The winners of the 6th Annual U.S. Investment Management Awards were recently announced by Institutional Investor Magazine, recognizing "top asset managers across 41 different… categories" as well as "the most innovative and best-performing institutional investors in the world of endowments, foundations, and corporate and public pension plans." Heron is flattered and pleased that our own Clara Miller is among the honorees alongside investors such as Henry Kravis, who won the lifetime achievement award for the managers group:
“This is not a new vision of the world,” Miller says. “It is about having our institutions be functional, having them make a vital business sector that is employing people.”
For people in the impact investing community, Heron’s announcement was a watershed moment: It showed there are institutions willing to dissolve the line between giving and investing while seeking to achieve market rate returns for nongrant assets.
In addition to traditional investors, the honorees include those who have embraced various forms of impact, such as investor lifetime achievement award winner Sandra Urie, president of Cambridge Associates (a Heron knowledge partner):
For Urie her work at Cambridge was never just building a client base and gathering assets. At Cambridge, guided in part by her early experiences as a single parent, she created a culture that allowed women to thrive, including then-novel ideas like part-time work and the notion of a “continuous career.” In exchange, she was rewarded with a loyal workforce. “Women are untapped resource,” she asserts. “If you could make it a good place for women to work, it would be good for men, too."
Jagdeep Bachher, CIO of the University of California, earned recognition for helping the university make strides in impact investing:
Bachher has committed the institution to signing the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investment. In February the White House announced that the UC Board of Regents – the university’s governing body was one of three institutional investors to join the administration’s new Clean Energy Investment Initiative.
Other winners in the institutional investor category include Jason Matz, Shawn Wischmeier, Fadi BouSamra, Greg Williamson, and Mark Schmid.
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This post was prepared by Deirdre Hess & Nada Kittaneh.