You are here

Social Impact Webinar Series, Are ESG Investments Outperforming During the COVID19 Pandemic?

 Registration is closed for this event

SOCIAL IMPACT WEBINAR SERIES

Are ESG Investments Outperforming During the COVID19 Pandemic?

with Harun Dogo, executive director of Global Sustainable Finance at Morgan Stanley; John Goldstein, head of the Sustainable Finance Group at Goldman Sachs; and Mary Jane McQuillen ’07, managing director, portfolio manager, and head of Environmental, Social, and Governance Investment at ClearBridge Investments; and moderated by Mark Zurack, senior lecturer in discipline in business for the Executives in Residence Program at Columbia Business School

Thursday, May 21, 2020
5-6 p.m. EDT
Webinar details included in RSVP confirmation email.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought to light the significance of risk mitigation for business leaders. In comparison to the S&P 500, ESG funds are outperforming the broader market during the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic. The question then becomes, are investment funds that consider environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria a better bet in a time of crisis?

In this webinar, panelists will deep-dive into the ESG assessment criteria, economic impacts from the current pandemic, and suggestions for how business leaders might better mitigate future risk during a pandemic. Will the ESG assessment criteria change post-pandemic? What are the lessons learned? Panelists will also share insights into why they feel ESG investment funds are outperforming the market during this pandemic, and where they see things going for the future.

 

Speaker Bios:
Harun Dogo
Executive Director of Global Sustainable Finance at Morgan Stanley

Harun Dogo is an executive director in the Global Sustainable Finance group at Morgan Stanley, where he leads quantitative integration of sustainability into asset selection, pricing, and credit models. Prior to joining the firm, he was an economist at the World Bank, where he worked on a range of economic policy, environmental economics, conflict, and poverty issues with clients across the globe. Earlier in his career, he was a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and later served on the professional staff of the US Senate Committee on Finance. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy with a degree in physics; he also holds graduate degrees in irregular warfare and applied physics from the Naval Postgraduate School, and in policy analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School.

John Goldstein
Head of the Sustainable Finance Group at Goldman Sachs

John is head of the Sustainable Finance Group (SFG), which is responsible for working across Goldman Sachs to deepen the firm's knowledge and grow its capabilities in relation to inclusive growth and climate transition. He serves as chair of the Sustainable Finance Group Steering Group. John joined Goldman Sachs Asset Management as a managing director in 2015 through the acquisition of Imprint Capital, which he co-founded in 2007, to help expand the firm's environmental, social, and governance, and impact investing capabilities. Previously, John served as senior managing director of Medley Global Advisors. During that time, he co-founded and served as the executive director of the Medley Institute. Prior to that, John was a management consultant at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). John has served as an advisor or board member to a diverse set of organizations in the impact space including groups such as the US National Advisory Board of the G8 Social Impact Investing Task Force, the Global Impact Investing Network’s ImpactBase initiative, the Global Social Venture Competition, McKinsey’s working group on social impact bonds, Global Giving, the Sustainable Food Lab, the UN Capital Development Fund, the International Interfaith Investment Group and a range of other organizations. John graduated from Yale University with honors. He was awarded the Richter Fellowship and the Townsend Prize.

Mary Jane McQuillen ’07
Managing Director, Portfolio Manager, and Head of Environmental, Social, and Governance Investment at ClearBridge Investments

Mary Jane McQuillen is a portfolio manager and the head of the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Investment Program at ClearBridge Investments. Mary Jane co-manages the ClearBridge Sustainability Leaders Strategy, as well as a number of other active equity ESG strategies. She has been with the ESG program at a predecessor firm since 1996 and has 24 years of investment industry experience and is a member of the ClearBridge Investments Proxy Committee.

Mary Jane serves on the board of directors for the Sustainable Investments Institute (Si2). She is a former board member of the IRRC Institute and the CFA Society New York. She is also a former board member of the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment (US SIF). Mary Jane is a member of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) Listed Equities Steering Committee and the ESG Integration Sub-committee.

Mary Jane received her MBA in finance from Columbia Business School. She holds a BS in finance from Fordham University.

Mark Zurack
Senior Lecturer in Discipline in Business for the Executives in Residence Program at Columbia Business School

Mark A. Zurack teaches Capital Markets and Investments, Equity Derivatives, and Equity Markets and Products at Columbia Business School, and also teaches at Cornell University as an adjunct professor.

Mark is currently on the board of directors of the Binghamton University Foundation and also serves on the boards of the Alzheimer's Association, Teach For America, Upper West Success Academy, ETC, Southampton Bath and Tennis, and the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School.

Prior to coming to Columbia, Professor Zurack worked at Goldman Sachs for 18 years. He joined GS in 1983 and started the equity derivatives research group. He later assumed a broader leadership role in equity derivatives, co-managing the product in both North America and Asia and leading the effort to cross-market equity derivatives products to high-net-worth individuals. He became a partner in 1994 and a managing director in 1996. Between 1998 and 2001, Professor Zurack served on the board of directors at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. He received his CFA in 1983, his MBA from Cornell in 1980 and his BS from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1978.

Areas of interest: capital markets, sales and trading issues, portfolio construction, risk management and quantitative research.

 

 


Social Impact Webinar Series
This webinar series was designed to engage our social enterprise community during New York's Shelter in Place recommendation. Our intention is to continue to disseminate best practices for the social enterprise sector, as well as discuss the pressing social and environmental challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure vulnerable and marginalized community needs are still addressed. All webinars will be recorded and shared on the center's COVID-19 Relief and Response webpage, www.gsb.columbia.edu/socialenterprise/covid-response

When
May 21st, 2020 from  5:00 PM to  6:00 PM