What are the next generation strategies and tools for investor engagement and what frontier topics should investors be considering? This session looks at two case studies activist stewardship (with Exxon) and whether investors are funding treason (the case of the US congress riots).
Scott Kalb
Director, Responsible Asset Allocator Initiative, New America
Scott Kalb is the founder and director of the Responsible Asset Allocator Initiative at New America, dedicated to mobilising capital toward responsible investing and supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The RAAI publishes the “Leader’s List: The 25 Most Responsible Asset Allocators” in the world. Kalb is the founder and CEO of KLTI Advisors, a firm dedicated to working with the sovereign and government fund community on long-term investment solutions. In addition, he serves as the chair of the Sovereign Investor Institute, a membership organisation of Institutional Investor and leading forum for sovereign and government funds around the world.
Kalb served as the chief investment officer and deputy chief executive of the Korea Investment Corporation (KIC), Korea’s $130 billion Sovereign Wealth Fund, during 2009-2012, and is one of the few foreigners appointed to manage another country’s SWF portfolio. During his time at KIC, assets under management grew from $19 billion to $60 billion. Prior to KIC, he worked in the financial industry for more than 25 years. Most recently, he was a senior portfolio manager at Balyasny Asset Management (2006-2008), CEO and senior portfolio manager at Black Arrow Capital Management (2002-2006), and senior equity portfolio manager at Tudor Investment Corp (1999-2002). Prior to this Kalb, worked at Citigroup for 10 years (1990 – 1999), serving as managing director of international asset management (1995-1999) and of international equity research (1990-1995).
Since 2009, Kalb has been a member of the World Economic Forum Council on the Future of Long-term Investing, and a member of the advisory board of the Private Capital Research Institute, a Harvard-based initiative. Kalb has published numerous articles regarding long-term investing and the sovereign fund community. He lived in Asia for over 15 years, speaks Korean and has an MA Degree from Harvard and a BA degree from Oberlin College.
Aeisha Mastagni is a portfolio manager within the corporate governance unit of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), the nation’s largest teacher retirement fund. She is responsible for working with a governance team to further CalSTRS’ mission to secure the financial future and sustain the trust of California’s educators. Mastagni’s main areas of focus are the corporate engagement program, executive compensation, selecting and monitoring managers in the activist manager portfolio, and working with regulatory authorities on market-wide issues.
In 2012, she joined the board of directors at the Golden 1 Credit Union, the seventh largest credit union in the US with more than $8 billion in assets and over 600,000 members. Most recently, she joined the board of the Council of Institutional Investors, an association of pension funds whose mission is to educate its members and the public about effective corporate governance and related investment issues.
Mastagni has a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the California State University, Sacramento and has successfully completed level I of the CFA Program.
White is responsible for the content across all Conexus Financial’s institutional media and events. She is responsible for directing the bi-annual Fiduciary Investors Symposium which challenges global investors on investment best practice and aims to place the responsibilities of investors in wider societal, and political contexts, as well as promote the long-term stability of markets and sustainable retirement incomes. She is the editor of conexust1f.flywheelstaging.com, the online news and analysis site for the world’s largest institutional investors. White has been an investment journalist for more than 20 years and has edited industry journals including Investment & Technology, Investor Weekly and MasterFunds Quarterly. She was previously editorial director of InvestorInfo and has worked as a freelance journalist for the Australian Financial Review, CFO, Asset and Asia Asset Management. She has a Bachelor of Economics from Sydney University and a Master of Arts in Journalism from the University of Technology, Sydney. She was previously a columnist for the Canadian publication, Corporate Knights, which is distributed by the Globe and Mail and The Washington Post. White is currently a fellow in the Finance Leaders Fellowship at the Aspen Institute. The two-year program consists of 22 fellows and seeks to develop the next generation of responsible, community-spirited leaders in the global finance industry.
