Ken Redd, Senior Director, Research and Policy Analysis, National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO)

Kenneth E. Redd is Senior Director, Research and Policy Analysis for the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). At NACUBO, Ken manages the annual NACUBO-TIAA Study of Endowments, the NACUBO Tuition Discounting Study, and other research reports on higher education finance, enrollment, and student financial aid issues. He came to NACUBO in 2008 from the Council of Graduate Schools, where he was director of research and policy analysis.

In addition to his work at NACUBO, Ken also serves on the board of trustees for the Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, IL, and the board of advisors for the Frank J. Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, University of Virginia. Ken is also a member of the investment committee of the Unitarian Universalist Common Endowment Fund (UUCEF), and is a member of the board of directors for the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC).

Ken has a master’s degree in public affairs from the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, and a bachelor’s degree in English and political science from Tufts University, Medford, MA.

Liz Clark, Vice President for Policy and Research, National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO)

Liz LaPolt Clark is Vice President for Policy and Research at the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), a membership organization representing more than 1,900 colleges and universities across the country. Liz leads the team responsible for analysis of federal regulatory and legislative actions, research, and communications at NACUBO. She has been widely quoted in the press and is a sought-after speaker on how Washington politics and federal policies impact higher education. Liz got her start on Capitol Hill in 1999, running Cornell University's first Washington, DC-based federal relations office, and in her career has led federal affairs for the State University of New York (SUNY) System and for Oregon State University.

A native of Liberty, NY, Liz is a graduate of Binghamton University (SUNY) and received a Master’s degree from Cornell University.

Over the past academic year, student teams from across the U.S. participated in a first-of-its-kind student investment competition hosted by the Intentional Endowments Network (IEN). A panel of judges selected the team from the University of California, Berkeley as the inaugural winners of the SIILK Corporate Engagement Competition, for preparing the strongest investment recommendation and shareholder engagement strategy to improve company performance (and investment returns) through better environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices.

“The competition gave us an opportunity to think about strategies for engaging with management and practice crafting a shareholder resolution,” said Katharine Hawthorne, a member of the winning team. “Highlights of the competition included learning how the other teams integrated financial and ESG considerations and seeing the different approaches to shareholder engagement for driving corporate sustainability.”

The pilot year of this competition put a new spin on the traditional approach to investment competitions by focusing on the responsibility of investors to directly engage company management on the risks and opportunities they see. IEN invited students to not only produce an investment recommendation in a publicly traded company, but also to include in their recommendation a shareholder engagement strategy for improving the company’s business performance and impact on society. Teams from four universities - Arizona State University, Bryant University, Yale University, and the winning team from the University of California, Berkeley - participated in the competition as a real-world introduction to sustainable investing.

“We launched this competition to bring more awareness to the immense opportunity to create impact through shareholder engagement in public equity investments. The scale and influence of such a mainstream asset class makes it tremendously important for students interested in entering the investment field to be able to spot opportunities to actively engage as shareholders,” said Nicole Torrico, a Program Manager at the Intentional Endowments Network.  “By growing this skill set, students now and in their future careers will be able to achieve positive impact at scale while improving the financial performance of their investments.” 

Each student team worked throughout the year to write an investment recommendation that included an investment thesis, financial model and valuation, quantitative ESG research and analysis, market and sector analysis with comparison to industry peers, risk identification, and a proposed shareholder engagement strategy to address an identified risk area.

While each team’s written recommendation was impressive, the judges noted that identifying a company with financial growth potential that is well positioned for ESG opportunity, not just risk management --  and focusing on SASB as a framework for ESG analysis -- made the University of California, Berkeley’s investment recommendation stand out as exceptional. Additionally, focusing on a company that is smaller in size and at the beginning of its ESG journey provides an opportunity for more significant and impactful shareholder influence. IEN released a video announcing the winning team here.

“I was very glad to participate in the inaugural competition, and was blown away by the shareholder engagement recommendations in particular,” said Gabe Rissman, co-founder and president of YourStake.org, and one of the competition judges. “ The student teams presented engagement theses that will create positive societal impact and enhance shareholder value. Corporate management should listen closely.”

Shareholder engagement has become a greater area of focus for IEN. In addition to hosting this competition, over the past year, IEN re-launched a shareholder engagement working group and collaborated with Warren Wilson College on an engagement strategy that resulted in the co-filing of 3 shareholder resolutions by the college. “Increasingly, college and universities are interested in dialogue, engagement, and proxy voting as a means of effecting more forward thinking company strategy around the climate and inequality challenges we face,” said Alice DonnaSelva, Managing Director of the Intentional Endowments Network.

This competition is part of the ongoing programming efforts of IEN’s SIILK Network, a peer learning network of students, faculty, and staff involved with student-managed investment funds and finance curriculum focused on sustainable, ESG, and impact investing. SIILK members connect to scale the uptake of sustainable investing education at colleges and universities across the country, build strong bridges between endowment investing and student-managed funds, and grow the talent pipeline, with an emphasis on bringing more women and people of color into the industry. 

For more information, visit SIILKnetwork.org or contact Nicole Torrico at [email protected].

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TIFF's 2021 Sustainability Report - TIFF

We maintain an archive of over 80 past IEN webinars, available to IEN members here.