Impact Investing Research Lab

Impact Investing Should Be Hard

A business man walks on a high wire holding a balance stick with piles of coins on one side and a globe on the other.

(Outlet: Stanford Social Innovation Review) Striving for value-adding impact means demanding additionality. There is a presumption that impact investors are shouldering unique burdens to achieve impact, but is this true? To answer this question, Michael Brown, Head of Research at the ESG Initiative, and Wharton Professor of Management Katherine Klein, in collaboration with other members of the Impact Finance Research Consortium, administered a rich, multifaceted survey to over 200 impact fund managers across the globe (particularly in private equity and venture capital).…Read More

How to Resolve Conflict in Business

Two business men holding briefcases with antlers on their heads stand off angrily on an outdoor wasteland.

(Outlet: Wharton Magazine) Alas, disputes, disagreements, and discord are parts of human nature (and that seems to go double for the nature of business). But research into a variety of scenarios, from interpersonal tension to geopolitical friction, offers hope for a more successful path forward. Here, five Wharton faculty share insights about conflict in its many forms and how to navigate it, resolve it, reframe it, or even avoid it entirely, for better results.…Read More

Impact Finance Research Consortium Releases Report Exploring Catalytic Capital in Impact Investing

Decorative image of abstract financial graph with world map on office buildings background

The Impact Finance Research Consortium (IFRC) has released a detailed report shedding new light on the features and applications of catalytic capital, investments bearing a high level of risk or accepting lower returns to stimulate positive social and environmental outcomes that would likely not be possible otherwise.…Read More

ESG Pioneer Suzanne Biegel Wants Impact Investors to ‘Get Off the Sidelines’

Suzanne Biegel posed smiling in a professional headshot wearing all black and bright blue glasses

Wharton graduate Suzanne Biegel is a global leader in gender-smart investing who has influenced billions of dollars in capital. Biegel, 60, was recently diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and has been candid about her health. She said her illness has brought even sharper focus to her lifelong mission of gender equality and solutions to the climate crisis. This year, she and her husband, Daniel Maskit, invested $1 million to launch an endowment toward those goals. Biegel, a New Yorker who currently lives in London and has dual citizenship, spoke by phone to a reporter for the Wharton School about her career, her association with the school, and what she hopes will be a lasting legacy of change.…Read More