Industry Collaboration
Vijay Advani was most recently the Executive Chairman of Nuveen, the investment management arm of TIAA. He was responsible for Nuveen’s strategy, distribution and operations, as well as the investment affiliates that comprise Nuveen’s multi-boutique structure. Before joining Nuveen in 2017, Vijay was Co-President of Franklin Templeton Investments, where in a career of more than 20 years he was responsible for long-term strategic initiatives and the firm’s investment management, trading and global retail and institutional channels. Prior to joining Franklin Templeton, Vijay spent 11 years at the World Bank advising governments on developing their financial markets and arranging equity, quasi-equity and debt financing. He worked in several emerging economies in the former Soviet Union, Asia, Middle East and Africa.
Vijay is a member of the Board of Governors of the Investment Company Institute ( ICI), board member at Jumpstart and the U.S. – India Business Council (USIBC). He is also an advisory board member for The Hive Incubator in Palo Alto, advisory council member of DocuSign in San Francisco, charter member of TiE Silicon Valley and past board member of the U.S. – India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) and the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania. Vijay is a committee member of the San Francisco-Bangalore Sister City Initiative, member of the India Advisory Committee and Investment Committee at the Santa Clara University (SCU) and former board member of Lok Foundation. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mumbai and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Dr Ben Caldecott is the founding Director of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group at the University of Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. At the University of Oxford, he is the inaugural Lombard Odier Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow of Sustainable Finance, the first ever endowed professorship of sustainable finance, and a Supernumerary Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford. Ben is also the founding Director and Principal Investigator of the UK Centre for Greening Finance & Investment (CGFI), established by UK Research and Innovation in 2021 as the national centre to accelerate the adoption and use of climate and environmental data and analytics by financial institutions internationally.
He has conceived and initiated a number of initiatives related to sustainable finance. Ben founded and is Co-Chair of the Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment (GRASFI), an alliance of global research universities promoting rigorous and impactful academic research on sustainable finance. He established and leads the Sustainable Finance Theme at The Alan Turing Institute and initiated the Spatial Finance Initiative, which aims to mainstream geospatial capabilities enabled by space technology and data science into financial decision-making globally. He co-founded and serves on the board of the Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI), which is examining the legal basis for directors and trustees to consider, manage, and report on climate-related risk, and the circumstances in which they may be liable for failing to do so. He established and is the Faculty Chair of the Public and Third Sector Academy for Sustainable Finance at the University of Oxford, a global centre of learning on sustainable finance for the public and third sectors. Ben is a Co-Investigator for the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery where he co-leads its work on finance.
Mindy Lubber is the CEO and President of the sustainability nonprofit organization Ceres. She has been at the helm since 2003, and under her leadership, the organization and its powerful networks have grown significantly in size and influence. As a well-known global thought leader, Mindy has inspired coalitions of institutional investors, corporate boards, C-suite executives and capital market leaders to factor sustainability risks and opportunities into decision-making. She regularly speaks to high-level world and national political leaders on clean energy and water policies, and has helped to change the political conversation around tackling climate change to one focused on jobs and the economy. She has received numerous awards for her leadership. In 2020, Lubber received the 'Champions of the Earth' award - the highest environmental honor from the United Nations. In the same year, Lubber made Barron’s Magazine’s inaugural list of the 100 most influential women in U.S. finance and was again a member of the list in 2021.
Prior to Ceres, Mindy served as a Regional Administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under former President Bill Clinton. She also founded Green Century Capital Management and served as the director of the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG).
Theresa J. Whitmarsh is the former Chief Executive Officer of the Washington State Investment Board (WSIB), one of the United States’ leading institutional investors, managing over $185 billion of state pension, insurance, and other assets. She joined the WSIB in 2003 as Chief Operating Officer and was named CEO in 2009, a position she held through 2021.
Theresa serves on a number of industry boards and advisory councils. She is Chair of FCLTGlobal, Co-Chair of the Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership and serves as a director on the board of IFM Investors. She holds advisory roles with several asset management firms. She will join the board of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) in April, 2022.
Prior to her time with the WSIB, Theresa had 20 years of experience in business, government, and media. She has a Master of Business Administration from Pacific Lutheran University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Seattle Pacific University.
Theresa is a past Chair of the Council of Institutional Investors and the Pacific Pension & Investment Institute, and she is also a former director of the International Centre for Pension Management, and a former external advisor on the ABP Investment Committee. She was a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Long Term Investing and an active contributor to WEF initiatives.
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The year 2020 represents the first year that asset managers became eligible for PRI Leader designation, which formerly included asset owners only. The new designation was awarded to only 20 of the 2100+ investment manager PRI signatories. The Leaders’ Group showcases signatories at the cutting edge of responsible investment, and highlights trends in what they are doing. PRI uses signatories’ reporting responses and assessment data to identify those that are doing excellent work in responsible investment – across their organizations and with a focus on a given theme each year. The 2020 theme is climate reporting. Information about PRI Leader is sourced entirely from PRI and Neuberger Berman makes no representations, warranties or opinions based on that information.
In our 2021 PRI Assessment, we obtained the highest possible scoring1 across all categories for our approach to ESG for the third year in a row.
In the current reporting cycle, the PRI adopted a new, more stringent assessment methodology. Neuberger Berman earned 5 Stars across every asset category2 in which it reported and rated above the median in every category. In addition to scoring the best possible ranking across all asset classes, the firm also obtained the highest possible score in PRI’s new private debt category and its overarching Investment & Stewardship Policy category.
| 2021 | ||
| Neuberger Berman | Median of All Reporting Signatories | |
| Investment & Stewardship Policy | 5 Stars | 3 Stars |
| Direct | ||
| Listed Equity – Active Quantitative – Incorporation | 5 Stars | 3 Stars |
| Listed Equity – Active Fundamental – Incorporation | 5 Stars | 4 Stars |
| Listed Equity – Voting | 5 Stars | 3 Stars |
| Fixed Income – SSA | 5 Stars | 3 Stars |
| Fixed Income – Corporate | 5 Stars | 3 Stars |
| Fixed Income – Securitized | 5 Stars | 3 Stars |
| Fixed Income - Private Debt | 5 Stars | 4 Stars |
| Indirect | ||
| Private Equity | 5 Stars | 3 Stars |
See Neuberger Berman's Historical PRI Assessment Scores
1For illustrative and discussion purposes only. PRI grades are based on information reported directly by PRI signatories, of which investment managers totaled 3,404 for 2021, 1,924 for 2020, and 1,119 for 2019. Note that scores for the 2021 reporting cycle cannot be compared to previous years due to the change in PRI assessment methodology. Framework. Unlike previous years, the indicator scores are assigned one of five performance bands (from 1 to 5 stars) instead of six performance bands (from A+ to E). All PRI signatories are eligible to participate and must complete a questionnaire to be included. The underlying information submitted by signatories is not audited by the PRI or any other party acting on its behalf. Signatories report on their responsible investment activities by responding to asset-specific modules in the Reporting Framework. Each module houses a variety of indicators that address specific topics of responsible investment. Signatories’ answers are then assessed and results are compiled into an Assessment Report. The Assessment Report includes indicator scores, summarizing the individual scores achieved and comparing them to the median; section scores, grouping similar indicator scores together into categories (e.g. policy, assurance, governance) and comparing them to the median; module scores, aggregating all the indicator scores within a module to assign one of six performance bands (from E to A+). Awards and ratings referenced do not reflect the experiences of any Neuberger Berman client and readers should not view such information as representative of any particular client’s experience or assume that they will have a similar investment experience as any previous or existing client. Awards and ratings are not indicative of the past or future performance of any Neuberger Berman product or service. Moreover, the underlying information has not been audited by the PRI or any other party acting on its behalf. While every effort has been made to produce a fair representation of performance, no representations or warranties are made as to the accuracy of the information presented, and no responsibility or liability can be accepted for damage caused by use of or reliance on the information contained within this report. Information about PRI grades is sourced entirely from PRI and Neuberger Berman makes no representations, warranties or opinions based on that information.
2For illustrative and discussion purposes only. Awards and ratings referenced do not reflect the experiences of any Neuberger Berman client and readers should not view such information as representative of any particular client’s experience or assume that they will have a similar investment experience as any previous or existing client. Awards and ratings are not indicative of the past or future performance of any Neuberger Berman product or service. Moreover, the underlying information has not been audited by the PRI or any other party acting on its behalf. While every effort has been made to produce a fair representation of performance, no representations or warranties are made as to the accuracy of the information presented, and no responsibility or liability can be accepted for damage caused by use of or reliance on the information contained within this report. Information about PRI grades is sourced entirely from PRI and Neuberger Berman makes no representations, warranties or opinions based on that information.
