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OUR STORY

Founded to help investors navigate the complex world of the 21st century.

TIIP was founded in 2015 by Steve Lydenberg—co-founder of the first index to utilize social and environmental standards—and William Burckart—a respected sustainable investing consultant—who were determined to help investors align their strategies and practices with the increasingly complex world of the 21st century. Not only did they want to show investors that everything—from the environment to healthcare to the financial markets—is interconnected, they also hoped to demonstrate that investors can play a major role in preventing environmental disasters and easing social unrest. They hoped that investors would realize that doing so is not only good for global sustainability and well-being, but it is good for their bottom lines.

TIIP has since worked tirelessly to encourage adoption of system-level investing, an advanced sustainable investing approach through which investors consider the bigger-picture environmental, social, or financial system context of their security selection and portfolio construction decisions.

Throughout 2015 and 2016, we established the theoretical frameworks for identifying systemic environmental and social challenges best-suited to investor action and developed and disseminated information about effective system-level investing tools. We have since broadened our efforts and are helping to meet industry demand for practical guidance on adopting system-level investing approaches and measuring investors’ impacts and influence on environmental and social systems.

We look forward to continuing to build the industry’s understanding of system-level investing and its capacity for addressing pressing systemic challenges; challenges that if left unaddressed, threaten investors’ long-term success.

OUR MISSION

We help investors understand how healthy environmental, social, and financial systems support long-term investment. We believe that with the proper guidance and tools, investors can help to fortify these systems.

The world is becoming increasingly interconnected and complex. The impacts of environmental, social, and financial issues on investors (e.g. climate change, income inequality, political unrest, demographic shifts, and technological developments) and of investor behavior on these issues are increasingly clear.

In response, many investors are adopting sustainable investing. They are focused on protecting and enhancing long-term value through addressing environmental, social, or governance (ESG) risks, investing in solutions to environmental and social challenges, and otherwise expressing ESG values. They are integrating ESG factors into security selection, avoiding unsavory industries or actors, and investing for social or environmental impact alongside financial return.

Particularly sophisticated investors are embracing more advanced sustainable investing approaches, including system-level investing. They are using a discrete collection of strategies and tools to intentionally and positively influence the wealth-creating potential of the environmental, social, and financial systems within which they operate and upon with they depend for long-term financial success.

TIIP supports the financial community in its pursuit of system-level investing to fulfill our mission of helping investors understand that healthy portfolio returns are not possible without healthy systems, and providing them with guidance and tools for supporting resilient systems that enhance long-term returns.

Click here to learn about what we offer.

TEAM

More than a century of combined industry leading expertise and experience.

Steve Lydenberg

Steve Lydenberg

Founder and CEO

Steve Lydenberg, TIIP’s Founder and CEO, also serves as Partner, Strategic Vision of Domini Impact Investments where he provides strategic vision and direction to guide the firm’s policies, procedures, and daily practices.

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Mr. Lydenberg previously served as the firm’s Chief Investment Officer and was a co-founder of the Domini 400 Social Index, the first index to utilize social and environmental standards. In addition, Mr. Lydenberg has been active in researching the social and environmental performance of corporations since 1975. Mr. Lydenberg was a co-founder of KLD Research & Analytics, Inc. and served as its research director from 1990 to 2001. From 1987 to 1989, he was an associate with Franklin Research and Development Corporation (now known as Trillium Asset Management). For 12 years he worked with the Council on Economic Priorities, ultimately as director of corporate accountability research. Mr. Lydenberg is the Founding Director of the Initiative for Responsible Investment (IRI) at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, which was established to provide institutional support for catalytic activity for responsible investment, broadly construed, with a strong focus on creating a foundation of research activity around the field. He has published widely on responsible investment and corporate social responsibility and is a CFA charter holder.

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William Burckart

William "Bill" Burckart

President and COO

William Burckart, TIIP’s President and COO, has been at the forefront of ESG and impact investing, having worked as an advisor to investment management firms, private foundations, non-profits,

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government and major financial services industry bodies, helping to integrate impact and investment goals through the development and implementation of ESG and impact investment strategies across a range of regions and sectors. He has contributed to the field through groundbreaking research, including leading a multiyear field building effort focused on the financial services industry in collaboration with the Money Management Institute; managing the production of (and is a contributing author to) the New Frontiers of Philanthropy: A Guide to the New Tools and Actors that Are Reshaping Global Philanthropy and Social Investing (Oxford University Press: 2014), and was involved in the writing of the Status of the Social impact investing Market: A Primer (UK Cabinet Office: 2013) that was distributed to policymakers at the inaugural G8-level forum on impact investing. Mr. Burckart is a visiting scholar of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and is a founder or co-founder of two impact investment advisory firms (Burckart Consulting and Impact Economy LLC).

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Monique Aiken

Monique Aiken

Managing Director

Monique Aiken, TIIP’s Managing Director, also serves as a Contributing Editor at ImpactAlpha, a digital news magazine for the impact investing sector.

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Monique is passionate about social change and positive impact after spending 15 years in investment banking, where she developed her understanding of the capital markets. She previously served as VP of Programs at Mission Investors Exchange, a network organization for +250 members seeking to deepen their practice of impact investing through peer-learning. Prior to joining Mission Investors Exchange, Monique was a Director at Tideline, a boutique impact investing strategy consulting firm, where her energies were centered on client and project management and business development. She served as Project Manager at the Clinton Foundation for No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project, a women’s empowerment initiative led by Secretary Clinton, and business development manager for the Clinton Global Initiative. Earlier, as a VP in Deutsche Bank’s Commodity Derivatives Sales group, she managed client relationships with Oil and Gas (E&P), Utility, and Consumer Products companies in the United States and Latin America. Earlier in her career, she worked for Citigroup in the Debt Capital Markets group in both New York and London, and as an analyst at Bank of America in the Credit Products group. Monique holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, where she majored in Financial Instruments and Markets and a B.Sc. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

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Jessica Ziegler

Director of Research

Ms. Ziegler is Director for Research at TIIP and oversees all the organization’s research projects. She has extensive experience in research design, data collection and rigorous qualitative data analysis.

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She comes to TIIP from Mathematica Policy Research—an industry-leading policy research firm—where she spent eight years conducting social policy evaluations. Ms. Ziegler has authored numerous reports on the implementation, costs and effectiveness of federally-funded employment, family support and education programs; her reports are used by programs and policymakers to guide reforms and improvements. She holds a Master of Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Arts in Policy Studies from Dickinson College.

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JR Bascom

JR Bascom

Special Assistant

JR Bascom, TIIP’s Special Assistant, works with leadership, senior advisors and external partners on research, data analysis, business development and all special projects.

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Prior to joining TIIP, he worked as an analyst for a Waste-To-Value company as well as an executive aide to Carter Bales for a year, supporting both companies with environmental and sustainability research as well as special projects. He received his B.A. from Wesleyan University in both Economics and Psychology and spent a 5th year at Wesleyan University writing a Master’s thesis in Environmental Economics under the guidance of Professor Gary Yohe. JR is proudly from a family of farmers, builders and problem-solvers.

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Michael Musuraca

Michael Musuraca

Senior Advisor

Michael Musuraca, TIIP’s Senior Advisor, is an internationally-known leader in the fields of responsible investing, pension fund and corporate governance, and collective bargaining.

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He advises Blue Wolf Capital Partners’ Principals and portfolio companies on these matters, serving as Strategic Advisor of ESG and Labor. He spent most his career as an Assistant Director in the Department of Research and Negotiations, District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO before serving on the boards of PRI, Sustainalytics, and Verite. He received a B.A. in Political Science from New York University, a M.A. in American History from the University of Massachusetts/Boston, and a Master’s in Philosophy from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Since 1994, he has taught in the Department of Urban and Labor Studies at Queens College and has also taught at City College, Rutgers University, and the New York City campus of Cornell University.

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Robert Dannhauser

Robert Dannhauser

Senior Advisor

Robert Dannhauser, TIIP’s Senior Advisor, was previously the Head of Global Private Wealth Management at CFA Institute, responsible for strategy and content development for private wealth management practitioners.

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Bob also headed CFA Institute’s Capital Markets policy group, including policy advocacy efforts in Washington and Brussels. He chaired the CFA Institute 401-k investment committee and was a member of the investment committee for the CFA Institute reserves portfolio. Bob has over 25 years experience as a practitioner in both the institutional investment and private wealth management arenas, serving in a variety of client portfolio management, sales, and marketing roles. He is the former chair of the New York Society of Security Analysts Socially Responsible Investing committee. Bob earned his MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, as well as a MPH in Health Policy from Rutgers University and a BA in Political Science from the George Washington University. He is a CFA charter holder and earned the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) and Financial Risk Manager (FRM) designations, as well as the Sustainability and Climate Risk certificate.

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OUR INVESTOR DATABASE

TIIP’s work is powered by an internal proprietary database of system-level investor profiles.

TIIP profiles investors’ sustainable and systems-level approaches and to identify best practices. Profiles examine organizational characteristics, dimensions of sustainable system-level investing approaches, practical applications of approaches undertaken, and approach successes and challenges. They also provide insights into the spectrum of sustainable and system-level investment approaches undertaken and include information about key investment activities and tools used to expand the range of investors’ vision beyond the portfolio to a broader understanding of systems.

The database of profiles informs TIIP’s research and thought leadership and help us to refine enhance our related practical guidance; it provides a powerful engine that “turbo charges” everything that we offer.

It is the most comprehensive database of system-level investing approaches. We maintain our 100+ profiles in the database to ensure that our information reflects best practices by asset owners and managers around the world. 

TIIP Database
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