Anderson: So we have to continuously update what we're doing and we, we evolve the curriculum. But the three other things that are really important, I sort of mentioned the integrative nature of it. You know, you have to break down silos between businesses, business units, but also at the university. So we have a lot of courses taught by the School of Public Affairs or, so in addition to Kogod, we have classes that are outside of the business school. And then it needs to be forward looking. Obviously, things are going to change in the future. So we have a real emphasis on, on that forward looking mindset. But experiential is probably the one we talk about most. And we're really helping them develop practical skills and problem solving abilities. I think at a master's level, the key difference for me from going from a bachelor's degree to a master's degree is critical thinking and problem solving. It's the number one sort of area for skills.

Dyer: Yeah, no, that's great. And there's, I think a lot of evidence that shows that, you know, as people do things, they learn it, they, you know, it really, those lessons stick. So that's cool. And I love to hear about the kind of interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary approach too, because, you know, couldn't agree more as sustainability really requires that and kind of breaking down some of those silos. Related to that, so how does this sort of, you mentioned it's at the Cogut School of Business. How is this, is this sort of like the main sustainability program there? Are there other sustainability programs? How much is sustainability kind of embedded across the business school?

Anderson: Well, it's embedded across the business school, but also across the university. So we have a big focus as a university on two things. First and foremost, it's sustainability as a campus, as a student body, how we're focused in general. And then the second one is AI. And so that's really where we're focused. So the master's program is, is firmly founded in the business school, the masters of sustainability management. But then we also have minors and we have certificates and we have specializations. So, as I said, sustainability is across the entire university. So we have different centers that are focused on different aspects of research. We have different faculty across the university that now have sustainability within their area of expertise. So it really infiltrates the entire university. And it sort of goes to this idea. One of the big things I talk about is, especially given some of the political headwinds, which I know we'll get to, is that sustainability is a megatrend. I always start with that because it's global and persistent. That's what a megatrend means. So it's fundamentally the changing the way organizations operate, compete and create value. So if you're fundamentally changing the way business is done and business is really what runs our entire economy. It's going to take all disciplines. It's going to take, and at a university who's educating future leaders, every future leader is going to have to understand this to some degree. So that's why it's across the entire.

Dyer: Yeah, that is so great to hear. You know, we, before starting the Intentional Endowments Network, I was with another nonprofit called Second Nature that has done a lot of work with colleges and universities and really kind of send that message home since the early 90s. And, yeah, American was very involved. I know pretty early on when we were at Second Nature launched something called the President's Climate Commitment and American was an early signatory. And that was, you know, kind of looking at campus operations as a start to role model some of this stuff and focused on climate, which is just one megatrend in the broader sustainability conversation. But, yeah, it's so great to hear that that that is really happening there and across the disciplines. And so just to come back a little bit to the program, how many students go through each year and how long is the program? Is it two year masters?

Anderson: I tell students, they find it somewhat shocking. I say, I really don't want you to spend one third of your time on your courses and assignments and getting grades. I don't actually want you to care about grades at all. I got great grades, my undergrad, my master's and my PhD, and no one ever asks me. So don't worry about it. And then I tell them to spend one third of their time networking so that they can make those connections for their future job opportunities. And then the other third is building personal brand. I said, you know, in today's world, you're going to have to have a public record, whether it's LinkedIn or other forms of social media, where you, a future employer can look to see what are your areas of interest? Are you, do you have initiative? Are you working actively in the field? So in addition to experiential learning within the classroom, we have a number of programs to get them out of the classroom into the DMV—the DC, Maryland, Virginia area—and working with and getting to know organizations. Because that's really what you need today is to demonstrate that you're driven to advance this field.

Dyer: Yeah, it's so true. And it's so interesting about the personal brand. It's really everywhere, but it's true. It's an important piece. And I'm curious about that interplay with industry, as you say. I mean, things, you know, this is a still evolving new relatively nascent field in a lot of ways. Companies are figuring it out. So how much sort of feedback do you get from say the consulting firms or finance firms that might be looking to hire talent out of the program in terms of what they want? I mean, you kind of just touched on it, I guess it's some experience, some kind of initiative around this, but are there specific kind of skills, knowledge that they're looking for?

Anderson: Yeah. So we do it in two ways. So the first is that we have a sustainability advisory council, which is roughly thirty individuals at this point. And it's still growing. Dean Dave Marchick, who brought me to the university, he created this sustainability advisory council and we run the meetings together. We have a fall meeting and we have a spring meeting. The spring meeting is actually next Tuesday. And we bring all of these senior executives from very large global institutions to the table and engage with them on advancements within the field and across their industries. It's, you know, policymakers, regulatory bodies, but also large companies, non for profits. And we talk to them about the topics that they're struggling with, that they're seeing or the trends they're seeing. And then we also talk about curricular advancements that we're making and how we can engage better with industry. It's the biggest topic with them is how can we engage better with industry. So that's the first way that we do as a program engage with companies is to have this very strong and engaged leadership team advising us. The second thing is, as I mentioned before, data is my big thing and surveys. So when I got here, I launched last year a sustainability skills survey. So in the first year, we're going to run it annually or semiannually. We haven't decided or by annually, I should say. But we surveyed over 200 companies to find out exactly what skills and competencies they were looking for when they're hiring employees or looking to upskill their existing employees. We also looked it was comprehensive. We looked at what challenges they're facing, what areas of their business do they need help navigating? So I can share some of those results. But that's one of the ways that we gathered intel specifically, again, on skills and competencies. Where do you need help? So I'll give you one big one. So when it comes to core competencies, they were change management, stakeholder engagement and systems thinking. Those were the top three by a long shot of our chart. That's those three. That's what they need help with. And it really speaks to this comprehensive issue that they're trying to manage. But it also speaks to me directly to these are masters level skills. So we now are much more intentional. We have a list of competencies, both business, interpersonal and sustainable competencies and skills. And we tie them directly to the syllabus and what's being learned in the classroom. What skills are you learning or exercising in this assignment, for example? So it's really important that we take that information we receive from industry and bring it directly back into the classroom.

Dyer: Yeah, that's great. And it's just amazing to hear those kind of top three. I think those are top three I would put on the list. And but I'm a little surprised actually to hear that that's coming through in the surveys from businesses. I don't know, maybe a little cynical, but sometimes feel like businesses are looking for more checkbox like reporting and things that are a little more mundane. But when it really is about that kind of change management, culture change, bringing people along, seeing the whole system. So that's very, very cool to hear. So I want to kind of come back to your three pillars a bit and maybe just quickly tell us a little more about the science pillar and how that sort of shows up. And is that around, you know, climate science and just understanding the interplay of how ecosystems work and how human activity impacts them? Is it social science? Is it a combination?

Anderson: It is a combination. I would say that most of our students are interested in or come in with a baseline related to climate science. But we need to ensure that when they graduate, they have that as a fundamental knowledge base. So we do focus on environmental sciences and they take environmental sciences. But in the in the core curriculum, what we really want to do is, again, tie it back to business. So the class that really does that is called Managing for Climate Change. And that goes through very clearly from the sort of the top down from the country level. Think of the UN and nationally determined contributions to lowering carbon footprints globally. How does that country level commitment lead down into policy making and eventually incentives for businesses? So they start at a very high level and they learn about what are the climate commitments that have been made and how are businesses going to align themselves to achieving those? And then we go through actually the TCFD, which I know everyone knows about the TCFD reporting, which is now becoming the ISSB. So the next step is evaluating a company's TCFD reporting, giving it a score, creating a scorecard, judging it versus peers in the industry and really deep diving into how companies are now reporting on their climate goals and objectives and how they're managing their risks. And then the last assignment is we actually ask the students in a group to play the role of a C-suite. So somebody is assigned to be the CEO, somebody is the head of human resources, somebody is the CFO, the COO and on down and up to eight individuals. And their job is to evaluate a large multinational company. And what is their strategic plan? How are they managing their climate related risks and opportunities? And then present to the board of directors their three to five year planning, including how they're going to finance this. So it really gets into the idea of taking the climate science that they learn and then bringing it around to business commitments and business follow through. Yeah, that I think that managing for climate changes is one of the classes that tie the two together very nicely.

Dyer: Yeah, that's very cool. And I think really important right now is a lot of the conversation around net zero is really designed to be at that kind of country global emissions level. And it's how you translate that down to the firm level is not always so straightforward. So that's very cool. And just for the folks who don't know the acronyms, TCFD is the Task Force for Climate-Related Financial Disclosure. And the ISSB is the International Sustainability Standards Board that is kind of absorbed the TCFD. So coming back to the policy pillar, you're right there in DC. And that must be great to sort of have access to some of those conversations. Obviously, those conversations right now are kind of unprecedented. And some of these topics around climate and ESG are in the crosshairs and kind of facing a backlash. How is that showing up in your work? Is it influencing how you talk to your students about it? Yeah. And then where do you see this going as we're right in the midst of this moment?

Anderson: Yeah, it's an interesting time. I think it's actually an exciting time.

Anderson: But it also is difficult, right, to bring people to the table. So it was really interesting when I first joined the university, another faculty member who deals with the policy side came to me and she said, you know, there's going to be a hearing on Capitol Hill. I forget the exact title, but it was something to the effect of why ESG investing is woke and going to leave American retirees broke. And I was like, OK, I'm definitely going to this congressional hearing. She went to this congressional hearing. It was five hours long, four hours long. And it was remarkable to hear that the experts that they brought to the table and the way that it was being manipulated by policymakers for their own benefit of their constituents or to, you know, speak to a fear. So I brought that back into the classroom and I said, look, this is phenomenal. We have the opportunity to you can write a congressional record, which is where you go on the record saying something about the subject at hand that they're debating. So I got three students to listen to all four hours and to come up with our response. And we published the congressional record. It was American University's response to this congressional hearing. And it allowed the students really to delve into ERISA laws and the SEC final rule. What does a final rule mean? We know it's not final. And I use that throughout teaching constantly. So I teach one of these highly experiential courses. It's called the principles of sustainable finance investment analysis and endowment practicum. So we I teach the students of the entire asset management industry who are the key players and how are they doing things both as an asset owner or an asset manager more sustainably? What does this look like? Well, how is it evolved? And then eventually they present to the American University endowment and they have the ability to influence how the endowment invests. We're typically looking at a private equity investment opportunity to pitch to the university. But I'm always talking about in that class, as you can imagine, the role of policies and how they're changing investment or not. So is this continuing to evolve with or without policy, but also the role of the SEC and how that fiduciary duty? Of course, I know we're going to get to this, but how it influences fiduciary duty and how people think about it.

Dyer: Yeah, well, that's very cool to have the direct. I mean, what an experience to be there and be able to submit that congressional record and then also to present to the endowment. I mean, so what do you think in terms of how we go forward? I mean, obviously, there are a lot of market forces that will keep moving. The rest of the world is going to continue to do things regardless of headwinds in the policy environment here. But do you think it slows things down? Do you think it speeds things up? As you say, maybe it sort of breaks things up and opens up opportunities for new progress. Or do you have any sense of where we might go from here in the next couple of years?

Anderson: Yeah, I think, you know, to your point, again, it's a mega trend, right? So if you're a multinational company, you're going to have to start reporting. Most investors and stakeholders want to start. They want to have you report on these factors. So it's going to continue. If we look back at this, let's just call it a four year presidential term in one country, we probably won't even be able to see it in the data. There'll be a small blip. But in real time, it does have the ability to change things to some degree. So when we did the sustainability skills survey and we asked what's one of the biggest headwinds cost, was one of the big ones. As you can imagine, companies said, look, we want to do all these things and we want to, you know, look at our scope three emissions and do that. But funding these when there's not a direct ROI at times return on investment, it's hard to get senior leadership to buy into that. And especially with these headwinds, right? Right. So they're not required right now. It's voluntary to report. So it will give those companies that don't have the financial resources to delve into it. It will give them breathing room and it'll buy them time to bring the capabilities on board to work with consulting firms or to hire the people that they need to hire, which is important. So there's a huge skills gap. The LinkedIn green skills survey, I think it's definitely been out for two years, but it comes out in the fall. There is a gap between the demand for green skills and the supply of green skills. So this buys people time. And I think that's where we'll see differentiation in in how the companies both where they were in the ability or the management desire to actually start tackling these things. So some will back off because they can, but others will continue to drive forward. And when you're an investor, that's brilliant. You need differentiation. You need to start analyzing companies for both what they say they're going to do and what they follow through. So I think we'll see much more differentiation versus everyone being mandated. OK, you have to now do this exact reporting because if the reporting isn't fully developed and it's sort of baseline, it doesn't really allow you to see a company through a differentiated lens. So I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it's somewhat appropriate in that this is going to take time. And if there's one failing that the sustainability movement, you could argue, failed at was because it's viewed through the science lens as so dire and so such an imperative. We have to do this now. It's just and there's so much passion behind it. I think we almost rushed and that's why people pushed back because it was too much. It was overwhelming. I personally am against divesting. I think that divesting makes you personally feel good. Oh, I don't own any coal in my portfolio, but it doesn't really move the needle and it doesn't help us transition. So I think slowing down and recognizing that this is going to be a long transition is important. And I think policy, I like to think positively through it, that policy is reflecting that, that need to slow down a bit and transition through this.

Dyer: Yeah, I love that perspective. And that's definitely sort of an axiom and systems thinking and organizational learning that sometimes you need to slow down to speed up. And, you know, yeah, these are big, big changes that definitely are complex and take time. So kind of related, and I don't want to go down too much of a rabbit hole on this, but, you know, in the sustainable investing space, the terminology has always been a challenge and definitions around ESG investing, sustainable investing, responsible investing, impact investing. And I think, you know, they all do have definitions, but sometimes people have slightly different definitions for them. And what's your kind of take on the state of the field there? Do you feel like it's just a natural thing in a, you know, maturing market? Or do you feel like there's just a need for a full reboot around some of these terms or, and how do you talk to your students about that?

Anderson: That's a big one. Good question. So I think that if we go back to the simple division, the simple division in my mind is value versus values. Okay. And it's big. These are two different approaches. So value investing, if you're investing for value, not values, then my hope is that we move towards sustainability or ES and G factors, non-financial factors that have an ability to influence risk and return within an asset. They become within an asset manager's fiduciary duty. They already are. If there's any factor out there that has the ability to influence risk and return, it is the fiduciary duty of an asset manager to look at that on behalf of its clients or its investors. So when it comes to what is the value of these factors and the risks and sources of future opportunity when it comes to climate change or social factors, I do hope that it will simply be folded into the investment process. And I would argue, going back to the policy for a minute, that's already happening. So every asset manager that I know of, that I interact with, I just came from BlackRock, like it's being embedded because, you know, having been a trader and an analyst and portfolio manager, I'm always telling my students, like, what is the number one thing that every investor wants to do? They want to outperform. They want to generate alpha, which is excess return over whatever benchmark. And they think they can do it better than everybody else. And that's their goal in life, is to outperform. If there's more data that they get potentially mined to outperform, they're going to use it. So I really think that it's going to continue business as usual. Now, when it comes to values investing, I think that we've moved much, much past sort of negative screening or just saying, I don't want to own fossil fuels or tobacco companies or gambling. That's been around for many, many decades. Right. But the one area of values investing that I think is going to grow is impact investing. We still are not really good at quantifying impact.

Anderson: So impact investing, I expect to continue to grow and it's tiny right now. The last one is what I would call thematic investing. I think that's squarely between the two. So when you think about something like green or clean technology, that can serve both. So clearly, if you invest in the right green or clean tech company, you could really capitalize on a new undeveloped source of future demand and a real high growth potential company and have a great return on your investment. But you can also be contributing to the transition from moving from brown energy to green energy. So I think that goes in between the two. And then when I try to steer the students away from how people are defining things because we know that they're not well defined right now. So what I usually do is bring in, you know, one of the best things about teaching is like, don't believe me, believe this other person or this expert. So I always bring in large asset managers. So I'm constantly bringing in GPIF, so the government pension investment fund of Japan. It's the largest pension in the world. And all the other pensions are always looking like, what's Japan doing? It's sort of like CalPERS, the California public pension here is the largest in the US public pension. And everyone's looking, what are they doing? So Japan, I have the they are very public with their views, GPIF. And I use this actually when I was working at BlackRock with other pension clients because they are so explicit, so transparent and so clear in there. And you can look at their entire history of the evolution of how they invest sustainably. And it's a blend. It's a blend of impact investing, very socially oriented. They invest to support women. They have gender based investing. They also have climate focused funds. They do best in class approaches. They really have this amazing, very transparent approach like, hey, we're going to start doing this. And I love it because they say we're such a big player. We have the ability to influence how other people are investing. And we think everyone needs to do this. And they also recognize very importantly, Japan is very clear that they're a universal owner, which means because they're so big. They practically own every company in the world. They're investments. And they say that because climate change and these issues have the ability to disrupt the financial system in the future. We have a major climate catastrophe. It will affect our financial system. We could have a meltdown. And they say we're a universal owner. So it's in our best interest to prevent that. So they are really taking this very sort of public ownership role. And what is their role in the stability of the financial system? And they say very clearly that it is to direct their investments towards more sustainably oriented companies. And now they're doing it across their entire portfolio. So they're just a great example to bring in the classroom.

Dyer: That's awesome. Yeah, they are a great example. And that's just another fascinating could be another episode to come have you come back and talk about universal ownership and some of those system level risks and system level investing. But so much of, yeah, I think just the way you broke that down is great. I mean, going back to the value piece in the ESG integration, you know, I think you're right. And good investors have been, if it's a material factor, they've been looking at it forever. I think the whole concept of ESG gives a framework to really make that explicit, make it systematic and help investors that, you know, as these sustainability challenges are very complex and might not sort of rise to the surface, it helps them rise to the surface and see the materiality of some of those factors. And so, yeah, I think that was a good breakdown. And I love the differentiation around the thematic because that's an area we focus a lot with, you know, endowments are always looking for market rate returns to support their mission and the institutions, but also want to be intentional, many of them about having a positive impact. And there are, I think, a lot of those kind of win-win opportunities out there around some of these megatrends. Yes. So we're running out of time quickly here, but I do want to talk a little bit more about the financial performance and the fiduciary duty concept. And just because this is such a tricky one, as you said, there's this blended approach. There's so many ways to go about this and so many different strategies between ESG or shareholder engagement or just approaches you could take. So how do you sort of tackle that question, which inevitably comes up about, you know, does sustainable investing underperform or outperform?

Anderson: Yeah. So, again, if you think about it as sort of narrowly minded, like I only want to pick these companies that suit my values, then I would say that's not a performance driven choice. So you shouldn't expect those to outperform or, you know, and they could underperform, but you should accept that. So when I had clients that divested of fossil fuel and then we had the war between Russia and Ukraine and fossil fuel prices went up and I was like, oh, gosh, I hate to say this, but you've drastically underperformed because you didn't own oil and gas. And they said, we're fine with that. We don't want to benefit from a war. So when it comes to a values based decision, I think you should be comfortable with this is not driven by performance. But when you think about companies that are better managing these sources of risk and return, technically that should lead to outperformance. If you are better managing sources of risk and return than your peers, you should be a company that outperforms over the long run. So I think, you know, the idea of it all works.

Now, there's two problems when it comes to actually doing performance attribution. The first one is financial materiality. So the way the financial materiality is assessed is through these non-financial factors, did they influence, let's say, the price of the stock in history? They're backward looking. And so they always say, well, we'll know if this company had lower greenhouse gas emissions than this exact pure company, I can't see a difference in their stock prices. And I say, well, of course, because we were never trading on this data before. So the problem is, is that it's inherently impossible to backtest this and say, do these non-financial factors affect price? Because they didn't. We're just now starting to do it. So it's difficult to tie performance attribution to a separate environmental, for example, factor versus financial factors historically. The second one comes from this idea that a lot of times being a better manager of sustainability or ESG related issues is a risk avoided. Right. So if you are preparing your company for potential outcomes, whether it is a weather event like a catastrophic climate or weather event, a change in the regulatory environment or a change in consumer preferences, your stock price may just be steady. She goes, you're growing a company, but you've avoided the risk of you've created the right products that are in demand when client preferences change. So it's almost like insurance. And we don't really look at a company and say, oh, they had an insurance policy. So the stock price went up because their factory burned down, but they got compensated for it. So it's hard to tie a risk avoided to a change in stock price, for example.

Dyer: Right. What would have happened if they didn't have those policies in? Yeah.

Anderson: Yeah.

Dyer: Yeah. It is complicated. And I think another piece is we look at, you know, again, allocators looking at different managers is that, you know, some are better at it than others. You know, some are better at looking at these factors and making investment decisions. And so you can have two different managers looking at the same ESG data and make very different decisions. And some will be better than others, just like in any type of investment strategy. I think manager selection is really critical to performance. Yeah. Great. Well, I want to just run through a few kind of rapid fire questions here as we approach the end of our conversation. So just, yeah, I love your quick, quick blank thoughts on these. So what's one ESG factor that you wish more companies would be focusing on?

Anderson: Governance. Everyone is focused on E, less people on S, but governance at the board level and the C-suite level, that's really the only way we're going to make the changes that are necessary. So I think having good governance will be tied to good outperformance when it comes to climate and sustainability.

Dyer: Great one. Yeah, I think it's always sort of on some level forgotten in these conversations, but also overarching. You know, hear people say, if you get the G right, you're going to get the E and the S right. Right. So that's one of the most exciting trends you're seeing in sustainable business education right now.

Anderson: Yeah, we've touched on this, but I think it's co-ops, internships and consulting projects.

Dyer: Very cool. And coming back to the sustainable investing side, what is one area you'd like to see grow or succeed in this space?

Anderson: So both are related to tech. I think the first one is because it's really hard to mitigate our emissions right now, to stop emitting because we need to still continue to have an economy. I think that carbon capture is one. If we can start pulling carbon out of our atmosphere, that's one tech area that I think. And then the other tech area is how do we offset or reduce the energy intensity of AI? AI. I'm a fan. I use it all the time. It's growing exponentially, and we're really going to have to get our head around that. So tech, carbon capture and AI efficiency.

Dyer: Yeah. Yeah. We've touched on AI a couple of times and I keep wanting to go down that road, but that's going to be a big focus for us this year too, is responsible AI, the energy use, all the implications, and hopefully the solution side too. All right. What about one book, article, podcast resource that you would recommend to students or that you do recommend to your students who want to lead in this area?

Anderson: Well, this is going to sound, you know, I have stacks of books and everyone else does, and there's so many podcasts out there, and this is going to sound very old school and very academic of me. But I really think that if students want to get ahead and to really be able to have a great interview and get a seat at a future company, I think they're going to have to dive into, as we mentioned before, the TCFD, the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, and SASB, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, and how they're being used by companies and also the global reporting initiatives. As much as they need strategic change, understanding what is being asked of companies is really half the battle. So staying on the leading edge of what are stakeholders asking companies to disclose and to manage better. I think understanding what the pressure on companies is, is the best thing they can do so that you can get certified in S1 and S2 from the ISSB, for example. But for me, for students, it's proving that they are diving into sort of these new regulatory bodies or reporting mechanisms and showing that they're actively learning these things because companies do need help with reporting.

Dyer: Yeah. Yeah, I love it. You got to have the fundamentals and where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. All right, last one. Complete this sentence. When I'm not at work, you might find me...

Anderson: When I'm not at work, you might find me traveling. I am a global citizen. Since my days in emerging markets, I covered the former Soviet bloc, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. And I think maybe it has led to my focus on sustainability, but I am a global citizen. I think increasingly everybody in the U.S. and the higher you go up in education, you become a global citizen. I used to say that I felt most comfortable at Heathrow Airport. I would run into more colleagues at Heathrow Airport. I held meetings there. And there's a group of people that I also say hover at 35,000 feet. So the biggest industry, policymakers, and scientists of the world are flying all around at 35,000 feet and interacting with each other. So to me, that's the altitude that you want to aim for is to be a global citizen and somebody that's interacting in that respect. And so, yeah, travel is still important to me.

Dyer: Yeah, I love it. It definitely gives that whole system perspective. And the system we're looking at is planet Earth. So, yeah, traveling around really brings that home. Any destinations that have been favorites recently or on the bucket list?

Anderson: Well, right now it's more for, you know, personal travel. So doing a lot of biking and hiking trips. I have one coming up that's in Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and then rolling on Azores. So, you know, again, my entire goal was to work hard in the field of finance, which I did. And now I'm coasting into retirement happily and being able to do more personal travel.

Dyer: That's awesome. Yeah, that sounds like a great trip. Very cool. All right. Well, a couple kind of big picture final questions before we wrap up. And yeah, just on the highest level, as you do all this work and work with students and industry, what is your vision for the future of finance? What do you think is needed for us to get there and create a sustainable economy?

Anderson: I think the vision, I hinted at it earlier, is that this becomes business as usual. I used to say when I was at my prior two companies working on sustainable issues with investors, like how are the investment teams folding in these factors and creating risk models or scoring companies based on it? And I kept thinking, I just I can't wait till this is business as usual. We in the finance industry, we've been doing capital asset pricing models and discount cash flows. The same for generations like finance was getting boring. And I really do feel like this is livening things up a bit. And to me, to have more levers to think about, more levers to pull, more data to think about, it brings the creativity back to finance. And I really stress that with my students, that you have to remember that this is all about your ability to analyze something and come up with a view. Every time somebody says, this is a hard sell, there's somebody else that's saying, this is a hard buy. Like you got to have a buyer and a seller. So I think that having the creativity to solve this problem makes it just really exciting. It's going to take a long time to get it to become business as usual, but that process is just ripe with opportunity.

Dyer: Yeah, I love that. So cool to bring the creativity into it. And I think a huge part of making a business as usual, obviously, is the business schools and the work you're doing. So I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. And along those lines, the final question, you know, we are really trying to help students understand this space and chart paths forward. And obviously, you're working with them all the time. But what, and you've touched on quite a bit of this, but if you could sort of distill what's the core piece of advice that you give to students or would give to other students listening that want to get into this field to focus on to have a successful career here.

Anderson: Yeah, it does tie back to what I just said, that investing is more art than science. So I do, I always want to encourage young people in particular that are getting educated that their minds are young, curious, flexible, and they sense trends better than older people do. I used to always look at my children and say, you know, what should I invest in when they were young? Because they just have a different, more flexible, maybe less jaded way of looking at the world. And I always want to give them a voice that, and there's this concept of fresh eyes. So when you come into a company as a new hire, everybody else has been looking at these problems, tackling these problems, and they're embedded in it. They're very much entrenched in it. And your fresh eyes and what you may think is a silly question sometimes may be the one question nobody was asking. So I always encourage them to embrace the fact that they don't understand something. When you ask for clarity, sometimes you illuminate a problem that others weren't looking at. So come into a business and come into your studies with curious mind. Gosh, I don't understand this. And then go try to figure it out. And I think that the world right now needs, it's really, they need creativity to solve these problems.

Dyer: Absolutely. What a great point and what a great place to leave it. Julie, thank you so much again for taking the time to join me and share your work with our listeners. And I hope to connect again soon.

Anderson: It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

Dyer: Thanks for tuning in for the Future of Finance podcast. We hope you found today's conversation insightful and inspiring. Don't forget to subscribe or follow us on your favorite podcast platform. And please take a moment to rate, review, or share the show. All of this really helps us to reach more people like you who care about creating a thriving and sustainable future. And it's a really easy way to have a big impact. So please do follow. A quick disclaimer. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Investments and strategies discussed may not be suitable for all listeners. Please consult a financial, legal, tax, or accounting professional before making any investment decisions. References to managers and funds are for informational purposes only and should not be considered endorsements or investment solicitations. This podcast does not monitor fund performance or guarantee the accuracy of third-party materials or statements. This has been an episode of the Future of Finance podcast, exploring how finance can shape a vibrant and sustainable future. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.