The Fuqua Sustainable Impact Student Investment Fund is a student-run fund seeking to responsibly invest in long-hold public equities that further issues of integrity, equity, environmental stewardship, social awareness, ethics, and good governance. The assets under management total approximately $300,000, held in a mixture of stocks and ETFs.
The goal of the Fuqua Impact Fund is to prepare students at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business to effectively use investing to protect the environment and advance a more just world by:
- Giving students the opportunity to actively invest funds in public equities through an ESG lens
- Educating students about capital allocation and impact measurement and management
- Serving as a ground for experimentation in cutting-edge ESG, sustainable, and impact investing strategies
A history of student investment at Fuqua
Fuqua’s Sustainable Impact Student Investment Fund traces its origins to the philanthropic generosity of a local businessman who, in 1952, provided Duke University’s Department of Economics and Business Administration with a corpus of funds with which current students could augment their coursework in Finance through investment in a portfolio of publicly traded stocks. In 1970, oversight and students’ annual engagement with the fund transitioned to the Graduate School of Business Administration, later to become The Fuqua School of Business.
A student-led investment process
Each year CASE i3 manages the selection of two second-year student Fund Managers. The Fund Managers recruit and select a team of first- and second-year students in the fall to the Fund Team. The Fund Team conducts equity research, analyzes Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors, and presents investment pitches to the student-led investment committee.
Student involvement in the fund is overseen by faculty and staff from CASE and Fuqua’s Office of Experiential Learning. Students receive course credit for their work with the fund. Students interested in joining the Fuqua Impact Fund should attend the annual CASE Information Session in early fall to learn about the application process.
Accessing advice from CASE’s network of investment professionals
The Fund Team leverages the expertise of a small group of external investment professionals, many of them Duke alumni, who share their feedback on evaluating and managing investments in public equities.
Current fund advisors:
Tuokpe Ajuyah, Fuqua MBA 2019
Head of ESG and Impact Investments at Crewcial Partners
Caroline Brady
Director of Impact Management & Research, Fundamental Equity at BlackRock
Alex Hokason
Managing Director at Tiedemann Advisors
Kelly Ko, Fuqua MBA 1986
CFA, Faculty at California State University – Fullerton, Retired Partner & PM at Lombardia Capital Partners
Roraj Pradhananga, Fuqua MBA 2016
Managing Director of Research at Veris Wealth Management
Kevin Walenta, Fuqua MBA 2008
CFA, Portfolio Manager at Fidelity Environmental and Alt Energy Fund
John Buley
Professor of the Practice in Finance at Fuqua, former Managing Director at J.P. Morgan