Designing a Framework for System-Level Investing

One of the most rewarding aspects of my graduate program has been the opportunity to apply what I’ve been learning in the classroom to a real-world project. This semester, I am working with an advisory firm that is helping to push the boundaries of sustainable finance. The initiative we’ve been tasked with is ambitious: design a framework for system-level investing.

At its heart, the project is about building tools that help investors think bigger. Traditional investing strategies often stop at company or sector-level risks. But in reality, investors never operate in isolation. Every portfolio, every investment decision, is embedded in systems, including environmental, social, and economic, that shape and constrain long-term performance. From climate change and water scarcity to racial equity and governance, these interconnected forces influence markets in ways that no quarterly report can fully capture.

The challenge is how to translate this systems-level thinking into something actionable. That’s where our practicum comes in. Our mandate is to design a measurement framework that can evaluate how effectively investors are accounting for these dynamics and, just as importantly, identify where they can do better. The outputs we deliver this semester will become part of a broader effort to set industry benchmarks and encourage wider adoption of system-level investing.

Laying the groundwork

Our deliverables are structured to balance immediate value with long-term impact. We’ll start by delivering a curated set of investor profiles that anchor the rest of the project. These profiles will serve as the foundation for testing and refining the measurement framework. From there, we will draft the framework itself and produce comparative analyses, highlighting where certain investors are leading and where gaps remain.

The final deliverables will go beyond static reporting. We will provide a methodology that can be replicated, applied, and scaled. That means thinking not only about the 'what' of system-level integration, but also the 'how.' How do you measure progress across such broad and interdependent issues? How do you account for context differences across firms of different sizes, geographies, and mandates? How do you build something rigorous but also practical enough to be adopted by busy investment teams? 

Building the investor database

My own contributions began with building a comprehensive database of investors. It required curating data across several key dimensions:

• Assets under management (AUM): Categorizing firms by size to ensure our analysis speaks to the challenges of both large global managers and smaller, more specialized firms.
• Headquarters location: Starting with a focus on North America, while recognizing the importance of geographic diversity in shaping investment practices.
• Asset class focus: Distinguishing between firms concentrated in equities, fixed income, private markets, and other asset classes—because each has different levers of influence on system-level issues.
• Leading concerns: Identifying which systemic challenges each firm prioritizes, whether climate change, racial and gender equity, water access, or others.

This dataset is already proving invaluable as we narrow down which investors we’ll target for deeper analysis. It’s also giving us a clearer sense of the landscape: where there is leadership, where there is hesitation, and where momentum might be building.

Leveraging technology in the process

Another way I’ve been able to contribute is by drawing on my technical background. In previous projects, I worked with APIs and natural language tools to build frameworks and extract insights from complex datasets. That experience has translated directly into this practicum, where the client has built tools leveraging Perplexity’s API to analyze investor strategies and theses.

While I’m not building prompts from scratch, my knowledge of how these platforms work has helped us maximize what we can get out of them. It’s one thing to know a tool exists, but it’s another to understand how to use it effectively. In practice, this has meant extracting data quickly, validating insights, and ensuring that what we pull from the system is usable for our analysis. In a project with tight timelines, that efficiency makes a difference.

Debating the framework

One of the most intellectually stimulating parts of this practicum so far for me has been the conversations around how to design the measurement framework. Even at this early stage, we’ve been weighing different approaches.

One option is to build our framework around AUM size, focusing on North American investors. This would allow us to offer insights that scale across the spectrum, from smaller funds to the world’s largest asset managers. Another option is to orient the framework around specific systemic issues like climate change, water access, equity, targeting firms that already prioritize these areas and helping them deepen their integration.

Initially, I thought we could (and should) both weigh investors equally by size and by issue focus. But after deeper discussion with my team, we realized that approach might dilute the impact of our findings. Narrowing in on a single axis, either AUM or systemic issue, would sharpen our insights and make the framework more actionable. 

Learning from the team

Collaboration has truly been a highlight of this practicum. Our team is interdisciplinary by design, with expertise in law, finance, climate tech, and data analytics. Each of us sees the challenges and opportunities through a different lens, and those perspectives continually push our work forward.

Recently, we got out of an I had been advocating for a dual-track approach by organizing investors by both AUM and systems-level focus. From my perspective, this seemed like the most comprehensive way to cover the field. But one of my teammates, who has engaged with climate finance investors and financial institutions more closely than me, pointed out that splitting our attention might make the framework less usable for stakeholders who need clarity and focus. Another teammate agreed that diluting scope could weaken the practical value of the final product. Together, we came to see that prioritizing one approach would make our insights stronger. After all, we can always expand our approach in the future.

Looking ahead

We haven’t yet engaged with external advisors, but that’s coming. Later in the project, we’ll convene a working group of industry stakeholders to provide feedback and guidance on the methodology. Their perspectives will be crucial to ensuring that what we create isn’t just academically rigorous, but also practical and valuable to the practitioners who will use it.

This step is particularly exciting to me. It’s one thing to design a framework in theory; it’s another to test it against the lived realities of asset managers, pensions, and endowments grappling with system-level risks every day. That feedback loop is what will make the framework credible and durable.

Why this matters to me

What excites me most about this project is how directly it connects to my long-term career goals. I want to work in sustainable finance and venture capital, helping to fund and scale solutions that address systemic challenges. This project gives me a front-row seat to how investors can be part of that shift and move beyond box-checking ESG metrics to embed systemic considerations into the core of their decision-making.

There’s also a personal dimension. In a world where externalities like climate disruption, inequality, environmental degradation drive so much harm, it is deeply motivating to be part of a project that seeks to integrate those realities into investment practice. Every time I sit down to work on this project, I feel energized by the possibility that our efforts could help make sustainable investing the mainstream standard, not the exception.

Final reflections

As we move into the next phase, I am excited to see our measurement framework take shape. There are still many questions to answer and trade-offs to navigate. But the progress we’ve made so far, from the database to the debates and the shared learning, already feels like a meaningful step forward.

What makes this project special isn’t just the content, though that’s exciting enough. It’s the process. Working with a team of peers who bring diverse strengths, pushing each other to think harder, and collaborating with a client who is committed to making a real difference in how capital flows through the global system.