or regulatory advice. The Intentional Endowments Network does not endorse any specific products, services, or organizations referenced herein.
 

5 Principles Every Fiduciary Needs for Climate Risk with Maurits Dolmans

Maurits Dolmans, Senior Counsel at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and co-author of Sustainable Fiduciary Duty: How Fiduciary Duties Can Be a Key to Escaping the Climate Prisoner's Dilemma (Net Zero Lawyers Alliance, November 2025), joins Georges Dyer on his own behalf to make a precise legal and economic argument: existing fiduciary law already requires institutional investors to address systemic climate risk, and he lays out five concrete principles for how to do it. No new legislation required. For CIOs, pension trustees, endowment leaders, asset managers, and their legal counsel, this conversation reframes the entire climate-and-capital debate as a question of legal duty and long-term financial obligation, not values.
Key themes:
The Climate Prisoner's Dilemma: Why rational actors keep financing high-emission projects against their own long-term interest, and why fiduciary duties, applied consistently, are the coordination mechanism that breaks the cycle without requiring new regulation or bilateral trust
The Economic Evidence: Rebonato's finding of 40% asset devaluation under business-as-usual, the UK Institute and Faculty of Actuaries' Planetary Solvency Report projecting 30–50% GDP loss, and why this loss, unlike 2008 or Covid, would be permanent
5 Principles for Action: Avoiding new unabated fossil fuel finance, internalizing the social cost of carbon in ROI assessments, pursuing transition investment opportunities, active stewardship of investee companies, and advocating for aligned regulation, each grounded in existing fiduciary law
Case Law & What's Coming: What Spence v. American Airlines, McRitchie v. Zuckerberg, and ClientEarth v. Shell actually says beneath the surface, and why Hirji v. CPPIB (Canada) and Kvek/ClientEarth v. Cushman & Wakefield (Washington State) are the cases to watch next.
This episode is part of IEN's ongoing series on fiduciary duty and system-level investing.
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Resources References:
Sustainable Fiduciary Duty — Net Zero Lawyers Alliance (2025) → https://www.netzerolawyers.com/publications/sustainable-fiduciary-duties-for-investors → Full PDF: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65bb9ebee081d228a8003b56/690cb02c2d3dfd4b5c3fabca_Sustainable%20Fiduciary%20Duty%20-%20FINAL%20(6%20November%202025)%20(Compressed%20-%20Guru).pdf
Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters — Jon Lukomnik & James Hawley → https://www.routledge.com/Moving-Beyond-Modern-Portfolio-Theory-Investing-That-Matters/Lukomnik-Hawley/p/book/9780367760823
How to Think About Climate Change — Riccardo Rebonato (Cambridge University Press) → https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/how-to-think-about-climate-change/6F6AAB54523738CC7CF83B0EEFECD3A2
Making Sense of Chaos: A Better Economics for a Better World — J. Doyne Farmer → https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300283327/making-sense-of-chaos/
Planetary Solvency: Finding Our Balance with Nature — Institute and Faculty of Actuaries & University of Exeter (January 2025) → https://actuaries.org.uk/news-and-media-releases/news-articles/2025/jan/16-jan-25-planetary-solvency-finding-our-balance-with-nature/
Recalibrating Climate Risk — Carbon Tracker & University of Exeter (February 2026) → https://carbontracker.org/reports/recalibrating-climate-risk/
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General Timestamps:
 
00:00 Introduction & The Net Zero Lawyers Alliance Report
02:21 The Climate Prisoner's Dilemma Explained
05:38 How Fiduciary Duties Solve the Collective Action Problem
07:22 The Three Core Fiduciary Duties: Purpose, Loyalty, and Care
09:43 The Economic Evidence: 40% Asset Devaluation & Permanent GDP Loss
13:54 Climate Tipping Points Investors Are Not Pricing In
16:20 Why Existing Law Already Applies — No New Legislation Required
18:56 Principle 1: Avoid Finance for New Unabated High-Emission Projects
23:12 Principle 2: Internalize Climate Risk in ROI Assessments
24:49 Principle 3: Pursue Viable Impact Investments in the Transition
27:09 Principle 4: Active Sustainability Stewardship
29:04 Principle 5: Advocate for Aligned Regulation and Policy
31:14 Case Law Deep Dive: Spence, McRitchie, ClientEarth v. Shell
36:46 How to Make the Case to Skeptical Trustees and Boards
43:48 Addressing the Main Objections to Sustainable Fiduciary Theory
52:34 Pending Cases and the Five-Year Outlook for Fiduciary Law
56:45 Rapid Fire: One Action, Recommended Reading & Vision for Finance

Capital Without Voice: Shareholder Democracy & Responsible AI with Asher Jay

 
Artist, National Geographic Explorer, and Chief Network Architect of the Shareholder Democracy Network, Asher Jay, joins host Georges Dyer to examine one of the most underleveraged mechanisms in institutional investing: proxy voting. For endowment leaders, CIOs, and asset managers navigating pressure to demonstrate mission alignment, this conversation offers a practical and structural framework for how shareholder voice can be restored to public markets, and why the same governance deficit is now showing up in AI.
How pass-through proxy voting enables values-aligned shareholders to aggregate governance power at institutional scale, and what the Sierra Club pilot signals about the potential ahead
Why asset managers retreating from ESG commitments under political pressure may find shareholder democracy a more durable and bipartisan path to mission-aligned governance
The unpriced risks embedded in AI company valuations: environmental liabilities, regulatory exposure, and the epistemic dangers of black-box architecture
What ontological AI design offers as a more efficient and governable alternative to large language model scaling, and why institutional investors should be asking these questions now
The Future of Finance podcast is produced by the Intentional Endowments Network and explores how institutional capital can be deployed in alignment with long-term fiduciary duty, systemic resilience, and the evolving standards of responsible investment.
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General Timestamps:
 
00:00 Introduction — Asher Jay: From Creative Conservationist to Systems Strategist 
09:30 Systems Thinking and Causal Loops: Why Externalized Costs Are a Market Risk 
13:45 Shareholder Democracy: The Premise, the Model, and the Governance Gap 
20:00 Pass-Through Voting Infrastructure and Fintech Integration 
25:30 Endowments, Foundations, and Family Offices: Institutional Applications 
28:00 The Sierra Club Pilot: Assets Under Stewardship and the Path to $1 Trillion 
38:06 Responsible AI: Governance Deficits, Hallucinations, and Who Pays the Cost 
41:30 The Black Box Problem: Transparency, Plagiarism, and Epistemic Trust 
44:45 Investor Risk in AI: Environmental Liabilities and Regulatory Exposure 
52:00 Rapid Fire — Biggest Driver of Responsible AI Going Forward
 
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Resources:
 
Asher Jay - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asherjay
Shareholder Democracy Network: https://www.shareholderdemocracy.org
Iconik: https://www.iconikapp.com
Tumelo: https://www.tumelo.com
Bast.ai: https://www.bast.ai
Book: AI for Humanity: Building a Sustainable AI for the Future by James Ong, Andeed Ma, and Siok Siok Tan https://share.google/IgRMYS9EqfvifCSbI
Book: Enlightened Bottom Line by Jenna Nicholas: https://share.google/yx44JcezuI4r4cufo

Building the Architecture for Responsible AI with Paul Fehlinger of Project Liberty

Paul Fehlinger, Senior Director of Policy, Investment & Innovation at Project Liberty, a 500 million initiative building an AI and data economy that advances voice, choice and stakes, joins Georges Dyer on the Future of Finance podcast to unpack what responsible AI actually means for institutional capital markets. Drawing on his decade leading the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network and his current work convening LPs, GPs, policymakers, and entrepreneurs globally, Fehlinger brings a rare cross-sector perspective to one of the most consequential questions in finance today.
AI is no longer a thematic investment trend but it’s a digital infrastructure, and its architecture will determine the structure of investable markets for decades. This conversation examines the governance gap that institutional investors must close before AI risk compounds across portfolios, and makes the case that safety and trust are not ESG overlays but core competitive variables in sourcing, due diligence, and long-term returns.
 
Key themes covered:
- Why 75% of major LPs acknowledge systemic AI risk, yet only 19% report knowing how to respond, and what that gap means for fiduciary duty
- The distinction between investing with AI and investing in AI, and why the data economy itself is emerging as an underappreciated investable vertical
- How the automation-versus-augmentation question directly threatens the size of investable markets if left unaddressed
- Why VC investors with 5+ years of experience increasingly believe strong responsible AI practices correlate with financial outperformance—and what the 83% and 91% survey figures actually signal
- The case for protocol-level infrastructure as a scalable alternative to company-by-company AI due diligence, and why this needs to become a C-suite conversation, not a sustainability team assignment
- For institutional investors, endowment leaders, asset managers, and anyone responsible for capital allocation in a world defined by AI, this episode is essential listening.
 
Resources:
Responsible AI Due Diligence Toolkit for VCs —https://www.impactvc.co/ai, https://www.projectliberty.io/news/venture-capital-tools-for-responsible-and-impactful-investment-in-ai/
The ReframeVenture x ImpactVC x PLI white paper: https://www.projectliberty.io/news/pioneering-vc-survey-nine-in-ten-investors-see-financial-opportunity-in-a-responsible-ai-stack/
The ReframeVenture x ImpactVC x PLI Responsible and Impactful AI DD Toolkit: https://www.reframeventure.com/vcs/ai-dd
StepStone: "Do No Harm — How GPs and LPs Can Use Responsible AI to Build Trust" - https://www.stepstonegroup.com/news-insights/do-no-harm-how-gps-and-lps-can-use-responsible-ai-to-build-trust/
"LPs Are Grappling with AI and Data Risks, but Incentives Are Misaligned" - https://www.newprivatemarkets.com/lps-are-grappling-with-ai-and-data-risks-but-incentives-are-misaligned/
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn (1962) - https://share.google/6BBq516A0e8sGkDep
 
General Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction & Overview of Project Liberty
03:10 AI's Systemic Risks: From Data Agency to Market Structure
08:30 What Responsible AI Actually Means for Investors
11:30 The Framework Proliferation Problem (and the Contrast with Climate)
13:30 The Fair Data Economy Task Force: Four Pillars of a Good AI Economy
15:00 Ecosystem Building in Action: LP and VC Engagement
18:30 VC Survey Results: What the 73%, 83%, and 91% Statistics Signal
21:00 Investing With AI vs. Investing In AI
25:00 The Data Economy as an Emerging Investable Vertical
31:30 The Due Diligence Problem: Auditing AI at Scale
36:30 The Aviation Analogy: Why Infrastructure-Level Trust Changes Everything
43:00 Bridging Risk Governance and Systemic Investment Approaches
49:00 What Comes Next: LP Tools, VC Guidance, and Entrepreneurial Centers of Gravity
53:30 Final Questions: C-Suite Priority, Book Recommendation, Vision for Finance
 
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The Future of Finance podcast is produced by the Intentional Endowments Network, serving institutional investors working to align capital with long-term financial and systemic goals.

System-Level Risks, Proxy Power, and AI Governance with Whitney Shepard of Majority Action

Institutional investors are increasingly exposed to AI-driven risks that operate at the system level — spanning climate commitments, labor markets, and democratic governance. Whitney Shepard, Co-Executive Director of Majority Action, joins Georges Dyer on the Future of Finance podcast to lay out the research, frameworks, and stewardship strategies that investors need to navigate this moment responsibly.
Majority Action's emerging technologies research series makes a rigorous case that AI is not a siloed technology risk — it is a capital markets risk, one that intersects with concentration of corporate power, inadequate disclosure, and misaligned proxy voting by large asset managers. For fiduciaries managing public pensions, endowments, and foundations, understanding these dynamics is not optional; it is central to long-term value creation and duty of care.
 
Key themes covered:
- AI's three system-level risk categories for diversified investors: climate, inequality, and democratic backsliding
- XAI's Colossus data center case study — public pension capital financing projects with significant environmental and community harm
- Proxy voting trends: why the largest index funds diverged from public pensions on AI governance proposals last season
- What "active client" stewardship looks like in practice — engaging asset managers, not just portfolio companies
- First-mover frameworks from SFERS, CalSTRS, and Railpen that investors can learn from and adopt For institutional investors, academics, and policy leaders working at the intersection of technology governance, fiduciary duty, and long-term capital markets resilience.
 
General Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction — Whitney Shepherd and Majority Action
06:30 Bridging Grassroots Voices and Institutional Capital
14:45 Why Majority Action Turned Its Focus to AI
22:50 Three System-Level Risk Categories: Climate, Inequality, Democratic Backsliding
28:30 The XAI Colossus Case Study: Public Pensions and AI Data Center Financing
42:10 AI in the Boardroom: Proxy Voting Trends and the Index Fund Divergence
51:20 AI Stewardship in Motion: First Movers and Global Policy Benchmarks
57:40 What Endowments and Foundations Should Be Doing Now
1:01:30 Closing Takes: System Stewardship as the Core Ask
 
Resources:
Majority Action AI Accountability Hub: https://www.majorityaction.us/ai-accountability
Book: Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail — Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward: https://share.google/EKDxYky1Qm1CYMN5g
 
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The Future of Finance podcast is produced by the Intentional Endowments Network, serving institutional investors working to align capital with long-term financial and systemic goals.

A 7-Step Framework for Impact Private Credit with Drake Hicks of Variant Investments

Drake Hicks, Vice President and Head of Impact at Variant Investments, joins host Georges Dyer for a grounded, practitioner-level conversation on how private credit can be structured to deliver measurable social and environmental outcomes without sacrificing market-rate returns. Before joining Variant — an alternative credit manager with nearly $3 billion in AUM specializing in uncorrelated, income-generating assets across niche private markets — Drake built the impact investing mandate at the JPB Foundation (now Freedom Together Foundation), a $5 billion private foundation, and served as Head of ESG at Base Ten Partners, one of the largest Black-led venture capital firms. For institutional investors, this conversation offers a rare inside look at how impact discipline is operationalized at the deal level — not just articulated at the strategy level. Variant's impact fund deploys capital across 27 countries and nine thematic areas aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and this episode examines the frameworks, governance structures, and measurement tools that make that work rigorous and replicable.
 
Topics covered in this episode:
- Private credit as a non-extractive capital structure, and why it suits certain impact applications better than equity
- Variant's seven-step impact underwriting framework: from exclusion screens to IRIS+ reporting
- Using loan covenants to embed decarbonization milestones and EV adoption targets directly into deal structure
- Deal-level case studies: SME lending in Kenya and lease-to-own vehicle financing in emerging markets
- Building an impact carve-out portfolio at a major private foundation — governance, pilots, and board alignment
- Measuring impact across heterogeneous themes and geographies: SDGs, IRIS+, and 60 Decibels
- The maturation of impact private credit as an institutional asset class
- What investment committees get wrong — and what it actually takes to start Essential listening for CIOs, endowment and foundation investment staff, private credit investors, and capital allocators working at the intersection of private markets and intentional capital.
Resources Mentioned:
ImpactAlpha - https://impactalpha.com/
General Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction — Drake Hicks and Variant Investments
04:15 What Is Impact Private Credit? Asset Class Fundamentals
09:30 Variant's Seven-Step Impact Underwriting Framework
18:45 Deal Examples: Kenya SME Lending and Lease-to-Own EV Financing
27:00 Lessons from Building an Impact Portfolio at a Private Foundation
36:20 Measuring Impact Across Themes and Markets: SDGs, IRIS+, and 60 Decibels
43:10 The Maturation of Impact Private Credit as an Asset Class
48:30 What Institutional Investors Should Do Now
52:15 Vision for the Future of Finance -- The Future of Finance podcast is produced by the Intentional Endowments Network, serving institutional investors working to align capital with long-term financial and systemic goals.
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The Future of Finance podcast is produced by the Intentional Endowments Network, serving institutional investors working to align capital with long-term financial and systemic goals.
 
*Disclaimer*
Before investing, it’s important to understand the risks of the Variant Impact Fund.
The Variant Impact Fund is a continuously offered, nondiversified, registered closed-end fund with limited liquidity. The Fund seeks to provide a high level of current income, with capital appreciation as a secondary objective, while also pursuing positive social and environmental impact. There is no guarantee these objectives will be achieved.
An investment in the Fund is speculative and involves substantial risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. Fund shares are illiquid, and investors should not expect to sell shares at will. Although the Fund offers a share repurchase program, repurchases are limited and may not fully meet investor requests.
The Fund invests in private and other illiquid securities and may use leverage or derivatives, which can increase volatility and magnify losses.
Before investing, carefully review the prospectus, available at www.variantinvestments.com. The Fund is distributed by Distribution Services, LLC, an unaffiliated distributor.

What 25 Years in Climate Investing Reveals About the Institutional Capital Gap

What does 25 years of dedicated clean energy investing reveal about today's institutional opportunity? In this episode of the Future of Finance podcast, host Georges Dyer speaks with Daniel G. Weiss, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Angeleno Group — a Los Angeles-based venture and growth equity firm that has led or co-led over $3 billion into clean energy and climate solutions since 2001, with a limited partner base drawn largely from endowments, foundations, and pension funds.
Weiss offers a rigorous, evidence-based perspective on why the investment case for clean energy has fundamentally shifted — and why institutional capital has been slow to reflect that shift. The conversation addresses the structural drivers of return, the scale of the remaining deployment gap, and how both public and private market allocators can reframe their approach to climate-related investment.
Key themes covered in this episode:
- The 80–95% cost reduction across core clean energy technologies and its implications for risk-adjusted returns
- The 25x growth in climate tech venture capital (2013–2023) and the emerging pipeline of institutional-scale growth companies - Why the "concessionary returns" assumption is a market misconception, and how to correct it
- The role of AI and data center load growth in accelerating, and potentially moderating, energy demand
- Grid resilience, renewable procurement software, and smart energy infrastructure as current investment opportunities
- The case for a whole-portfolio approach: public and private markets, across asset classes
- Mission-aligned endowment stewardship at organizations including the World Resources Institute and California Community Foundation Angeleno's most recent investment was in NESTEC in February. Find out more information here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260226410979/en/Angeleno-Group-Announces-Investment-in-NESTEC-A-Leading-Industrial-Air-Pollution-Control-Platform
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Resources Mentioned:
Bloomberg New Energy Finance (NEF): https://about.bnef.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid_search&utm_campaign=amer_bnef_bssscorp_2025_ao&utm_content=text_bnef-amer-brand-hp&tactic=955953&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22172410789&gbraid=0AAAAADdH1c-jEC8vXBFpCCkXX8yAFNb9a&gclid=CjwKCAjwvqjOBhAGEiwAngeQnY7nXVgd1mWxgsoHUwNHY2Hrx83tJLdczCgFltazhsV7UacizAen4xoCx88QAvD_BwE
Ember: https://ember-energy.org/
Carbon Tracker: https://carbontracker.org/
World Resources Institute: https://www.wri.org/insights/rebranding-climate-action?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid-search-google-grants&utm_campaign=climate-messaging-problem&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23209833113&gbraid=0AAAAAD3bc5vY8RS5Ywzkg8wQLlR6TtnFY&gclid=CjwKCAjwvqjOBhAGEiwAngeQnWHKVc8ebdFNb3ZysxhXU1jV1ajUHtXYzFEcgOHUv47sshZI2ZOFqRoCdq0QAvD_BwE
Solvable - Book by Susan Solovan https://share.google/ybfINxWip4pqNJHNd
The New Global Possible: Rebuilding Optimism in the Age of Climate Crisis - Book by Ani Dasgupta https://share.google/DWYOwPbI0nSllOjGu
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General Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction & Angeleno Group Overview
03:15 Founding Angeleno in 2001: Identifying the White Space in Energy VC
08:10 The Primary Driver of Change: Clean Energy Economics 1
1:20 Investment Landscape Then vs. Now: Investable Universe & Capital Flows
14:45 Firm Structure, AUM, and LP Base
17:00 Investment Thesis: Technology, Policy, and Industrial Expertise
21:00 Focus Areas and Portfolio Construction Across Climate Subsectors
24:00 Portfolio Company Examples: Grid Resilience and Renewable Procurement Software
28:30 AI, Data Centers, and the Long-Run Energy Demand Equation
36:00 The $250 Trillion Gap: Misperceptions and the Institutional Capital Challenge
44:00 Public Market Returns and the Case for Whole-Portfolio Alignment
47:00 Mission-Aligned Endowment Stewardship: WRI and California Community Foundation
51:00 Rapid Fire: Advice for Institutional Investors, Recommended Resources, and Career Guidance
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The Future of Finance podcast is produced by the Intentional Endowments Network, serving institutional investors working to align capital with long-term financial and systemic goals.

When You Own the Whole Market, You Can't Diversify Away From This | Systemic Climate Risk and Fiduciary Duty

What does fiduciary duty actually require when you own the whole economy? Madison Condon, Associate Professor at Boston University School of Law and recipient of the American Law Institute's Early Career Scholars Medal, brings one of the most rigorous legal and economic frameworks in climate finance to the Future of Finance podcast.
For institutional investors, pension funds, endowments, and sovereign wealth funds, climate change is not a values question. It is a portfolio-level structural exposure. When damages from fossil fuel companies cascade through every other holding in a diversified portfolio, the conventional logic of ESG as a screened strategy breaks down. What replaces it is a systems-level argument grounded in fiduciary law, macroeconomic modeling, and the economics of universal ownership.
Topics covered in this episode:
The legal basis for climate action under fiduciary duty, including the Uniform Prudent Investor Act and the duty of impartiality toward future beneficiaries
Why leading macroeconomic climate models have systematically underestimated damages and what better modeling looks like
The diverging interests of asset owners and asset managers, and why that distinction is increasingly consequential
The McRitchie v. Zuckerberg decision and what Delaware corporate law says about externalities and diversified shareholders
The Texas v. BlackRock antitrust case and the emerging legal risk landscape for climate-aligned investor coalitions
The role of IEA scenarios and institutions like NCAR in shaping capital allocation and why their integrity matters to investors
Future of Finance is produced by the Intentional Endowments Network. New episodes explore how institutional capital can be aligned with long-term economic resilience.
Resources Mentioned:
https://share.google/QGtJ3a2aIQpfIR7SM
General Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction — Universal Ownership and Systemic Climate Risk
03:15 The 2020 Paper: Externalities and the Common Owner
07:10 Asset Owners vs. Asset Managers — Why the Distinction Matters
10:20 Fiduciary Duty and the Legal Landscape for Climate Action
13:30 The Duty of Impartiality and Future Beneficiaries
16:40 Corporate vs. Portfolio Fiduciary Duties — The Delaware Question
23:10 Why Climate Economic Models Have Underpriced Risk
28:30 Supply Chain Bottlenecks and Place-Based Climate Impacts
32:50 Antitrust Risk and the Texas v. BlackRock Case
38:20 Investor Policy Engagement and the Role of Climate Data Institutions
43:00 IEA Scenarios as a Self-Fulfilling Mechanism in Capital Markets
47:30 Vision for the Future — Asset Owner Governance and Long-Term Capital

From Shareholder Primacy to Management Primacy: What's at Stake for Capital Markets

Fran Seegull, President of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance, joins host Georges Dyer for a wide-ranging conversation on the structural forces reshaping institutional investing. Before leading the Alliance, which she co-founded with Darren Walker of the Ford Foundation, Fran served as Chief Investment Officer of ImpactAssets, overseeing its $3 billion impact investing donor-advised fund, and taught graduate-level impact investing at USC's Marshall School of Business.
For institutional investors, this conversation arrives at a critical juncture. The policy and governance environment is actively constraining the tools investors need to manage systemic risk: from anti-ESG legislation restricting fiduciary discretion, to executive actions targeting community finance infrastructure, to the erosion of shareholder engagement rights. At the same time, frameworks like system-level investing and dynamic materiality are gaining traction as rigorous, financially-grounded responses to risks that traditional portfolio theory was not built to handle.
 
Topics covered in this episode:
The U.S. Impact Investing Alliance: mission, structure, and four-pillar strategy
System-level investing as a bridge between traditional finance and impact frameworks
Capital markets assumptions and how systemic factors should be priced
Double materiality and dynamic materiality (definitions, distinctions, and investment implications)
The Community Reinvestment Act and CDFI ecosystem: importance, recent threats, and bipartisan defense
Anti-ESG legislation: the financial case against it and the first major constitutional challenge
The rise of corporate management primacy and the erosion of shareholder accountability tools
Impact measurement frameworks, verification tools, and the IEN Endowment Impact Benchmark
Final takes: what every institutional investor should do today, and Fran's vision for the future of finance
Essential listening for CIOs, pension trustees, endowment leaders, and policy professionals navigating the evolving intersection of fiduciary duty, systemic risk, and long-term capital markets stability.
 
Resources Mentioned:
Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory - https://share.google/0HU0Sfshhzw9ANysL
Principles Responsible Investing Podcast - https://www.unpri.org/newsroom/podcasts
 
General Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction & Guest Background
02:00 What the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance Does — and How It Came to Be
07:30 Global Context: Where the U.S. Stands in the Impact Investing World
09:00 Is Impact Investing Fit for Purpose? The Case for System Transformation
17:00 System-Level Investing: Non-Diversifiable Risk and the Full Toolkit
22:00 Capital Markets Assumptions, Double Materiality, and Dynamic Materiality
29:30 Community Investing: The CRA, CDFIs, and the Defense of Financial Infrastructure
41:30 The Freedom to Invest: Anti-ESG Legislation and the First Constitutional Win
47:30 Climate Policy Rollback: Market Forces vs. Federal Headwinds
50:00 Impact Measurement: From Transparency to Accountability
54:00 The Rise of Corporate Management Primacy — A New Governance Risk
1:00:00 Final Takes: One Action for Every Institutional Investor

Systemic Risk and Investor Engagement on Policy with Richard Roberts

Systemic climate risk is increasingly recognized across capital markets but how should institutional investors engage with the policy drivers shaping that risk?
In this episode of the Future of Finance podcast, host Georges Dyer speaks with Richard Roberts, Inquiry Lead at Volans, about the intersection of systemic risk, fiduciary duty, and investor engagement on real-economy climate policy.
For long-horizon asset owners, disclosure frameworks alone may not address the structural economic forces influencing portfolio outcomes. Energy systems, infrastructure policy, industrial strategy, and trade dynamics ultimately determine emissions pathways and market stability.
Key themes include:
The imbalance between disclosure-focused engagement and real-economy policy
Systemic risk across diversified portfolios
Catastrophic risk and the limits of economic modeling
Coalition-based approaches to policy engagement
Governance structures and long-term stewardship incentives
For CIOs, trustees, and policy leaders, the conversation explores whether policy engagement is becoming a necessary dimension of systemic stewardship.
Resources Mentioned:
Recalibrating Carbon Risk: https://carbontracker.org/reports/recalibrating-climate-risk/
Triple Bottom Line Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2018/06/25-years-ago-i-coined-the-phrase-triple-bottom-line-heres-why-im-giving-up-on-it
Existential Politics - Jessica F. Green: https://share.google/RLMhxwaxpSnWvhqAj
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
03:10 Disclosure vs. Real-Economy Policy
08:00 Investor Resource Allocation Findings
14:20 Political Legitimacy and Engagement Constraints
19:40 Coalition Strategies and Collective Action
26:35 Fiduciary Duty and Systemic Risk
32:10 Catastrophic Risk and Tipping Points
47:45 A Long-Term Vision for Finance