Capital for Good

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Deven Parekh, renowned technology investor, civic leader, and managing director of Insight Partners, the global software investment firm. Over the course of the wide-ranging conversation, we learn about Insight's deep expertise and differentiation in software investing, Parekh's own evolution as a business leader, and how he thinks about the current moment — as an investor, engaged nonprofit board member, and New Yorker. We begin with Parekh's early days. He entered college as a budding scientist, but soon "traded his early love of biochemistry for economics," and graduated from Wharton into a career in finance, first at Blackstone and then the merchant bank Berenson Minella & Company. When Parekh joined Insight Partners in 1999, it was a team of approximately ten; today Insight is a 450-person global firm, with over $90 billion in assets under management, and investing out of its thirteenth fund. Parekh walks us through the distinguishing elements of Insight's strategy, including a singular focus on software across the full investment continuum from early-stage venture to private equity like buyouts; a nearly 70-person strong and proactive sourcing team; and a dedicated operations group, Insight OnSite, that works in a hands-on way with portfolio companies. Having made over 140 investments over his career — across business cycles and dynamic market conditions — Parekh underscores the value of flexibility in Insight's approach. For example, "venture buyouts" — acquiring controlling interests in strong but not-yet-public software companies — initially structured in response to liquidity challenges in private markets — have become one of Insight's strongest-performing deal archetypes, with over 70 completed to date. Parekh also explains Insight's approach to artificial intelligence: as an investment opportunity, particularly in early-stage companies; as a tool to improve Insight's own operations; and as a lever for value creation across the portfolio, where the OnSite team helps incumbent software companies integrate AI into their products and business models. We touch on Parekh's civic commitments, including as a board member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the US International Development Finance Corporation. In this moment of market and geopolitical volatility and uncertainty, Parekh believes nonpartisan policy institutions have a particularly important role to play. Parekh is also a devoted New Yorker. He believes the city — where Insight is based, where he and his wife (and partner in all things, including philanthropy) raised their family, where he serves on several boards — is thriving in the post-Covid world. "I feel really bullish about New York," he says. Parekh's optimism is also abundant when we speak about the next generation. "Young people give me hope," he says. And his advice to them: "Have a plan, but follow your passion." Mentioned in this episode: Insight Partners Council on Foreign Relations Carnegie Endowment for International Peace US International Development Finance Corporation The Economic Club of New York NYU Langone Tisch New York MS Research Center

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Mellody Hobson, one of the country's preeminent investors and business and civic leaders. Hobson is the co-CEO of Ariel Investments, a board director of several Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit organizations, and a nationally recognized advocate for financial literacy and economic inclusion. We begin with a discussion of the formative childhood experiences that would shape Hobson's personal and professional trajectory. Hobson recalls how, as a young girl on the South Side of Chicago who regularly experienced economic insecurity, she was driven to work very hard and "to understand money" as a path to economic security for herself and for others. "My purpose was sealed very early," she says. After graduating from Princeton in 1991, Hobson joined the Chicago-based Ariel Investments. In the thirty-five years since, she has traveled from intern to co-CEO, building a $14 billion asset management firm with a mission to "transform the lives of everyone who entrusts us with their financial futures." Hobson walks us through her evolution as a leader, and describes Ariel's signature approach to long-term investing in companies and sectors that are "misunderstood, ignored and underfollowed," where vigorous and original research allows the team to identify mispriced securities and the opportunity to outperform. According to Hobson, Ariel's success has derived from the principles and practices of active patience ("being patient is really hard, it requires great restraint, great study, great discipline"), bold teamwork, and independent thinking – the focused expertise that supports the "conviction to have a different opinion." This approach made Ariel a pioneer, first in small cap stocks, where the firm's founder John Rogers tested the long-term value investment thesis, and later in mid cap and international markets. In 2021, Hobson launched Ariel Alternatives, which included its inaugural private equity fund, Project Black, focused on building to scale minority businesses that will be tier one suppliers to Fortune 500 companies, and Project Level, a new vehicle focused on "changing the game" in women's sports. Given the seismic and secular shifts in the industry, Hobson believes women's sports are "the next big growth opportunity… the small cap of sports." Hobson speaks passionately about all she has learned as a corporate director. Today, she serves on the board of JP Morgan Chase, and was a director of Estée Lauder Companies, DreamWorks Animation, and Starbucks, which she led as chair. She is equally animated by her civic commitments, learning early on it was "part of your job to be of service to others… it was sewn into my DNA." We discuss the inspiration she finds in her work with a number of nonprofit organizations, including After School Matters, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, a new cultural institution she has created with her husband and filmmaker George Lucas. Hobson is fervent about the power of storytelling, and her and Lucas's belief that "everyone's story matters." Hobson has captured part of her own story in the New York bestselling Priceless Facts about Money, an immaculately researched and illustrated children's book that makes learning about money and finance accessible — and fun. And it is in young people that Hobson sees hope, even in challenging times, as they affirm her faith in the wonder and promise of human potential. "If you believe that is true," she says, "then everything is possible. Not anything — everything." Mentioned in this episode John W. Rogers, Jr., Ariel Founder, Chairman, and Co-CEO A Random Walk Down Wall Street (Burton Malkiel, 2024) Ariel Alternatives: Project Black, Project Level After School Matters Bloomberg Philanthropies Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Priceless Facts about Money (Mellody Hobson, 2024)

Welcome to Capital for Good, the podcast where we hear from business and civic leaders about their visions, plans, and hard work to build a vibrant, inclusive and sustainable society. Hosted by seasoned executive and award winning author Georgia Levenson Keohane, and presented by Columbia Business School's Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change, Capital for Good features in-depth and candid conversations with leaders across the private, nonprofit, and public sectors exploring solutions to some of our most urgent challenges. Season five offers an extraordinary line up of guests including business and civic leader Mellody Hobson, the Co-CEO of Ariel Investments; Tony Marx, the President & CEO of the New York Public Library; Yale Law Professor, legal historian and award winning author John Witt; Marla Blow, the CEO of the Skoll Foundation; Technology investor and Managing Director of Insight Partners, Deven Parekh; Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, the renown religious leader and author of the new bestselling book, Heart of a Stranger; Bob Steel, whose storied career in finance and government service now finds him as Vice Chairman of Perella Weinberg; and impact investing pioneer Antony Bugg Levine. Learn more and subscribe today at The Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change at Columbia Business School – or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Maria Ressa, the globally celebrated free speech champion, journalist, entrepreneur, dissident, and winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for her work "to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace." Ressa is a co-founder of Rappler, one of the most influential media platforms in the Philippines. For her reporting on the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, Ressa was threatened, arrested, tried, and convicted of cyberlibel, facing over one hundred years imprisonment. Today Duterte has been arrested by the International Criminal Court and awaits trial in the Hague, Ressa has been cleared of nearly all charges, and her work as a journalist and activist continues as she warns of the very real world challenges of online disinformation. We begin with Ressa's earliest days in the United States, when her family immigrated in 1973 after martial law had been declared in the Philippines. We discuss the importance of her education in those years, in elementary, high school, and at Princeton, and the support of those who "taught her to keep learning," lessons that would inform her pursuit of journalism when she returned to the Philippines. "I fell into journalism," Ressa says, as she found it to be critical "connective tissue between government and the people," and a way to "hold power to account." She and three fellow journalists launched Rappler in 2012; by 2016, when Duterte was elected President, Ressa found herself persecuted by the government — threatened, arrested, tried and sentenced to over one hundred years in prison — for reporting on its corrupt and increasingly authoritarian practices. We discuss Ressa's fight for her rights "as a journalist and a citizen" and her realization that technology could accelerate misinformation, distort truth, and blur the boundaries between the virtual and real world. "A lie told a million times becomes a fact," she says. Ressa chronicles these experiences in her 2022 memoir and call-to-arms How to Stand up to a Dictator: The Fight for our Future. Ressa cautions about the dangers of and linkages between the weaponization of algorithmically driven disinformation — and illiberalism worldwide. "Without facts you can't have truth, and without truth you can't have trust. The only government that exists without trust is a dictatorship: you can't have journalism or democracy." In her own work, she and Rappler are building upon the Matrix protocol, a secure, open-source decentralized platform that has the potential to become a global independent news distribution outlet. Although she is deeply concerned — "I feel like Cassandra and Sisyphus combined," she says – Ressa also maintains her faith in the power of people to come together for change. "It's all about community," she explains. "We are standing on the rubble of the world that was; we need to take responsibility for the world we want. We can build a world that is more just, more equitable, more sustainable; we can do this if we decide to come together, to demand better." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this podcast: Maria Ressa Nobel Prize Lecture, (2021) How to Stand up to a Dictator: The Fight for our Future, (Harper Collins, 2022) A Thousand Cuts, (Frontline, 2021)

In this episode of Capital for Good with we speak with Brad Lander, New York City Comptroller and recent Mayoral candidate. As Comptroller, Lander serves as the city's chief financial officer, budget watchdog, auditor, and custodian of the City's five public pension funds, representing the retirement security — $275 billion in assets — of over 750,000 current and retired public sector workers. As fiduciary, Lander has ensured these assets are invested with a prudent, diversified, long-term approach, while also becoming a national leader on responsible investment when it comes to issues of climate change, worker protections, strong governance, and diversity. At the time of this interview, ranked choice voting had just concluded for the Democratic primary for New York mayor, with Zohran Mamdani winning in an upset over both Lander and former Governor Andrew Cuomo. We begin the conversation with Lander's early days working in community and economic development at the Fifth Avenue Committee and the Pratt Center, where he learned how to use "capital for good:" creative financing for affordable housing, including new ownership and equity models for wealth creation for lower income families, small business support and job training. These issues would inform Landers' decade in the City Council, where he co-founded the Progressive Caucus and advanced legislation on workers' rights, tenant protections, affordable housing, education, and public safety. We also explore Lander's work leading the rezoning of the Gowanus neighborhood (and former Superfund site) to create 8,500 new housing units, nearly half affordable, and affordable art studios and community spaces, as a successful model of inclusive development. Lander discusses the Comptroller's "most sacred responsibility:" its role as fiduciary of the city's pension funds, and Lander's work to deliver retirement security — achieve market rate returns — while stewarding resources "in ways that build on the values New Yorkers share." We walk through a number of examples where the Comptroller's engagement as asset owner led to better conditions for workers, greater accountability on corporate net zero commitments, enhanced board oversight, and improved financial returns. His office has also hit its performance targets while expanding the diversity of partner fund managers. "I believe firmly that attending to environmental, social and governance risks, the ESG work, is not just consistent with fiduciary duty, but an essential part of fiduciary duty," Lander says. In recent years he has worked closely on these issues with other comptrollers and state treasurers across the country. We touch on the New York City mayoral race, the twist and turns of ranked choice voting, and the developments just before the June primary that brought additional attention to the election: Lander's arrest escorting a migrant out of immigration court, the Office of the Comptroller's recovery of $80 million illegally removed from a New York City account by DOGE, and Lander and Mamdani's cross-endorsement. Of the latter, Lander notes, "it wound up unlocking a very lovely response I hadn't anticipated," a kind of hopefulness, as voters and young people especially saw that "politics can involve people working together towards shared goals for the city we love." Lander is clear eyed about the very real challenges facing the New York: affordability, government capacity to deliver a well-run city — to keep streets and subways safe and clean — and to manage budgets and growth in the face of significant headwinds from Washington. This means continuing to strengthen the cross-sector coalition he ran on to create what Dan Doctoroff has called "the virtuous cycle of a successful city," one that harnesses and celebrates growth while investing in the public goods that make that growth possible and more inclusive, and make opportunity and prosperity more broadly shared. If we can do that, he says, "I know we can keep that virtuous cycle going." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this podcast: This Is Brad Lander's New York, (New York Times, 2025) For the Long Term Who Should Lead New York City?, (New York Times, 2025)

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Emma Bloomberg, the founder and CEO of Murmuration, a nonprofit technology company that works with local organizations to amplify the power of civic engagement by providing the data, tools, and research necessary to build healthier and more equitable communities. Bloomberg has been working with communities and leaders for over 20 years to tackle some of our country's most pressing challenges. She founded Murmuration with the belief in the power of community driven civic engagement to affect sustainable systems change. We begin the conversation with some of Bloomberg's formative personal and professional experiences: her childhood "rooted in deep civic engagement," and the belief that we all have "a responsibility to help make our community a better place;" the opportunity, just out of college, to work on her father Mike Bloomberg's first mayoral campaign; an early stint in city government focused on the creation of the 311, New York City's government service information line, and her time at the Robin Hood foundation, New York City's largest poverty fighting nonprofit and philanthropy. Over the years, and through her work with many community-based organizations, Bloomberg observed how access to better tech and data infrastructure could make their work more efficient, effective, and therefore higher impact. Murmuration set out to solve this problem by serving community organizations with tools, data, and, more recently, research and insights — often tailored to a very local context. We explore critical decision points in Murmuration's ten-year evolution, including the choice to understand community organization needs and fit with existing products in the marketplace, curate those off the shelf tools and data, identify gaps, acquire the IP of existing tech companies, and only then begin to create tools in-house with requisite partner knowledge and engineering and product development expertise. Bloomberg also explains what it means to be a truly mission driven technology company, electing to incorporate as a nonprofit (versus a fully commercial entity) to better serve the needs of community-based organizations. We end with a discussion of Murmuration's newest offerings — original research and insights — among them a three-year deep dive into the aspirations, concerns, beliefs and behaviors of Gen Z, including those related to political and civic engagement, and "civic pulse," a continuous tracking survey that collects daily responses from Americans across the country about how they feel and what they care about, providing real time insights into community well-being and local engagement. Despite the many challenges nationally, Bloomberg remains optimistic. "I am hopeful because I believe in the importance of community organizations; I think of them as the engine of sustainable change," she says. "Local organizing, in communities, in neighborhoods, that's where people can feel impact, and that impact is ultimately power." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this podcast: Murmuration The Memphis Lift Insights by Murmuration Substack Murmuration Research and Insights (website)

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Kevin Ryan, one of New York's leading internet entrepreneurs and investors, and often called the "Godfather of NYC tech." Ryan is a co-founder of MongoDB, Business Insider, Gilt Groupe, Zola, Pearl Health, and Transcend Therapeutics, and every year founds and invests in new companies through AlleyCorp, the New York based venture fund and incubator. Ryan is also one of New York's driving civic leaders, serving as vice chair of the Partnership for New York City, a founding board member of Tech:NYC, and a gubernatorial appointee to numerous commissions focused on New York's economic and civic health and well-being. We begin with Ryan's early and pioneering days as a 1990s internet entrepreneur. As the president of DoubleClick, he grew the company in two years to 2,000 people across 25 countries, took it public, navigated the dotcom bust and sold it to Google in 2007. We discuss AlleyCorp's unusual model as early-stage investor and incubator, and Ryan describes AlleyCorp's most recent investment vertical, economic infrastructure, focused on the economic mobility of low- or middle-income Americans: "the 80% of families who power our economy." This has meant identifying and backing entrepreneurs pursuing innovations in health equity, fintech, and workforce development with companies like Patch Caregiving, a first of its kind employer sponsored emergency childcare provider for frontline workers. We also explore the growth and vibrancy of New York's tech industry. New York City is one of the world's fastest growing and most valuable technology hubs, and Ryan explains how and why it powers the local and regional economy, and measures the city and state can take to continue to foster the ecosystem and its critical contributions to New York's dynamism and social fabric. Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this podcast: AlleyCorp Patch Caregiving Partnership for New York City Tech:NYC "Empire AI": New York State AI Consortium

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Maria Teresa Kumar, the nationally celebrated social entrepreneur, civic and political operative, journalist, commentator and co-founder and CEO of Voto Latino, the nation's largest Latino voter registration organization. We begin by discussing some of the formative experiences that shaped Kumar's passion for politics and civic engagement, including her childhood in a bicultural family and community in Northern California, where she learned how to navigate and bridge difference, real and perceived, to find common cause. In these years and environment, shaped in part by Prop 187 and anti-immigrant sentiment and policy, Kumar learned first-hand how young people in Latino and other immigrant households were critical to mobilizing their families and communities — to become citizens and voters — and in the process dramatically shift electoral outcomes to better reflect community needs. In 2004, with the recognition that Latinos were the second largest demographic group in the country, Kumar and Rosario Dawson founded Voto Latino, centering voter mobilization efforts on young people, and using technology and other pop culture and media tools "to market democracy every single day." In the twenty years since, Voto Latino has registered over two million voters and played a central role in flipping a number of swing states in various elections. We cover the 2024 election, and the widely held interpretation that Latino voters' shift to the right contributed to the election of Donald Trump. Kumar notes that while some Latino voters did shift right, many more stayed home in 2024 (38 percent) than in 2020 (27 percent). She believes this reflects broader anxiety and frustration; Latinos, who disproportionately bore the economic toll of the pandemic, and have continued to struggle with persistent affordability challenges and unresolved immigration reform, did not see their needs adequately addressed by either party. Today, Kumar suggests that most Latinos, even those who voted for Trump, believe the President has gone too far, a sentiment reflected in recent survey data from Voto Latino and the Latino Community Foundation. Looking ahead, Kumar argues that it is critical to re-engage voters, and to use "culture at scale" — thoughtful conversations, podcasts, influencers, other creative engagement tools, to address needs and "remind people that when they participate government does work, government can be kind, and it's the will of the people." She also notes that at this moment it is critical for citizens to hold government accountable. "2024 was really painful," Kumar says. "We're feeling what happens when we don't participate. But 2026 is right around the corner… We have the ability to inspire, aspire, and to imagine getting to that more perfect union. And that takes all of us." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this podcast: Voto Latino Survey Data and Report, (Voto Latino and Latino Community Foundation, 2025)

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Greg Shell, a seasoned investor, civic leader, and partner at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, where he leads the firm's inclusive growth strategy. Over the course of the conversation, we discuss how Shell's three decades and expertise in investing, and his commitments to creating opportunity and greater economic and social mobility, for many years pursued through board leadership and community and nonprofit engagement, have come together in impact investing, first at Bain Capital, and now at Goldman Sachs Alternatives. Shell explains that he believes deeply in the power of capitalism — the power of the profit model to drive innovation, opportunities for ownership and wealth building, economic growth — and that the current system is failing to deliver broad based economic and social mobility. He notes that stagnant wages, growing income and wealth inequality, and deep and real economic insecurity, are all profound challenges, but ones that must and can be addressed. "Our economy would be bigger and faster growing if more people could participate and contribute fully," Shell says. This is also the thesis of the private equity strategy he leads at Goldman Sachs Alternatives that invests into affordable and high-quality health care, education and workforce development, and financial inclusion. In each vertical, Shell's team identifies companies that focus on remedying exclusion as social and economic challenge and market opportunity, where need drives demand, innovation expands access, and both lead to social impact and strong business fundamentals. We walk through two portfolio examples in education (online literacy intervention) and health care (autism services). Despite the turbulence of the current environment, Shell is optimistic. "Human capital is the first, best and greatest asset we have," he says. "Investing in human capital is always the right decision, and if we do it the right way" can deliver extraordinary returns, on every dimension. Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this Episode Goldman Sachs Inclusive Growth

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Anna-Lisa Miller, the Executive Director of Ownership Works, and a long time advocate of economic inclusion, empowerment and mobility. Miller started her career in corporate law at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, and transitioned to the nonprofit sector – the Kohala Center and Project Equity – to pursue her passion for creating opportunities that uplift workers and families. Today, at Ownership Works, she leads an organization and movement focused on employee ownerships models that "reimagine equity to build wealth for all." In 2024, Miller was named as one of Business Insider's top 10 business leaders spearheading industry-transforming change. In this wide ranging interview, we learn how Miller's commitment to finding pathways to economic opportunity and mobility for workers and families is rooted in her childhood experiences; she moved to the U.S. at a young age and was raised by a single mother who rebuilt her career as a nurse, supporting three children paycheck to paycheck -- and never far from financial insecurity. Trained as a corporate lawyer, Miller moved into the nonprofit sector to test various models of employee ownership and economic mobility before meeting Pete Stavros, who had been successfully experimenting with owner equity in various portfolio companies he oversaw at KKR. Both understood the broader potential of the approach as a way to build employee wealth and improve business performance, and in 2021 formally launched Ownership Works (OW). Today, with 30 employees, nearly 100 partners (including 37 private equity firms, publicly traded companies, professional service firms, institutional investors, labor groups and foundations), and 130 companies across a wide range of industries implementing the model, OW aims to create $30 billion in wealth by 2030 and create proof points that influence how companies across the private sector harness the power of employee engagement and ownership. Miller walks us through various components of the OW model, sharing the example of Charter Next Generation, an Illinois manufacturing company that has used employee ownership to improve substantially employee engagement, retention and company profitability. She hopes that the long-standing bipartisan support for employee ownership as a path to economic inclusion and opportunity serves the movement well in this moment. In the meantime, she and OW are focused on collecting additional data and case studies that demonstrate employee ownership's value and feasibility, to encourage broader adoption and new norms in business. "You hear a lot about win-wins," Miller says. "This truly is." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this podcast: Ownership Works Private Equity Is Starting to Share With Workers, Without Taking a Financial Hit New York Times January 2024 Charter Next Generation: Follow a Real Life Journey to Shared Ownership

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with veteran investor and climate activist Tom Steyer. Over twenty-five years, Steyer founded and ran Farallon Capital Management, a $36 billion multi-strategy global investment firm. In 2012 he stepped away from Farallon to dedicate his time, resources, and energy to mobilizing climate action: clean air and energy initiatives in California; climate focused ballot initiatives in numerous states; youth voter engagement and mobilization (NextGen America); and a 2020 Presidential run largely focused on the climate crisis. Today, Steyer is the co-executive chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, a climate-focused investment firm, and the author of Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We'll Win the Climate War. We begin the interview by discussing Steyer's parents, both civically engaged members of the Greatest Generation. In his father's case, a lawyer who served in the Navy and then as a prosecutor at Nuremberg. Steyer describes World War II as a crucible moment for Americans — galvanizing collective action and a sense of being part of something larger than oneself. For Steyer, the climate fight is a similar calling. We discuss why, despite current political headwinds, the momentum behind the climate revolution — the transition to net zero via the development and adoption of low carbon technologies — is very much alive, well, and accelerating. In Steyer's view, this is because of the dramatic decline in costs of renewables — solar and wind are now the cheapest forms of energy — and because applied technologies like batteries and electric vehicles continue to improve in quality and cost, driving demand. "This is not eat your gruel," he says. "It's cheaper, faster, better. When you put eight billion people on a problem, they solve it." We also explore promising new technologies coming on-line, from geothermal energy and AI optimization of the electric grid to geosynthetic seawalls. While these new technologies will enable the transition, Steyer notes that "climate capitalism" also requires new rules and policies to speed innovation and deployment; ultimately this means paying for carbon pollution. He argues that despite objections to the idea of a "tax," people are already paying — in the form of destruction to homes, businesses, livelihoods, health — though often it is the most vulnerable, those who have contributed the least to the problem, in the United States and around the world, who bear the cost. We conclude with a call to action. Historically, Steyer reminds us, "we've chosen to do the right things, even when they're hard, and that has always paid off for us, and it will always pay off for us. That is who we are, and that is where this world is going. This revolution is happening. Our job, as Americans, is to be at the forefront." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this podcast: Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We'll Win the Climate War, (Spiegel and Grau, 2024)

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Michael Posner, the Jerome Kohlberg Professor of Ethics and Finance at NYU's Stern School of Business, director of the school's Center for Business and Human Rights, a long-time leader in the field, luminary thinker, advocate, former State Department Official, and the author of the new book, Conscience Incorporated. We begin with Posner's early interests in international human rights issues, sparked in law school when he was tasked with investigating atrocities in Uganda under Idi Amin. He lays out the principals of early, post-World War II and UN inspired human rights law focused on universality, and the responsibility of governments to promote, protect and enforce human rights. Notably absent from this early framework is the role of business. Posner explains that his interest in the intersection of human rights took shape when he began to observe that large multinational corporations had a critical role to play, particularly when they operated in weak states that lacked the ability to protect human rights. We discuss why companies should care, fundamentally, about human rights on ethical dimensions ("outsourcing might be a smart business strategy, but you can't outsource responsibility if you're the main economic beneficiary,") and because there are material costs that can arise from irresponsible practices, often reputational crises and/or regulation. We explore the deficiencies of various business frameworks: how and why Milton Friedman's shareholder primacy worldview fails to account for environmental and social externalities and a broader set of stakeholders; how and why ESG conflate environmental and social considerations and emphasize risk rather than meaningful performance on issues like climate change or worker protections. Posner suggests that this moment of backlash against all things ESG, DEI and "woke capitalism" offers us an opportunity to do better. We touch on sometimes complex tensions between climate change and human rights concerns, acknowledging that climate change can only be solved if we transition to a lower carbon economy, with the scale up of renewable energy and the development of technologies like electric vehicles, which in turn rely on things like batteries. We know that today batteries are reliant on inputs like critical minerals, long mined in ways and places rife with human rights challenges, and today often controlled by Chinese companies. China is also the world's largest and lowest cost producer of solar panels, and much of that production occurs in Xinjiang, with forced labor of the Uyghur ethnic minority. Posner discusses a number of ways to better integrate climate and human rights considerations. Before opening the floor to audience questions, we discuss the evolution of technology and human rights issues. When Posner was at the State Department from 2010 to 2012, he had a front tow seat to the Arab Spring and the "Facebook Revolution," witnessing how activists used social media to fight authoritarianism. Although he says he still believes in the power of technology to open up political discourse, he has become much more concerned about issues of data privacy, surveillance, harmful violent and incendiary content, information and disinformation, and ways in which companies try to shield themselves with first amendment (to which they are not legally subject) to avoid more vigorous content moderation or human rights engagement. We conclude with the role of corporate leaders when it comes to human rights. While Posner notes he is typically conservative about how much executives should speak out on specific issues, he believes strongly that "business leaders need to be attentive and active if there are fundamental threats to our democracy." This episode of Capital for Good was recorded as part of Social Impact Week 2025, a week of social impact-related events for the Columbia Business School community, organized by the Social Enterprise Club, Green Business Club, Community Impact Club, and LEO Impact Fund. Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this Episode Conscience Incorporated: Pursue Profits While Protecting Human Rights The Fair Labor Association

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Janno Lieber, the chairman and CEO of New York's MTA, one of the world's oldest, largest, and most complex public transit systems. "New York is my passion," Lieber says, and the throughline of his career. Lieber, a lifelong New Yorker, business leader and transit veteran — he was a transportation advisor to Mayor Koch, an Assistant Secretary of Transportation in the Clinton Administration, and led the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site after September 11 attacks — talks about the complexity of overseeing a public transportation system that spans a 12-county, 25-million person region: 6,400 subway cars, 472 stations, 5,700 buses, and two major commuter rails. Lieber notes that the success of the region — it is the economic powerhouse of the local state and much of the national economy — rests on density and mobility. "The ability to get around New York only works if you have great mass transit," he says; the MTA moves more than six million people per day. For users, trains, buses and subways are 15 percent the cost of owning an automobile. "The magic of transit," Lieber explains, "is it is one of the very few things that makes living in New York City and the region affordable." We discuss congestion pricing, the decades in making the policy to charge automobiles $9 a day to enter the most congested part of the city to reduce traffic, improve emissions, air quality, health and safety, and help finance maintenance and upgrades to the 100 year old transit system. The program launched January 5 and early data is very promising: a 10 to 20 percent reduction in traffic; significantly reduced travel times for drivers from New Jersey, Long Island, Queens and the Bronx, and along some of the city's most crowded thoroughfares (i.e., Canal Street, 34th Street, 42nd Street and 57th); increased transit ridership; and revenue generated for critical improvements: elevators and ramps to make all subway stations accessible and ADA compliant, new train cars and electric buses, new tracks, signals and power systems, mitigation efforts in areas that may see spillover traffic. Lieber notes that the economic benefits are already observable in the zone itself: increased pedestrian traffic, an uptick in retail, restaurant and Broadway sales, and promising indices in commercial leasing — "a vote of confidence" in the program. For all these reasons the business community has long supported the policy. The MTA is equally pleased to see high rates of customer satisfaction coming from drivers with reduced commute times, which Lieber believes will also be important to counter the recent political opposition from Washington. Lieber reminds us that congestion pricing has been successfully tested in the courts, and there is nothing in the federal law or program design that would allow for its rollback. We also speak about how central public safety, real and perceived, is to the economic and civic health of the city. "Public transit is where six million New Yorkers every day form their opinion about whether government works, and to some extent whether this community, this experiment in diversity and tolerance and economic dynamism, is working," Lieber says. While the data show that overall crime in the city is down, crime in the subway is down, and subway crime accounts for less than two percent of overall crime, high profile and frightening crimes, and the city's larger mental health, substance use and homeless crises that are acutely manifest in the subway system, play an outsized play role in the public's sense of security, order and well-being. "Not only to the subways have to be safe, they have to feel safe," Lieber insists, and we discuss numerous efforts the MTA is taking in coordination with other city agencies to address these issues. We conclude with the resilience of New Yorkers in the face of adversity — the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, the September 11 attacks, the dotcom burst, and the financial crisis, Hurricane Sandy, the pandemic — and how the city "bounces back even better" to become a better version of itself. "Never bet against New York," is Lieber's motto. Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this Episode Congestion Pricing Reduced Traffic. Now its Hitting Revenue Goals, (The New York Times, 2025)

Capital for Good is the podcast where we hear from business and civic leaders about their visions, plans, and hard work to build a vibrant, inclusive, and sustainable society. Through in-depth and candid conversations, we explore solutions to some of our most urgent challenges. In this season of Capital for Good, host Georgia Levenson Keohane will speak with an extraordinary line-up of guests, including business and government leader Janno Lieber, the CEO of New York's MTA, one of the country's largest and oldest public transportation systems; journalist, digital media CEO, and Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa; investor, climate champion, and former Presidential candidate Tom Steyer; Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino; Kevin Ryan, one of New York and the country's leading internet entrepreneurs and investors; Anna-Lisa Miller, the founding executive director of Ownership Works; New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander; Greg Shell, managing partner and head of inclusive growth strategies at Goldman Sachs; and Michael Posner, the director of NYU's Center for Business and Human Rights and author of the new book, Conscience Incorporated.

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with three inspiring leaders in women's health, Erika Seth Davies, Jade Kearney, and Flory Wilson, each pioneering advances in reproductive and maternal health, and each using business, investment, engagement, and advocacy as levers for social change. Davies is the CEO of Rhia Ventures, a nonprofit that advances reproductive and maternal health equity by leveraging capital to focus on the needs, experiences, and perspectives of historically marginalized people in decision making. Rhia ventures activities include venture capital investing (via RH Capital), ecosystem building, corporate engagement and advocacy, and narrative change. Wilson is the founder and CEO of Reproductive & Maternal Health Compass (RMH) Compass, a nonprofit focused on the role employers play in access to reproductive and maternal health, and on providing companies with the tools, resources, support, and recognition necessary to offer best in class RMH benefits for all workers. Kearney is the co-founder and CEO of She Matters, a digital health platform designed to improve maternal morbidity through cultural competency and technology. Focused in particular on improving health outcomes for Black women, and on the epidemic of Black maternal morbidity, She Matters is a B2B company that offers health providers a culturally competent certification program tailored to the specific nuances and challenges facing Black women in the US health care system. Over the course of this conversation, we touch on the personal and professional experiences that have informed each of these leaders' work in health equity and access. We also explore how current headwinds and retrenchment — on reproductive and maternal health, on racial equity and inclusion, and on corporate activism — motivate them and have shaped their innovative business models. "If anyone says entrepreneurship is easy," Kearney says, "point them in my direction. Social entrepreneurship is sometimes gut wrenching because you're so close to the problem. But change is also soul feeding because you're so close to the problem." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this Episode Rhia Ventures Reproductive and Maternal Health Compass She Matters

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Lise Strickler '86 and Mark Gallogly '86, the co-founders of Three Cairns Group, a mission driven investment and philanthropic firm focused on the climate crisis. In the years since Columbia Business School, where they met in 1986, Mark has worked in investing, philanthropy, and public policy; as co-founder of Centerbridge Partners, an investment firm with over $30 billion of assets under management; and before at The Blackstone Group. Mark's work in public service has included two stints under President Obama, and most recently at the US State Department as an Expert Senior Advisor to Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry. Lise has extensive experience in the climate advocacy sector and has spent the last 20 years working with local, state, and national organizations to advance public policy and build momentum for scalable solutions to the world's climate crisis, including as a board member of the Environmental Defense Fund and co-chair of their 501(c)4 political advocacy partner, EDF Action; on the leadership council of the Yale School of the Environment; and on the advisory boards of Environmental Advocates NY, the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, Columbia University's Climate School, the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School, and the Adirondack Trail Improvement Society. In this wide-ranging conversation, we cover a number of the challenges — and promising solutions — to the climate crisis. We begin with their respective "climate journeys," including for both formative childhood experiences in nature and the outdoors. Lise credits her parents for "passing on the values of hard work, conservation, and leaving the world better than you found it," and recalls how the environmental activism of the 1970s, including the passage of important legislation like the Clean Air and Water Acts, shaped her understanding of environmental issues and the potential to address them. We discuss the genesis of the Three Cairns Group, and some of its first major initiatives, each focused, in different ways, on developing ideas and climate solutions that are potentially scalable, and then working with partners across sectors and across the world to implement. For example, Three Cairns has recently launched Allied Climate Partners (ACP), a platform that has aggregated capital from philanthropy, governments, development finance institutions and the private sector to support early-stage climate projects and businesses in emerging markets, including in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and Central America, Africa, and India. We also explore why Mark and Lise believe that universities, as centers of learning, "creators of new knowledge that advance civilization," and places that produce the leaders for tomorrow are natural partners for their work on climate. We touch on various efforts they are involved in at Columbia and Yale. Finally, Lise and Mark remind us that, while the challenges of the climate crisis are many, there are number of breakthroughs that motivate them to keep moving forward: some technological, like MethaneSat, a new $100 million methane tracking satellite, or the falling costs of renewables; some policy related, like the passage of the federal Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, that are driving trillions of dollars into climate, or more locally the promise of congestion pricing in places like New York City that will reduce emissions and elevate the importance of public transportation as a climate and equity issue. Lise and Mark note that communicating these gains, and framing climate challenges as ones we have solutions to – and agency in – is critical to the tackling the crisis, particularly for young people "who want things to be better, and want to make them better." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this Episode Three Cairns Group Allied Climate Partners Methane Sat The Environmental Defense Fund Columbia University Yale University Inflation Reduction Act Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act CHIPS and Science Act New York Congestion Pricing

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Shaun Donovan, one of the country's most important leaders — and lifelong advocates — for housing, economic development, and shared prosperity. Donovan has worked at the highest levels of government — as Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama and as Commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development in New York City — overseeing large scale public-private partnerships. Today he approaches that work from Enterprise, where he leads the nation's only nonprofit that brings together in one place housing solutions, capital, and community development. We begin with some of Donovan's formative personal and professional experiences that motivated his lifelong commitment to housing. Growing up in New York City during a time of crises, with high levels of street homelessness and neighborhoods across the city severely challenged, Donovan was drawn to work at community-based organizations focused on homelessness, rebuilding communities, and financing community revitalization. We discuss how these experiences would inform his years in government, and his understanding of the role of the public sector. "I am a deep believer in the power of government and the need for a strong government role in the service of the public good," Donovan says. He notes that, in particular, government can make foundational investments in things like infrastructure or basic scientific research that lay the groundwork for much broader economic prosperity, and can set the "rules of the road," for commercial market players. He also underscores the importance of cross sector partnerships: Government can scale innovations tested by the nonprofit and private sectors or shape policy that responds to community-based movement building. Donovan's forty-year commitment to housing is rooted in the sector's "unique" role in people's lives — where people live and their quality of housing — affects larger opportunities and well-being: schooling, health, safety, and employment. Housing has also become the most expensive thing in most people's lives: more than half of US renters spend over 30 percent of income on rent, closer to 50 percent for lower income Americans. We discuss how today's affordability crisis has led to record levels of street homelessness, overcrowding, evictions, and instability in communities across the United States — the worst Donovan has seen in his lifetime. The high cost of housing also prevents individuals and families from moving to higher paying jobs; limited economic mobility in turn exacerbates economic and political segregation and polarization. Despite these challenges, Donovan is encouraged by important developments at the national, state, and local level. We discuss what he calls the "New New Deal:" the trillions of dollars the federal government has deployed to infrastructure and climate (via the Inflation Reduction Act), political momentum at the state level to increase the supply of affordable housing, and a wellspring of housing innovation in communities across the US. At Enterprise, Donovan and colleagues take on all of these issues, with a particular focus on racial equity and building resilience and upward mobility. Founded forty years ago, Enterprise today invests approximately $10 billion a year into communities ($64 billion cumulatively to build or preserve 950,000 homes), owns and manages 13,000 affordable homes, and is the country's largest housing policy and advocacy organization. All of these activities involve partnerships. For example, Enterprise has recently joined forces with LISC, Habitat for Humanity, the United Way, and Rewiring America to apply for $9.5 billion from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to work with 156 communities across the country to decarbonize affordable housing, invest in resilience, and ensure an equitable low carbon transition. Enterprise also oversees a variety of innovation challenges to support effective housing solutions developed by community-based organizations across the United States. "We have solutions, we know what works," Donovan says. "I think this is the moment, potentially, when we come together… to build a national movement to make housing a critical part of how we support families in this country." Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Mentioned in this Episode Enterprise The Inflation Reduction Act Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Power Forward