Brandeis International Business School
Our experts will share both practical and academic insights about the historical performance and current trends shaping major university endowments.
Soon after graduating from Brandeis in 1984, Leslie Aronzon earned an MBA and finished at the top of her class at the University of Southern California. She joined Houlihan, Lokey, Howard & Zukin, where she served as a vice president and specialized in bankruptcies and distressed mergers and acquisitions.
Since leaving the firm several years ago, Aronzon devotes all of her time to her family, her children’s schools and a variety of philanthropic endeavors, including the Jewish Free Loan Association of Los Angeles.
Aronzon currently serves on the Boards of Trustees of Brandeis University. She has hosted many Brandeis events at her home in Los Angeles and generously supports the Aronzon Family Scholarship and the Alumni Annual Fund.
Professor Dimson chairs the Centre for Endowment Asset Management at Cambridge Judge Business School. His research is on long-horizon investment and responsible investing; his publications are on active ownership, investment management, endowment strategy, ESG investing and financial history. His books include Triumph of the Optimists and Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2021 (both with Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton), Financial Market History (with David Chambers) and Endowment Asset Management (with Shanta Acharya).
Dimson’s recent articles are on endowment strategy (Financial Analysts Journal), art investment (Review of Asset Pricing Studies), ESG ratings (Journal of Portfolio Management), exclusionary screening (Journal of ESG Investing) and fossil-fuel divestment (Journal of Investing). Other articles are on active ownership (Review of Financial Studies), real assets (Journal of Financial Economics), financial history (Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis), factor investing (Journal of Portfolio Management) and various case studies (Harvard).
Dimson chairs the Advisory and Policy Boards of FTSE Russell. He is on the Supervisory Council of the Geneva Finance Research Institute, the Review Board of the CFA Institute and the Investment Committee of Caius College, Cambridge. Previously he chaired the Strategy Council of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund and was a Professor and Governor at London Business School. He is a Fellow of CFA UK, the Institute of Actuaries, the Royal Historical Society, the Risk Institute at Ohio State University and Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge.
Nicholas A. Warren joined the Office of Investment Management at Brandeis University in January 2011 as the Chief Investment Officer.
Nicholas was previously a managing director with Cambridge Associates, having joined in 2003. Prior to that he worked as an investment analyst at Northwestern University's Investment Office.
Nicholas received a BA in anthropology from Northwestern University in 1996 and an MBA from the University of Chicago in 2003. He became a CFA® charterholder in 2000.
Nicholas serves on the board and is the Chair of the Investment Committee for the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.
Hear from Brandeis International Business School alumni working at the International Monetary Fund, United Nations and World Bank.
Andrea Dore is the head of funding in the Capital Markets and Investments Department of the World Bank. She joined the Bank in 1998 and has worked in a number of units in the Bank’s Treasury, including pension, cash management, operational risk and structured products. Andrea’s current responsibilities include managing the World Bank’s funding program and strategy in several of the major currency markets and the emerging markets. She is responsible for the issuance of the World Bank’s benchmark bonds in a wide range of currencies and markets including Canada. Additionally, Andrea worked on setting up the infrastructure for the World Bank Green Bond Program. She has also managed several projects focused on strengthening the controls and monitoring of operational risk across the World Bank’s finance complex.
Prior to joining the World Bank, Andrea worked at the St. Lucia Development Bank for six years, first in the Accounting Department and then in the Projects Department managing a portfolio of the bank’s development projects.
Andrea is a Fulbright Scholarship recipient and holds an MA in Finance and Economics from Brandeis University and an MSc in Information and Telecommunication Systems from John Hopkins University in Baltimore. She is also a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).
Peter A. Petri is the Carl J. Shapiro Professor of International Finance at Brandeis International Business School. From 1994 to 2006 he served as the founding Dean and from 2016 to 2018 as the Interim Dean of the school. He is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and its John L. Thornton China Center (Washington), and a Visiting Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (Washington).
Petri has held appointments as Visiting Scholar or Professor at the OECD (Paris), Keio University (Tokyo), Fudan University (Shanghai) and Peking University (Beijing), and as a Fulbright Research Scholar and Brookings Policy Fellow. He has consulted for APEC, the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank Institute, the World Bank, the OECD, the United Nations and the governments of the United States and other countries. He is or has been a member of the editorial boards of the ASEAN Economic Bulletin, Journal of Asian Economics, Journal of East Asian Economic Integration and the Singapore Economic Review. He is active in US-Asia affairs and is a member of the Board of the U.S. Asia Pacific Council and a former Chair of the U.S. APEC Study Centers Consortium.
Petri's research focuses on international trade, finance, investment and technological competition with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region. His work has been supported by the U.S. Departments of State, Education, and Health and Human Services, and by the World Bank, the United Nations and major foundations.
Elida Reci is an Economist working for the United Nations Department for Social and Economic Affairs/UNDESA/NY at the intersection of governance, financing for development, technology, and innovation. She is a regular contributor to several UN publications such as UN E-Government Survey, World Public Sector Report, World Social and Economic Survey, Interagency Task Force on Financing for Development, etc, where she has written on issues related to digital transformation and frontier technologies, innovation, climate change and disaster risk reduction, institutional frameworks and financing for sustainable development. Her work has led Elida from Latin America and the Caribbean, to Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and Asia contributing to institutional and regulatory frameworks on sustainable development.
Elida joined UNDESA after 18 years of working experience as a senior economic advisor to the Prim Minister of Albania, a former Director at the Albanian Ministry of Finance and a founder of Public Private Finance Institute. During her career, she has been advising and working closely with parliaments, governments, civil society, and business communities on a wide range of issues from international trade and FDI, public financial management, ICT for development and innovation. She was part of the Stability Pact Initiative for Western Balkans (1999-2005) with Economic Table II as a senior regional expert, where she closely cooperated with a number of international and regional organizations, such as IMF, WB, UNDP, UNCTAD, EBRD, OECD, etc.
Elida is a Fulbright Scholar. She holds a MA in International Economics and Finance from Brandeis University, USA and a BA in Finance from Tirana University, Albania. Elida has taught international trade and development economics at Tirana University. Since 2020 she serves a four-year term as a Member of International Advisory Panel of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIFPA).
Olaf Unteroberdoerster is currently a division chief in the IMF’s Finance Department. His areas of responsibility include the IMF’s general resources consisting of quotas and borrowings with a total lending capacity of about US$ 1 trillion, review of lending to member countries and associated financial risks for the IMF, and Special Drawing Rights (SDR) policies. He previously worked on the IMF’s confessional resources and lending for the benefit of about 70 low-income member countries. Prior to joining the Finance Department, Olaf worked in the IMF’s Middle East, Asia and Pacific, and Strategy, Policy and Review Departments. He holds a PhD in international economics and finance from Brandeis University.
A discussion focused on environmental investing and the broader topic of sustainability with perspectives from a panel of investment pioneers across the public and private markets.
Rob Brown is the Co-Founder and Senior Partner of Atlas Impact Partners, an investment firm managing a long/short equity strategy focused solely on impact investing. Atlas Impact is dedicated to generating exceptional returns by owning only those companies whose products and services directly enable solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges in the environment, food systems and human health and welfare, and making short investments only in those companies whose products and services directly cause such problems.
Prior to founding Atlas Impact, Rob was Head of Research at JUST Capital, where he led the team which developed and implemented the inaugural ranking of America's Most JUST Companies. Previously, Rob was Senior Portfolio Manager for AllianceBernstein and Head of Equity Research for Nomura Securities International. Earlier, he worked at Morgan Stanley in senior leadership roles globally; in his last position, Rob was responsible for the Global Macro Research team. Rob started his career as an economist at Bankers Trust.
Rob is a passionate supporter of educational opportunity as a driver of social justice. He currently serves as an executive board member of the READ Foundation, a member of the Advisory Board of Brandeis International Business School, and was previously a member of the Advisory Board of List College at Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary. Rob lectures at Yale University School of Management on issues of impact measurement and assessment, is a member of the investment board for the Michael Price Fund at New York University and a former member of the investment committee for the endowment at Brandeis University.
He earned a BA, cum laude, in Economics and an MA in International Economics from Brandeis, with joint course work in econometrics at the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics at Universityé catholique de Louvain in Belgium.
Co-founder and CIO of Terra Alpha Investments LLC. Our investment firm brings deep experience as professional investors along with science-based understanding of the risks and opportunities facing businesses in our natural resource constrained world. We believe that our two propriety research frameworks of Enduring Business Models and Environmental Productivity allow us to identify companies which will deliver superior financial returns while helping to shape a truly sustainable economic system.
My 19 years working at one of the world's largest and most respected investment management firms taught me how to build a strong, collaborative team and how to invest others' money in a careful and disciplined manner. At Capital Research I was a lead manager in several of the largest global equity funds and I oversaw the global research clusters. Our Terra Alpha team has over 80 years of collective investment experience.
My years working with environmental organizations taught me about the limits of our natural systems and the real threats our current economic system are creating. And it gave me insights into the growing cache of environmental data and information available to assist businesses and investors to make improved decisions. We collaborate and partner with some of the world's leading environmental organizations.
Our capital markets can, and must, properly price our natural resources if we are going to shift our economy to a sustainable basis. Terra Alpha Investments' active investment process, our corporate engagement work and our public advocacy initiatives help make that happen.
Dimple Sahni is an Impact Investing Managing Director at Anthos Asset Management. She is responsible for originating investments, managing relationships and helping to execute strategies for the portfolios at Anthos Asset Management, a 100-year-old large single family office dedicated to impact investing across all asset classes. This includes a global, private, impact investing fund focused on measurable, positive social and environmental returns alongside financial returns, with the aim to promote human dignity and social justice.
Originally from India, Dimple is an experienced investment professional – with over 20 years of experience in impact investing, investment banking, technology, emerging markets and venture capital – who began her career in finance working for Goldman Sachs. She then launched a social enterprise focused on education, Epylon, which was later sold to Accenture. After working at L Capital Partners in its technology, energy and environment practice where she was a Kauffman Fellow, she shifted to impact investing at the Omidyar Network, Pierre Omiydar’s philanthropic investment arm. She continued her impact investing career with Unilever Corporate Ventures on its exploration of emerging Asia. Most recently she was fund principal at the Hattery, an early stage impact investing and design firm which was sold to Google.
Dimple holds an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School and a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago. Based in Amsterdam, she is bilingual and a dual citizen of India and the U.S.
Senior Fellow at Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and Adjunct Professor of Sustainable Finance
Dr. Aniket Shah has spent his career at the intersection of business, academia and international institutions.
Aniket is currently a Senior Fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, where he leads the organization's efforts on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment research in the public and private sectors. He was previously the Head of Sustainability and ESG Research- Americas, at UBS.
Aniket serves on the International Board of Amnesty International, and previously served as the Chair of the Board of Amnesty International USA from 2017-2018. He is a member of the World Wildlife Fund USA National Advisory Council and The Economic Club of New York. He is a graduate of Yale College and the University of Oxford.