This week, we speak with Jennifer Grancio, the chief executive officer of impact investment group Engine No. 1. Grancio has more than 25 years of experience scaling businesses across financial services; prior to joining Engine No. 1, she founded an advisory firm where she worked closely with CEOs to accelerate growth. She also served as a founding member of BlackRock’s iShares business, where she helped drive the development of the global ETF industry and iShares’ leadership role within it.
She explains why so much of ESG portfolio is misguided — instead of focusing on driving good outcomes, some ESG proponents are more concerned with negative screening. Instead, she wants investors to engage with these companies. Grancio looks at sustainability and climate change as a risk to be managed, and not a political or values expression.
We discuss how Engine No. 1 has approached portfolio companies to facilitate their taking advantage of changing trends, especially in these areas. The firm has successfully driven policy changes at such industrial giants as Exxon Mobil and General Motors.
Grancio believes that even passive investors should vote their shares. To address this, the firm introduced a new ETF “Transform 500” — with he ticker VOTE. This allows passive investors the opportunity to drive positive impact as active owners. VOTE invests in a portfolio of the 500 largest U.S. publicly traded stocks, and votes all of its shares to hold companies accountable for creating value over time.
A list of her favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation is available here Tuesday.
You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Steven Klinsky, Founder and CEO, New Mountain Capital. Prior to founding New Mountain Capital in 1999, he was co-founder of the Leverage Buyout Group of Goldman Sachs, where he did $3+ billion of transactions before joining Forstmann Little as a partner, where he oversaw $10+ billion in capital.
Jennifer Grancio favorite books
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: The Illustrated Edition by J.K. Rowling and Jim Kay
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
