Capital Series: Ian Smith, The Nature Conservancy

Ian Smith is the Director of Investments at The Nature Conservancy (TNC), where his primary responsibilities include managing due diligence, research and portfolio oversight across public equity, fixed income, and impact and diversity offerings. TNC is a global environmental nonprofit working to create a world where people and nature can thrive. They were founded in the US through grassroots organizing in 1951, and they've grown to become one of the most effective and wide-reaching environmental organizations in the world. As a formidable force in the NGO world, TNC also has a pretty big endowment and they're investing that endowment as good fiduciaries to generate market-beating returns, but they also have this broader mission to reckon with as an organization. This makes for a fascinating conversation that digs into how TNC handles balancing impact and profit, and how they think about climate investing, private investing, and investing in general.