“If you aren’t including ESG factors in your investment process and are just simply buying broad benchmark products, you’re losing value and you’re also firmly separating any concept of having responsibility for the impact of money.”
— Matt Patsky
Matt Patsky is the CEO and Lead Portfolio Manager of the Trillium ESG Global Equity Strategy and Portfolio Manager of the Trillium Sustainable Opportunities Strategy. Matt began his career at Lehman Brothers in 1984 and has over three decades of experience in investment research and investment management. In 1994 he became the first sell-side analyst in the United States to publish on the topic of socially responsible investing.
In this episode, we discuss how early in his career, Matt wrote a sustainability business plan in his first job out of school at Lehman Brothers and how his boss told him he would ruin his career if he didn’t stop this sort of thing. We spoke about how he stumbled into the Social Venture Network and ‘found his tribe’ after meeting a lot of the early SRI pioneers like Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben and Jerry’s, Howard Schultz of Starbucks Coffee, Anita Roddick of The Body Shop, and a bunch of others who encouraged him to follow his passion for responsible investing, and how he ended up being recruited to replace Trillium’s well-known founder, Joan Bavaria.
Matt speaks at length about his views on value creation and his belief that a manager’s fiduciary responsibility requires incorporating ESG principles into portfolio management. We also discuss greenwashing in the industry and the failures of investment funds to hold themselves accountable to the same standards that they impose on the management of their portfolio companies.Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…
SELECTED LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:
- Connect with Matt Patsky: Twitter | LinkedIN
- Pax World Fund
- Social Venture Network
- Blue Haven Initiative
- BlackRock
- Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero
- Lehman Brothers
- KLD Research & Analytics
- Eaton Vance
- Adams Harkness & Hill
- State Street Global Advisors
- SSGA Gender Diversity Index Exchange Traded Fund (ETF)
- Winslow Management
- Matt, Mark Zuckerberg and The Onion
SHOW NOTES:
[05:26] Matt’s fascination with Capital Markets & how he has progressed in his career
[11:47] The sustainability business plan that almost ruined his career
[13:07] Finding his ‘tribe’ at the Social Venture Network in 1990s and the opportunities it created
[16:44] Matt was a researcher at Adams Harkness & Hill before he moved to Winslow Management
[22:36] Matt’s role and personal mission at Trillium
[26:48] A quick overview of Trillium’s business model, funds and Assets Under Management
[31:35] Introduction to Trillium’s Sustainable Opportunity Strategy
[32:43] Structure of Trillium’s Global Equity Strategy and how trading public equities shares can result in impact
[40:24] Why Trillium loves benchmarking against traditional benchmarks
[43:17] Matt tries to impact Facebook’s governance structure and ends up on The Onion
[44:40] The failures of the SRI investment fund industry to hold themselves accountable to the same standards they demand
[49:40] Greenwashing in the industry and insincere players in the market
[55:36] Advocating for diversity and change in the companies you’re investing in
[01:00:02] Credible pathways to hold managers accountable to the net zero targets
[01:04:03] An overview of Trillium’s Community Impact investing activities and their Community Impact CDs
[01:12:05] The biggest challenge in the ESG public equities investment space at this time
[01:13:21] What Matt knows now about ESG investing that he wishes he’d known before
MORE MATT PATSKY QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW:
“If you aren’t including ESG factors in your investment process and are just simply buying broad benchmark products, you’re losing value and you’re also firmly separating any concept of having responsibility for the impact of money”
— Matt Patsky
“I start from a fundamental belief that [ESG] factors are material. And if you start with a fundamental belief that they’re material, you start at the absolute opposite 180-degree end of the way in which most professional institutional investors historically have interpreted this entire field. I have a fiduciary obligation to include environmental, social, and governance in the investment process and not to do so is a violation of my fiduciary responsibilities.”
— Matt Patsky
“You should go back and thank the teachers who influenced your life trajectory.”
— Matt Patsky
“To be a successful professional investor, you must understand the factors that make up your vision. Fiduciary obligations traditionally include environmental, social and governance factors .”
— Matt Patsky
“It’s the right thing to create a product that allows people at the thousand dollars level to be able to invest.”
— Matt Patsky
“Anytime you see a CEO as the board chair, you’ve got a governance problem that should be addressed .”
— Matt Patsky
