People

In the 1990s, amidst the tumult of the Asian financial crisis, Vincent Shen discerned a beacon of opportunity. Abandoning a modestly salaried role at Citi Bank, he embarked on an audacious journey with Merrill Lynch's experimental "Young Bankers for Local Affluent Markets" program, which offered only commissions, not salaries. Driven by a vision and the necessity to support his young family, Vincent embraced this high-stakes challenge.

Starting with the management of a mere USD 250,000 account in Taiwan, Vincent's assets under management soared to an astounding USD 4 billion within a few short years. His remarkable success led to his promotion to the regional headquarters in Singapore and subsequently to Hong Kong. This achievement was no accident; it was the product of a meticulously crafted strategy centered on total integration—melding systems thinking theory with altruism to create win-win solutions. This innovative approach facilitated deals amounting to trillions of dollars in mergers and acquisitions, private equity, IPOs, and asset management from the greater China market to global marketplaces. Vincent's extraordinary accomplishments earned him the distinction of being the youngest and highest-paid Managing Director in the region, etching his name into Wall Street's "Circle of Champions," the highest accolade for top bankers worldwide.

After a decade of trailblazing success at Merrill Lynch, he ascended to the ranks of the world's top three bankers. Renowned as a strategic venture capitalist and a pioneer in banking innovation, Vincent initiated the Private Investment Banking Group—a revolutionary platform fostering collaboration across banking units, creating positive feedback loops that benefited all parties involved. His achievements attracted the attention of Rockefeller and Co. CEO James McDonald, who personally travelled to Taipei to propose a joint venture. Concurrently, Vincent received a personal invitation from Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, ultimately deciding to follow his former boss from Merrill Lynch to Morgan Stanley.

In his late 30s, with a fervent desire to transform Taiwan's healthcare system, Vincent planned an early retirement and returned to his hometown. Leveraging his prowess in capital markets, global influence, and extensive industrial network, he established Taiwan's largest oncology enterprise through a series of strategic mergers and acquisitions. This visionary move resulted in a company valued in the billions in two years, providing millions with improved early diagnosis and treatment options, and sparking widespread healthcare system reforms across Taiwan. This impact investment achieved a 20x return on investment and record-breaking IPO oversubscription.

Vincent's quest for systemic impact did not end there. He returned to Oxford University's Saïd Business School to further his education and spent the next 12 years traveling the world, connecting the dots among academia, NGOs, banks, and impact investors. Through angel investing and blended financing projects, he achieved a remarkable 24.6% IRR in impact
investments, even during the turbulence of the pandemic.

Amidst the post-COVID recession, Vincent, as chair of Harvard University's Cognitive Art Multimedia Lab (CAMLab) advisory board, introduced cutting-edge immersive theatre technology integrated with 5G to a local social enterprise to revitalize Taipei's oldest town. Transforming it into a vibrant cultural economy zone, this project received backing from Taiwan's central government and sovereign wealth fund, invigorated local businesses, created thousands of jobs, and attracted investment from globally influential families.

Today, Vincent leads the Systems Impact Multi-Family Office, SIMFO, and chairs the SZU CHI Angel Private Equity Fund, continuing his legacy as a systems thinker and market maker, tackling the root causes of environmental challenges in collaboration with Oxford, MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, and Columbia University, along with global impact families such as Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, and Bill Gates partnering with the Environmental Defense Fund, EDF.

Vincent’s family has long been devoted to the Tzu Chi Foundation, the largest philanthropic organization in the Chinese-speaking world, active in over 136 countries. As Tzu Chi’s honorable board director, Vincent has been a generous donor to various charitable and academic institutions, driving forward innovation and compassion. Vincent Shen's story is not merely one of remarkable financial success, but of visionary leadership, relentless innovation, and profound social impact—a testament to the transformative power of integrating strategy with altruism.

Tom Hedrick is the Managing Director and founder of Dillon Joyce Ltd, where he has spent the past 23 years investing in private companies across the full corporate lifecycle—from seed-stage ventures to late-stage leveraged buyouts. Prior to founding Dillon Joyce, Tom was a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he served as Managing Partner of the Dallas office and co-led both the High Tech and Private Equity practices. He began his career as a petroleum engineer at Exxon.

Over the past eight years, Tom has devoted his time and energy to advocacy and philanthropy focused on expanding investment in early childhood development for low-income children. He is now shifting his focus to climate-related initiatives, with recent investments in carbon dioxide reduction through software innovation and forestation projects.

Tom holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, where he was a classmate of Bob Massie. He and his wife, Madeleine, reside in Austin, Texas. They have three grown children and three grandchildren. 

Tanvir Ghani is the President and co-founder of Tybourne Capital Management, a multi billion dollar investment management (hedge and private equity) firm based out of Hong Kong. Prior to that Tanvir was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs specializing in alternative assets. He graduated from SIPA in 2001 concentrating in Finance and Business. He lives between London and Hong Kong. Tanvir spends a quality amount of time private equity investing in his home country of Bangladesh.

Steve Lydenberg is a Senior Fellow at SIRI. He was previously Partner, Strategic Vision for Domini Impact Investments LLC, Founder and Chairman of The Investment Integration Project (TIIP), and Founding Director of the Initiative for Responsible Investment. For over four decades he has been active in responsible investment with the Council on Economic Priorities, Trillium Asset Management and KLD Research & Analytics. He is author of numerous articles on responsible investment including, “Reason, Rationality and Fiduciary Duty” and “On Materiality and Sustainability: The Value of Disclosure in the Capital Markets”. He is also author of several books on responsible investment including 21 st Century Investing: Redirecting Financial Strategies to Drive Systems Change (Berrett-Koehler, co-author William Burckart); Corporations and the Public Interest (Berrett-Koehler) and Dilemmas in Responsible Investment (Greenleaf, co-author Céline Louche). He holds a BA from Columbia College and an MFA in Theater from Cornell University and CFA Charter designation.

Bob Massie has been one of the most respected leaders in the field of sustainability and finance for nearly forty years. A student anti-apartheid activist at Princeton in the 1970s, Massie obtained a master’s degree in social and theological ethics from Yale Divinity School in 1982 and a doctorate in corporate strategy from Harvard Business School in 1989. His dissertation focused on how institutional investors integrated moral and political concerns into their investment policies. In 1993 he served as a Senior Fulbright Scholar on the faculty of the University of Cape Town. In 1998 he published Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa in the Apartheid Years, which won the 1998 Lionel Gelber prize for the best book in the world on international relations. In 1996 Massie became the first president of Ceres and helped to build it into the powerful coalition of investors, corporations, and sustainability organizations it is today. In 1998, believing that key capital market actors needed high quality, comparable sustainability data, he co-founded and chaired the Global Reporting Initiative. In 2002, he created and led the first Institutional Investor Summit on Climate Risk at United Nations headquarters in New York. That same year he was picked by CFO magazine as one of the 100 most influential leaders in finance. He also served for three years on the original International Integrated Reporting Commission (IIRC) chaired by Justice Mervyn King of South Africa. Massie has also had a prominent role in the politics of his home state of Massachusetts, having served as the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 1994 and as a candidate for governor in 2018. In recent years he has continued to work on mandatory sustainability reporting, the evolution of corporate governance, and the need for fundamental reform in the fields of accounting, finance, and economics. In the summer of 2023, he convened the Materiality Working Group, a monthly discussion group and clearinghouse of US and UK thought leaders who are focusing on charting the evolution of the intersection of sustainability and finance.

Osvald Bjelland is a Norwegian entrepreneur and investor, whose long record of founding organizations that espouse ecologically and civically responsible mandates. Bjelland currently serves as chairman of Origination LTD, a London -based company he founded that mobilizes originators and other exceptional leaders worldwide to invest in service of people and the planet with long-term strategic foresight.

In 2000, after selling The Performance Group in the wake of the dot-com bubble, he traded commerce for academia, earning a PhD from the University of Leeds (UK) in 2008. Later, he would return to academia as a visiting business fellow at the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and as a visiting scholar at Stanford University. Several purpose-driven ventures followed, notably the 2001 launch of his advisory firm Xynteo, dedicated to among others guiding energy transition in frontier markets such as India. He served as CEO, president and chairman. In 2023, Bjelland sold a majority share of Xynteo to Leon Capital and retained a 20 percent stake along with an employee ownership arrangement. Bjelland's legacy is also stamped on partnerships and business consortiums such as the Tata Xynteo Exchange, a joint venture helmed by Bjelland and the chairman of Tata Sons. Other partneships include Vikaasa and Europe Delivers. Under Bjelland’s stewardship, Xynteo also built The Leadership Vanguard, working with global CEOs, heads of state, Nobel laureates and scientists to promote “good growth” in service of people and the planet. Together, the companies and collaborative entities have delivered over five hundred projects in the U.S., China, India, Europe, and Brazil.

Bjelland is married to Thorhild Widvey, Norway’s former Minister of Petroleum and Energy as well as Minister of Culture. The couple has two sons. He remains an enthusiastic farmer, adhering to a zero-pesticide environment.

His motto brings together the essence of his work – stronger together!

Nnamdi Igbokwe is a Senior Research Scholar and Co-Director of SIRI Blended Finance. As a political economist, his expertise bridges sustainable investing and development finance to drive strategic decision making, guide investment outcomes, and mobilize capital for impact. At SIRI, he will design and lead blended finance programming to mobilize capital for sustainable development, particularly in lower-income markets, through rigorous research, high-level convenings, and practitioner-focused education.

Previously, Dr. Igbokwe served as Director of Knowledge and Thought Leadership at Convergence Blended Finance, the global network for blended finance, where he oversaw data, research, and content portfolios and led intelligence efforts aimed at scaling blended finance and crowding in greater private sector investment for climate and the SDGs into emerging markets. Earlier roles include Senior Vice President leading strategic initiatives for the Data, Analytics, Reporting, and Technology Market Risk team at Citigroup; Director of Research and Investor Relations for a New York global macro hedge und where he managed the research and content ecosystem for institutional investors; Sustainable development advisor on multilateral initiatives with the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank; and management consultant in the Financial Institutions practice at Boston Consulting Group.

His research in International Political Economy examines how institutions, governance, and global policy shape development outcomes. He has held doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the American Council of Learned Societies and holds a B.A. in Political Science from Northwestern University, an M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University SAIS, and both a master’s degree and Ph.D. in International Political Economy from Johns Hopkins University. 

Mike is global co-head and co-chief investment officer of the External Investing Group (XIG) within Asset and Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs. XIG invests in leading private equity, hedge fund, real estate, credit, public market and ESG managers as a limited partner, secondary-market investor, co-investor or management company partner. Mike also serves on the group's investment committees across private equity, real estate, hedge fund and impact investment strategies. Mike earned a BA in International Affairs from the University of California, Davis, an MBA from Columbia Business School and an MIA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He is a CFA charter holder.

Dr. Lorie Srivastava is an environmental economist whose work focuses on advancing sustainability and climate resilience through rigorous economic analysis and innovative risk modelling. She holds a Ph.D. in Applied Economics from Michigan State University, specialising in water economics, and combines this with a multidisciplinary background in computer science, policy, and consulting.

Her work addresses some of the most pressing challenges in climate and nature risk, including economic valuation of natural assets and ecosystem services, scenario modelling under uncertainty, and material factors for informed financial decision-making. As a Research Fellow at the University of California, Davis, Dr. Srivastava led projects funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency and California Natural Resources Agency to quantify how the economic value of ecosystem services will change over time due to the effects of climate change. She also contributed as a technical reviewer for the Fourth California Climate Change Assessment, shaping policy-relevant insights on water scarcity and resource management.

Dr. Srivastava’s applied work bridges academia and practice. She has spearheaded global initiatives to embed climate and sustainability considerations into financial systems, including the design of econometric models and integrated assessment frameworks for risk evaluation. Her leadership roles at SAGINT, Inc. and KPMG have involved developing ESG-linked financial strategies, advancing carbon pricing mechanisms, and quantifying economic and financial consequences of blockchain-based solutions for transparent asset management. These efforts support the mobilisation of capital towards nature-positive outcomes and the creation of resilient economic and financial markets.

In addition to her research and advisory work, Dr. Srivastava has been leading the economic and strategic analysis and modelling underpinning projects that integrate AI and blockchain technologies to enhance transparency, automate regulatory compliance, and deliver scalable ESG, climate, and nature-based solutions through digital platforms. Her work focuses on applying tokenisation and digital assets to improve the efficiency and integrity of nature credit markets, whilst also promoting human rights and labour standards, creating mechanisms for fractional ownership and trade. These innovations enable investors to participate in sustainability-linked markets while ensuring robust governance and verifiable benefits. Her expertise in financial performance analytics, combined with her knowledge of econometric modelling and sustainable

Katherine Ng is the Managing Director of the Sustainable Investing Research Initiative (SIRI) and specializes in bridging the gap between research, practice and policy. Over the past 20 years, Katherine has focused on systemic, global challenges such as climate change, transformational technologies, and inequality. She was the Head of Research at the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) for 10 years, where she built the innovative research programme that supported applied research, and drove further value, impact and dialogue by bringing independent evidence and insights to investment professionals. She grew and scaled up the Academic Network, the community of practice for investment practitioners and academics, to over 13,000 around the world, and spearheaded PhD and Research Fellowships at the PRI. As a programme director, she created and led funding initiatives for pioneering research that addresses current and future investment concerns.

Katherine is passionate about developing rich environments for interdisciplinary field-building in academia and navigating impact channels for communicating research insights. She has worked with leading academics, industry experts, with educators such as the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) at the UN Global Compact, as well as the OECD and the World Bank.

As a consultant at ECGI (the European Corporate Governance Network), she supported the development of the Patrons Council, an initiative of leading investors, companies and academics that aims to guide European corporations through rapidly evolving global challenges, such as the transition to Net Zero, artificial intelligence, geopolitical shifts and regulatory developments. Katherine was previously the Research Manager at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), managing projects and sponsorships on sustainability, corporate governance, financial reporting, taxation, auditing, and SMEs. She supported the key relationship with the Economic and Social Research Council.

Katherine began her career at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in the UK working on inequality and was a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster. She was part of a consortium of technology assessment bodies, science museums, academic institutions and public foundations from nine European Countries that investigated the social, economic, legal and ethical implications of brain science and made recommendations to national and European policymakers.

Forbes calls long-time institutional investor Jon Lukomnik one of the pioneers of modern corporate governance. His newest book, The Handbook of System-Level Investing, which he edited with William Burckart, features chapters from institutional investors with a total of more than $5.5 trillion in total assets under management. His previous book, “Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters” (co-authored with James Hawley) is widely praised as the “seminal” work on the finance theory underpinning system-level investing. Their work focuses on MPT’s inability to deal with systematic risk and provides a coherent finance theory to explain why investors mitigate risks such as climate change from a risk/return perspective. Jon is also the co-author of three other academic books about capital markets, and more than 200 academic and practitioner papers. 

Jon has been the investment advisor or a trustee for more than $100 billion (including New York City’s pension funds) and has consulted to institutional investors with aggregate assets of more than $2 trillion dollars. He currently serves as Brandmeyer Fellow for Sustainable Investing and Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He is a Senior Fellow at the High Meadows Institute, and an associate editor for the Journal of Impact & ESG investing. Jon serves on the Board of The Shareholder Commons and the Advisory Board of The Investment Integration Project. He was previously a trustee for the Van Eck mutual funds where he chaired the Audit and the Governance committees during his tenure.He was also a long-time a member of the Deloitte Audit Quality Advisory Committee and the Standards and Emerging Issues Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Jon co-founded the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) and GovernanceMetrics International (now part of MSCI).  He served for more than a decade as the executive director of the IRRC Institute and is a former Pembroke Visiting Professor of International Finance at the Judge Business School at Cambridge University (UK). He is the recipient of many honors, including a lifetime achievement award from the ICGN. 

Ganita Dahiya is an impact and knowledge management specialist with about a decade of experience in problem-solving, data analysis, production, and development communications across journalism, philanthropy, digital education, climate resilience, entrepreneurship, and financial inclusion.

She has worked on large-scale initiatives advancing education and digital inclusion with Grameen Foundation, American India Foundation, and Piramal Foundation. In these roles, she developed the theory of change models, institutionalized organizational knowledge, edited/authored research and evaluation materials, matured thought leadership, and co-produced nationwide Social and Behaviour Change Communications (SBCC) campaigns in education, health, and financial inclusion. Alongside, she co-managed the web and digital presence.

In addition to her development work, Ganita collaborates with Kahaniwaale Infotech as an independent production manager and editor, overseeing storytelling projects across web, print, film, and animation. As an executive producer, she has had editorial oversight on a range of audio-visual projects including use cases for new tech, educational content for all ages, and impact case films for non-profits. Her portfolio comprises use cases and tutorials for the National Data Analytics Platform (NITI Aayog, Government of India), financial inclusion training content and games for Women’s World Banking, field manager film series for IDInsight, and others. 

Awarded the highest level certification and an excellence accord for youth leadership and teamwork, she trained with NCC Delhi Directorate under the authority of Ministry of Defence, Government of India. Ganita is an alumna of Gandhi Fellowship (District Transformation Program, rural Rajasthan, India) and JENESYS 2.0 Japan International Centre of Cooperation (Mass Media, Japan). She holds a Master of Public Administration in Development Practice (MPA-DP) from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a Bachelors in Journalism from Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi. 

A long-term member of the Experiential Living Project traveller community based in the Himalayas, she loves slow-travel, design for fun, garden/farm, and writing. She thrives in collaborative community spaces, and is currently a member of High Impact Professionals. 

Ganis Bustami is a sustainability and development specialist working at the intersection of policy-making, research, and data analysis. With over a decade of experience in sustainable infrastructure development, energy transition, and blended finance, he focuses on producing applied research and analytical insights that inform financial mechanisms and policy strategies to accelerate low-carbon investments in emerging markets and developing economies. At Indonesia’s national development finance institution, PT Sarana Multi Infrastruktur (Persero), he provided research and policy analysis that informed over US$1 billion in municipal infrastructure finance mechanisms, supporting the transition of Indonesia’s sub-national lending framework from a centralized fiscal instrument to a corporatized development finance model that enhanced fiscal sustainability and expanded local governments’ access to capital. He also contributed analytical inputs and policy recommendations for the government guarantee framework for geothermal exploration, which mobilized multilateral and climate finance participation and became Indonesia’s first de-risking mechanism for renewable energy projects. Building on this policy work, he supported evidence-based strategic communications under the Road to G20 program and helped communicate PT SMI’s role as Indonesia’s country platform for energy transition finance through policy research and financial analysis. The initiative earned the company regional merit recognition for financial inclusion.

At Columbia University, Ganis deepened his research engagement through cross-regional projects. He worked as a Research Assistant at the Center on Global Energy Policy, where he co-authored a policy report on the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) across South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Senegal. His roles as an investment intern at Fundación Chile’s ChileGlobal Ventures and a commercial intern at Cordelio Power further strengthened his analytical lens on market data, financial modeling, and project dynamics in the Americas’ renewable energy space. Ganis holds a Master of Science in Sustainability Management from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s degree in Law from the University of Indonesia. Co-developed an award-winning policy proposal on an innovative blended finance platform to support energy transition, led him to co-found Sustainability Network of Nusantara (SANARA), a learning hub connecting sustainability-driven investors with Indonesia’s emerging market opportunities.

Erich has been an advocate and champion of blended finance for over ten years, including by leading efforts to introduce the concept to the United Nations and the broader international community in 2014 and 2015.

Until recently, Erich was responsible for global thought leadership and US regulatory affairs at CDPQ, a Montreal-based pension fund and one of the world’s largest institutional investors in infrastructure. At CDPQ, he helped co-found the Scaling Capital for Sustainable Development (SCALED) initiative and authored or co-authored dozens of thought pieces, technical documents, policy recommendations and other publications on blended finance, including the 2024 Blended Finance Best Practice: Case Studies and Lessons Learned.

Prior to joining CDPQ, Erich served as a diplomat for the Government of Canada from 2010 to 2022. During this time, he served two postings at Canada’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York where he was responsible for climate change and economic and environmental affairs and extensively involved in negotiating such major international agreements as Rio+20, the Paris Agreement, the 2030 Agenda (the Sustainable Development Goals). and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. His final posting was in Juba, South Sudan where he initially served as the Head of the Political Section and later as the interim Ambassador (Chargé d’affaires). Erich holds a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Concordia University in Montreal. He speaks English, French and German.

Chris Pinney is the founding president of High Meadows Institute, a Boston-based think tank exploring the changing role of corporate and financial sector leadership and responsibility in the 21st century. Chris brings to the Institute over twenty-five years of experience working with C-suite executives nationally and internationally on corporate leadership in society. As president of HMI, Chris has led the development of the Institute’s Future of Corporate Governance and Future of Capital Markets projects, which bring together corporate and financial sector leaders in designing frameworks for corporate governance and sustainable capital markets equal to the challenges and expectations of the 21st century.

Prior to the Institute, Chris was President at the Alliance for Business Leadership, a non-partisan alliance of CEOs, business leaders, entrepreneurs and investors, and a Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, where he led the development of the Aspen Leaders Forum.

Previously, Chris was Director of Research and Policy and Executive Education at Boston College Carroll School of Management’s Center for Corporate Citizenship, where he worked with Global 500 companies on corporate strategy and sustainability.

Prior to joining Boston College, Chris was Director of Imagine Canada, an initiative that brought together Canada’s leading CEOs and over 600 companies to define an expanded role for business leadership based around a set of sustainable business principles and commitments.

Chris has an extensive background in international and community development, serving as Vice President of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (now Cooperation Canada) and Chair of the Brussels-based International Council for Development Action (now CIVICUS).

Chris has a BA (Hons) from McGill University and is an RSA Fellow and a member of the Awards Committee for the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN).

The Founding Director of the research initiative is Caroline Flammer, Professor of International and Public Affairs and of Climate. She is an expert in sustainable investing and the recipient of numerous prestigious awards. Among other roles, she is the President of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability, a global multi-disciplinary network of scholars fostering rigorous academic research on corporate sustainability. Professor Flammer also serves as the Chair of the Academic Advisory Committee of the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), the largest network of responsible investors to date.

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Brinda Dash is a Research Assistant with the Sustainable Investing Research Initiative (SIRI) at Columbia SIPA, where her work explores how AI and emerging digital technologies (AI+) can transform the future of sustainable finance. Her current research, under the guidance of senior research scholars Dr. Robert Massie and Tom Hedrick, analyses how technology can help bridge the boundaries between financial and impact materiality - advancing system-level investing approaches that align capital flows with the planetary boundaries and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

With seven years of cross-sector experience across education, social impact, and sustainability across the public and private sectors, Brinda brings a systems-thinking perspective to her work, combining data-driven analysis with a deep commitment to social innovation. She holds a Master of Public Administration in Development Practice from Columbia University and a B.Tech in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Shiv Nadar University.