Experienced Career Changer: Taking Risks to Pursue New Calling

I did my undergraduate degree at a liberal education institution, where I spent the first of the four years, taking courses across various domains (like physical and natural sciences, social sciences, humanities as well as fine and performing arts), and the remainder of the three years doing a double major in Applied Mathematics and Environmental Studies. I leveraged this unusual combination to work at an experimental economics research center, which led to me to eventually work at the heart of India’s development sector, where I worked closely with the leadership of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and NITI Aayog (India’s planning commission) to start India’s first official Behavioural Insights Unit (commonly also known as a Nudge Unit). Set within the central government, this Unit works as an in-house Behavioural Economics research advisory/ consulting group for different ministries and departments, enabling them to improve their program effectiveness. I led the Unit’s impact evaluation/ experimental team that designed and executed lab, lab-in-the field and field experiments for several developmental indicators, like maternal and child health, foundational literacy and numeracy, financial inclusion and energy efficiency. Last summer, I further extended this experience particularly in the multi-lateral space by working with OECD’s Research and Evaluation Team.

Hence, before coming to SIPA, the extent of my exposure to the world of finance was primarily development aid and research grants. It was only during my stint at OECD working on development financing for gender data that I realized the impact that private capital can potentially have, which got me intrigued to learn more about the industry, its motivations and tools. After taking courses like corporate finance, emerging capital markets and measurement and disclosure of ESG data, I realized that impactful sustainable development work in the non-profit/public sector operates in pockets of market failures i.e. development financiers attempt to provide additional resources to areas where resource allocation was less than predicted, due to externalities and information asymmetry. As a result, this is curative in nature. On the other hand, impactful sustainable development work in the private sector operated in pockets of market efficiency i.e. firms are encouraged to provide more information to hinder inefficient allocation of resources in the first place, hence making it preventive in nature.

As a result, I was interested in exploring the possibility of pivoting into the sustainable finance space, while also remaining in my comfort zone of doing interesting, relevant and (most of the times) novel empirical research. This class (Sustainable Investing Research Consulting Project) allowed me the perfect opportunity to do this! During this course, not only did I get hands-on experience of working with a reputed client from this space, but also, I got the chance to gain tremendous insights into motivations and behaviors of investors at large, through the interviews my team conducted. I learnt something new from every stage/step we took in this project:

• Preparation of Research Scope and Development of Methodology: We worked closely with the client to define the scope of this project. Through this process I learnt about the nitty-gritties of the world of sustainability standards and frameworks landscape. After finalizing the scope, when we were conducting background research to develop our sampling methodology for investor interviews, I got a detailed overview of the different types of investors and how it can be segmented based on the kind of investment work they do, the types of products they invest in and their approach to sustainable finance. This allowed me to develop a clear, mutually exclusive and collective exhaustive segmentation of the investment landscape.

• Interviews and Desk Research: My team made an exhaustive list of eligible investors (according to our selection criteria) in each of our segments and reached out to them asking for interviews. Despite high non-response and attrition, we managed to finish ~20 interviews. I learnt not only about what drove different investors in adopting sustainable finance, but also how different investors actually engaged in the space (i.e. what their dominant source of sustainability information was, how they use this information and why they used it the way they did, what were some of the challenges they were facing and how were problem-solving for it). This played a critical role in my learning of the language of this landscape.

• Literature Review: Lastly, we conducted literature reviews to support out findings from these interviews (which were more anecdotal in nature). Interestingly, I came across a lot of behavioral literature in this field, which gave me confidence of being capable to apply my skills and experience from my previous work to this new career.

I believe I echo every experienced career changer in this class when I say that, taking the risk of leaving something you know you can do very well, to pursue a completely new calling based on a couple of graduate school classes is an incredibly difficult decision to take (certainly one that an investor wouldn’t be comfortable making!). But I also believe I echo every experienced career changer in this class when I say that, taking this class certainly made this decision a little easier. Hence, I am very grateful to Prof. Flammer for designing this learning experience, to our client to have provided tremendous guidance and to my team for being very collaborative and learning side-by-side with me.