CIOs for students hoping to pursue a business role in the future can sometimes feel like a rung in the ladder of UVA success. With many of the clubs advertising acceptance rates of less than 5% and McIntire admission rates close to 100%, it can appear as though they are solely about prestige. However, this is not the case as many CIOs at UVA are taking steps to have a positive impact on the Charlottesville community and beyond. Over the past few weeks, I have sat down and spoken with executive members of clubs including Frank Batten Investment Fund, Profit with Purpose, and Enactus to understand the impactful projects they are working on with members. Their missions all have diverse functions woven into their processes which include: public investment, pro-bono consulting, venture capital, or a combination of a few. Despite differences in methods, they all provide important information to students about how their expertise can be used to build a better world.
Frank Batten Investment Fund focuses on ESG-based investing. For those unfamiliar, ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance values within a company. This investment ideology was first introduced in the 2006 United Nations Principles for Responsible Investing Report and has continued to grow ever since then with organizations adopting the ideology and ETFs being created with socially-responsible stocks [1]. When examining a stock, an investor will not only take financial factors into account, but they will also explore the operations and initiatives of the company to see if they are working towards a more sustainable future.
Pruthvi Choudary is the current Chief Investment Officer and also leads the Probationary Analyst education for the CIO. Weekly, he works with Probationary Analysts to teach them investment fundamentals for successful evaluations for the purchase of stock in a public company. Speaking with him, I learned more about the club’s practices and views, along with some of his personal takes on the ESG format.
Investing is a technical art that is fueled by data that produces ratios and statistics. It is a practice that can be difficult to understand for newcomers. Regarding this, I asked Pruthvi how FBIF is able to incorporate ESG research practices into teaching Analysts about finance. Training begins with a wide base, addressing foundationally what the three-factors mean. This can be extremely important for categorization, especially with a fine line between social and governance initiatives. Once a strong understanding of categorization is established, he explained how someone needs to understand how “pieces of the puzzle” fit in. Examples he mentioned were corporate practices within supply chain, marketing, executive structure, and others that can have major implications in ESG evaluations. Beyond this, due to the fact that FBIF often examines the largest players in the market, members need to explore how their practices can affect the overall industry and market. For instance, if their production methods are creating high-pollution and forcing competitors to follow in practice, members will not want to invest in the firm.
I asked Pruthvi why he believes it is important for students to learn about ESG initiatives before they even enter the business world. His answer begins with the financial practices of professionals in the late 20th century. Although he did not dive into a specific event, I did my own research and learned about “The Paperwork Crisis” that took place on Wall Street in the mid-1960s [2]. Due to an extreme increase in the amount of stock trades, brokerage firms were overwhelmed and were unable to file them in a timely manner. The New York Stock Exchange was closed for months while the trading companies attempted to catch up, which led to chaos and corruption during the period. At this point in time, public investment was purely about profits, not about the quality of companies. However, due to this crisis and continued growth on Wall Street and in the financial realm including greater automation and technology to ensure safe trading, he made it clear that our generation has more of a fair-playing field. This allows us to look at the real value of a company and see the impacts of the companies through greater media attention and public filings. Students have the power to invest in the market in an educated manner because of the wide-spread public information available, therefore FBIF wants to allow students to exercise their ability to have a positive impact right now.
While speaking with him, I wondered why companies need to actually care about ESG practices within their decision-making. Pruthvi chose to focus on one of the speakers that the club has hosted, Sue Ann Averitte, Vice President of ESG at DXC Technologies. When she spoke to students, she discussed how many consulting firms now offer ESG services due to the large amount of regulation and social pressure that is being put on firms to meet ESG standards. As I mentioned before, in a world of public investing where company data is extremely visible to the public and legal authorities, these firms care deeply about meeting regulations and supporting their bottom line. By supporting the foundational values of a company, the C-Suite can create major long-term value. Companies making ESG-based decisions will decrease their long-term risks and will continue to gain value over an extensive period of time. This strength is why FBIF holds ESG factor evaluation as a key part of their investment process.
From my own experience, I have found it common for the main focus of the factors to be on the environmental initiatives. When speaking with Pruthvi he agreed that FBIF places the most emphasis on environmental analysis when exploring stocks. He believes this is the case due to environmental data being the easiest to find and access, along with greater funding for climate efforts on the global and domestic scale. Based on this report from him, I asked about his opinion on splitting the environmental factors from the social and governance areas. He personally believes that this would harm the overall mission of the ideology because all of the focus at the present moment would shift to environmental emphasis. Social and governance issues fly under the radar because it is harder to distinguish between companies due to neutral practice by most. Most companies have taken steps to create a more equitable company structure and prevent labor injustice, but taking large steps can set the value of a company apart for ESG investors. If you split the categories, these initiatives will not be valued as much.
Looking at the club as a whole, FBIF provides a very interesting spin to traditional investment strategies that may be practiced by other CIOs at UVA. Their impact may not be as direct, but provides students with the type of thinking that can create a long-lasting impact in their future career roles. When I asked Pruthvi about the approach of investors at FBIF he stated that they are able to focus on the real world and use a holistic approach. With many students going into forms of asset management in the future, FBIF is teaching important strategies that can have a long-lasting impact on student’s investment methodologies.
The Frank Batten Investment Fund utilizes a macroeconomic focus to teach students how to have an impact on pre-existing global markets. However, another organization at UVA is making an effort to impact start-ups around the world. Profit with Purpose is a club that focuses on pro-bono consulting to help aid entrepreneurs trying to make a difference in the Charlottesville area, along with international companies in Dominica, Tanzania, and Peru. I spoke with Shane Sugden, the current President of Profit with Purpose, to gain an understanding of their processes and mission.
What stood out to me about his responses was the degree to which the club cares about finding members who will think differently about addressing project issues. Some of the majors of club members include the common Economics or Commerce majors, but also Environmental Studies, Politics, History, Engineering, and more. Shane expressed to me that recruiting the right people is not about whether they can correctly value an organization’s assets or create a business model to increase profits, instead, it is about how much they care about the work they will be taking part in. Shane told me, “You can’t teach passion.”
Although passion is the key factor they are looking for with members, Profit with Purpose recognizes that they need to teach their students skills. To do this, they have hosted several alums and companies to hold workshops that focus on the fundamentals of impact investing and entrepreneurial spirit. College Contact is one of the companies Profit with Purpose has collaborated with for a workshop. This organization focuses on connecting high-school students applying to a college with current undergraduates at the institution. Similar to Profit with Purpose, they both have the mission of generating profit and societal impact. Alongside these guests, they even draw from their own membership by having one of their Commerce students host a general investment session. Overall, Profit with Purpose draws from a wide net of people to help give their members a holistic education experience that prepares them to work on projects.
As with most UVA CIOs, the growth of the club consisted of ups and downs, with strategies and relationships changing over time. Founded in 2016 by Economics and Commerce students, their original idea of having a major Impact Fund proved to be originally too ambitious. This is an understandable challenge due to the fact that not many people are willing to provide a brand-new student organization with large sums of capital. However, Shane Sugden along with former President Drew Rummel and other students made the decision to reinvent the club and start with a more practical approach. They started researching possible companies using Crunch Base to provide student consulting for companies representing ESG goals. For those unfamiliar (as I was before speaking with Shane), Crunch Base is a website/application that allows you to explore different start-ups with data on the company and industry trends [3].
During this period of change for the club, their work primarily focuses on providing consulting for companies. Toloma is a company that was founded by female farmers in Dominica. They offer a root-based product that can be substituted for starch. The company wants to test the nutritional information of their product but has been held back by financial barriers. PwP consultants have been assisting the company in fundraising to hopefully provide enough capital to achieve this process at some point in the future. Another example is Tofali Zetu, a company that makes interlocking earth bricks in Tanzania. These bricks are made out of mud and soil while still maintaining the needed durability to create buildings. PwP helped Tofali Zetu to construct a website to help with the marketing of their product. WePlanet is an app that allows users to learn how to implement eco-friendly strategies and choices. Through their practices, they can earn points to enter virtual raffles for rewards. Once again, the CIO has taken on a fundraising role to help this company make their idea a reality.
Shane expressed that in the future, the goal of the club is to establish a strong capital base to have the ability to invest in companies that members are excited about. Looking at their partnership with Thistlerock Mead, it is clear that they are on the trajectory to meet this goal. Thistlerock Mead is a Charlottesville-based Mead company that sustainably produces mead with no carbon footprint and reinvests 50% of pre-tax revenue to agricultural companies in the impact space [4].
After speaking with Shane, I realized that I needed to learn about what mead is and the industry behind the product. To begin, mead is created using the fermentation of honey and water. According to an article from Delish, “mead is honey wine [5]." Thistlerock’s farm and meadery utilizes 2.5 million honey bees from which they generate the honey to brew their product [4]. When you hear the word mead, you probably envision the drink of the medieval ages, being consumed by a knight out of a wooden goblet. However, this may change in the future with Thrillist reporting that over the last decade the number of meaderies grew from 150 to 500, with 200 pending federal approval [6]. A key part of Thistlerock’s mission and strategy is where Profit with Purpose finds its partnership important for the company. According to their website, “Half of all our profits are reinvested to support pollinators, biodiversity and habitat conservation, and nature-based livelihoods [4].” Thistlerock collaborates with Profit with Purpose to aid in their research and decision making for which companies they should invest their profits in. This grants PwP the ability to have real-world impact with their decisions and work. In the future, the organization is hoping that they may have the ability to establish their own independent source of funding.
Although consulting is not the final end goal of Profit with Purpose, it is the core function of Enactus at UVA with a focus on Charlottesville. Enactus as a whole, is a national organization with the goal of improving student’s business skills during their undergraduate career while creating a sustainable world. Their organization name consists of three words: En(trepreneurial), Act(tion), and Us [7]. The word “us,” refers to the academic community they work with to follow their mission.
Looking at UVA’s Enactus chapter, they are affiliated with McIntire and focus on improving Charlottesville-based or related businesses with their strategic needs. This year, their portfolio consisted of ten different businesses that span from the Charlottesville Ballot to Renew Capital, a small and medium enterprise (SME) investment company located in Africa [8] [9]. Many of their projects are local businesses, including restaurants, greenhouses, and recreational activities [10].
Josh Maggiano is a rising fourth-year student studying Commerce and Foreign Affairs that currently holds the title of President at Enactus. I spoke with him on the phone to get a better sense of the club operations and his experience with the CIO. Looking at the basics of project rotation and assignment, members rotate through projects on an annual basis. This time provides them sufficient time to research and provide solutions, but allows for diverse experience. It used to be the case that Enactus had their members reapply each year, but now all of their consultants in good standing are automatically invited back. This model allows members to rotate through projects and gain a wider variety of expertise.
Looking at the fact that Enactus has around a dozen projects each year, I found myself asking how they land these companies. Speaking with Josh, he told me that a Vice President of Projects is chosen by the President of the club each year. This person works specifically on finding and retaining clients for the club. The majority of the businesses they work with really value the advice they receive and decide to work with the club for more than one-year. Usually they try to have clients for about three-years, but they even have one organization in its fourth-year of working with Enactus. The VP of Projects does need to find some new clients despite strong retention, so they also utilize online channels and call businesses that align with the mission of Enactus to recruit possible clients.
The word “consulting” can be very ambiguous at times, so I asked Josh for a deliverable from one of his projects. He spoke about his work with the Charlottesville Meals on Wheels and the two-pronged thesis that he gave the company [11]. First, he recommended and delivered the idea of connecting more with UVA. Within this, his team helped set-up a program with Madison House that allows students to more easily volunteer with Meals on Wheels. Regarding this process, he found a student that was willing to coordinate with the non-profit to make sure volunteer operations ran smoothly to ensure a strong long-term bond. This decision led to Meals on Wheels bringing in 20 new UVA student volunteers each semester. The reasoning behind this idea was the self-sustaining nature of Madison House that will continue to draw student volunteers wanting to help each year.
His second piece of advice revolved around the planning process of a new location. Consultants from Enactus recommended that they find another privately-owned location to operate beyond their current private space. This decision was delivered after consideration of both public and additional private location options. The strategies they used to arrive at this decision revolved heavily around data and practices that you may see a corporate consultant perform. They specifically examined how the Atlanta Meals on Wheels branch expanded and paired this with aggregated data from 100 different Meals on Wheels branches around the United States. The team was thorough with their research and used it to create an educated proposal on an important decision.
Although projects revolve mostly around smaller businesses, Josh expressed to me that, “there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to any problem”. He explained how consultants at Enactus need to learn how to examine three factors of a business: organizational, social, and community level decisions. He pointed out how many of the organizations they work with are trying to solve the problem of food insecurity. However, he emphasized that they are trying to solve the same community problem, but they will try to do this in different ways. If you go into a project with the mindset of trying to fit a general solution to an individual company, you will not deliver the strongest result. Learning this has aided Josh and all members of Enactus as they develop skills necessary for the professional atmosphere. Not only this, but this provides these businesses with the best, personalized strategies, not cookie-cutter advice.
Beyond the technical skills gained through practice, consultants at Enactus also gain a greater connection to the Charlottesville community. Specifically for Josh, he has grown in understanding of the community around him since he joined the club in the first semester of his first-year. One quote from him that really stood out to me was this: “It reminds me that Charlottesville is more than a college town”. Often, it can feel that UVA is its own bubble. Most students live in a mile radius of one another and generally have the same daily schedule. We all take part in the same activities and learn in the same classrooms. It can be easy to forget that there is a city around us that has people of all different identities, backgrounds, and socioeconomic status. Josh strongly emphasizes that it is “not just a place for us to come to have fun for four-years.” Enactus allows its students to gain skills as consultants that help them understand business operations while gaining a greater awareness of the shops, restaurants, and other companies that make up our vibrant community.
As odd as it may sound, I think that in a way all of these clubs remind students that they need to be diligent and ethical when engaging in business decisions. Josh’s reflection on the importance of not only using the Charlottesville community, but making sure that we give back to it is a lesson that needs to be applied in all areas. This can be adopted at the local, regional, or even international level. I think it is extremely vital that students planning to work at a for-profit organization take part in a club or organization that focuses on more than income. It helps remind us that when firms utilize resources to create a product or service, they are trying to add value to the world we live in. The beauty of attending UVA is that there are numerous opportunities to create a positive impact with different CIOs and organizations. I hope that students take these lessons with them as they move into the professional world. As some of the youngest and brightest people, we need to realize that we are working for much more than a salary.
All content is the intellectual property of the Virginia Undergraduate Business Review.
REFERENCES
[1] Atkins, Betsy. “Demystifying ESG: Its history & current status.” Forbes, 8 June 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/betsyatkins/2020/06/08/demystifying-esgits-history--current-status/. Accessed 12 April 2024.
[2] Brown Brothers Harriman. “The Paperwork Crisis.” Brown Brothers Harriman, 2024, https://www.bbh.com/us/en/bbh-who-we-are/our-story/200-years-of-partnership/the-paperwork-crisis.html. Accessed 12 April 2024.
[3] “About.” Crunchbase, 2024, https://www.crunchbase.com/. Accessed 4 April 2024.
[4] Thistlerock Mead. “Our Story.” Thistlerock Mead, 2024, https://www.thistlerockmead.com/. Accessed 4 April 2024.
[5] Iseman, Courtney. “What is mead? - Everything to know about making and
buying mead alcohol.” Delish, 15 August 2019, https://www.delish.com/food/a28691670/what-is-mead-honey-wine/. Accessed 4 April 2024.
[6] Chrisman, James. “Mead makes a comeback: How meaderies are making honey wine cool again.” Thrillist, 24 April 2019, https://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/mead-trend-meadery-honey-wine. Accessed 4 April 2024.
[7] Enactus. “Our Vision.” Enactus, 2023, https://enactus.org/. Accessed 4 April 2024.
[8] SEAF. “Defining SME investing | Small and medium enterprise investing.” SEAF, 2024, https://www.seaf.com/defining-sme-investing/. Accessed 12 April 2024.
[9] “About.” Renew Capital, 2024, https://www.renewcapital.com/. Accessed 4 April 2024.
[10] Enactus at UVA. “Projects.” Enactus at UVA, 2023, https://www.enactusatuva.com/. Accessed 4 April 2024.
[11] Meals on Wheels of Charlottesville / Albemarle. “About.” Meals on Wheels of Charlottesville / Albemarle, 2024, https://www.cvillemeals.org/. Accessed 4 April 2024.
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