Capital for Good

Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change
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Capital for Good

We find ourselves at a moment of unprecedented challenge – and opportunity.  While the COVID-19 health, economic, and racial crises have laid bare and exacerbated any number of structural inequalities, and global climate change remains an existential – and very urgent – threat, they also compel us to reimagine how leaders across the private, nonprofit, and public sectors can champion social and environmental change in ways that truly advance shared prosperity and a sustainable future.   Presented by the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change at Columbia Business School, Capital for Good provides a window into this reimagined future: a chance to hear from corporate and civic leaders about their visions, plans, commitments, and on-the ground efforts to build a more just, inclusive, and sustainable society. Through in depth and candid conversations, we will explore and unpack solutions to some of our most urgent challenges.    Can business be a force for good? What is stakeholder capitalism? What is the role of capital markets and philanthropy along the pathways to inclusive growth? How do we encourage and scale grassroots and broad-based innovation? How can public private partnerships help bring all of our resources and ingenuity to bear?   About the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change The institute educates leaders to use business knowledge, entrepreneurial skills, and management tools to address social and environmental challenges.   About the Host Georgia Levenson Keohane is a seasoned executive in the private and nonprofit sectors at the intersection of capital markets, responsible investing and business, and philanthropy and public policy; an award winning author; and an adjunct professor of social enterprise at Columbia Business School.

  1. Kevin Ryan, the Godfather of NYC Tech

    5D AGO

    Kevin Ryan, the Godfather of NYC Tech

    In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Kevin Ryan, one of New York’s leading internet entrepreneurs and investors, and often called the “Godfather of NYC tech.” Ryan is a co-founder of MongoDB, Business Insider, Gilt Groupe, Zola, Pearl Health, and Transcend Therapeutics, and every year founds and invests in new companies through AlleyCorp, the New York based venture fund and incubator. Ryan is also one of New York’s driving civic leaders, serving as vice chair of the Partnership for New York City, a founding board member of Tech:NYC, and a gubernatorial appointee to numerous commissions focused on New York’s economic and civic health and well-being. We begin with Ryan’s early and pioneering days as a 1990s internet entrepreneur. As the president of DoubleClick, he grew the company in two years to 2,000 people across 25 countries, took it public, navigated the dotcom bust and sold it to Google in 2007. We discuss AlleyCorp’s unusual model as early-stage investor and incubator, and Ryan describes AlleyCorp’s most recent investment vertical, economic infrastructure, focused on the economic mobility of low- or middle-income Americans: “the 80% of families who power our economy.” This has meant identifying and backing entrepreneurs pursuing innovations in health equity, fintech, and workforce development with companies like Patch Caregiving, a first of its kind employer sponsored emergency childcare provider for frontline workers. We also explore the growth and vibrancy of New York’s tech industry. New York City is one of the world’s fastest growing and most valuable technology hubs, and Ryan explains how and why it powers the local and regional economy, and measures the city and state can take to continue to foster the ecosystem and its critical contributions to New York’s dynamism and social fabric. Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu.  Mentioned in this podcast: AlleyCorp Patch Caregiving Partnership for New York City Tech:NYC “Empire AI”: New York State AI Consortium

    26 min
  2. Maria Teresa Kumar: We Market Democracy Every Single Day

    MAY 29

    Maria Teresa Kumar: We Market Democracy Every Single Day

    In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Maria Teresa Kumar, the nationally celebrated social entrepreneur, civic and political operative, journalist, commentator and co-founder and CEO of Voto Latino, the nation’s largest Latino voter registration organization.  We begin by discussing some of the formative experiences that shaped Kumar’s passion for politics and civic engagement, including her childhood in a bicultural family and community in Northern California, where she learned how to navigate and bridge difference, real and perceived, to find common cause. In these years and environment, shaped in part by Prop 187 and anti-immigrant sentiment and policy, Kumar learned first-hand how young people in Latino and other immigrant households were critical to mobilizing their families and communities — to become citizens and voters — and in the process dramatically shift electoral outcomes to better reflect community needs.  In 2004, with the recognition that Latinos were the second largest demographic group in the country, Kumar and Rosario Dawson founded Voto Latino, centering voter mobilization efforts on young people, and using technology and other pop culture and media tools “to market democracy every single day.” In the twenty years since, Voto Latino has registered over two million voters and played a central role in flipping a number of swing states in various elections. We cover the 2024 election, and the widely held interpretation that Latino voters’ shift to the right contributed to the election of Donald Trump. Kumar notes that while some Latino voters did shift right, many more stayed home in 2024 (38 percent) than in 2020 (27 percent). She believes this reflects broader anxiety and frustration; Latinos, who disproportionately bore the economic toll of the pandemic, and have continued to struggle with persistent affordability challenges and unresolved immigration reform, did not see their needs adequately addressed by either party. Today, Kumar suggests that most Latinos, even those who voted for Trump, believe the President has gone too far, a sentiment reflected in recent survey data from Voto Latino and the Latino Community Foundation. Looking ahead, Kumar argues that it is critical to re-engage voters, and to use “culture at scale” — thoughtful conversations, podcasts, influencers, other creative engagement tools, to address needs and “remind people that when they participate government does work, government can be kind, and it’s the will of the people.” She also notes that at this moment it is critical for citizens to hold government accountable. “2024 was really painful,” Kumar says. “We’re feeling what happens when we don’t participate. But 2026 is right around the corner… We have the ability to inspire, aspire, and to imagine getting to that more perfect union. And that takes all of us.” Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu.  Mentioned in this podcast: Voto Latino Survey Data and Report, (Voto Latino and Latino Community Foundation, 2025)

    30 min
  3. Looking to the Horizon With Goldman Sachs Alternatives’ Greg Shell

    MAY 15

    Looking to the Horizon With Goldman Sachs Alternatives’ Greg Shell

    In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Greg Shell, a seasoned investor, civic leader, and partner at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, where he leads the firm’s inclusive growth strategy. Over the course of the conversation, we discuss how Shell’s three decades and expertise in investing, and his commitments to creating opportunity and greater economic and social mobility, for many years pursued through board leadership and community and nonprofit engagement, have come together in impact investing, first at Bain Capital, and now at Goldman Sachs Alternatives.  Shell explains that he believes deeply in the power of capitalism — the power of the profit model to drive innovation, opportunities for ownership and wealth building, economic growth — and that the current system is failing to deliver broad based economic and social mobility. He notes that stagnant wages, growing income and wealth inequality, and deep and real economic insecurity, are all profound challenges, but ones that must and can be addressed.  “Our economy would be bigger and faster growing if more people could participate and contribute fully,” Shell says. This is also the thesis of the private equity strategy he leads at Goldman Sachs Alternatives that invests into affordable and high-quality health care, education and workforce development, and financial inclusion. In each vertical, Shell’s team identifies companies that focus on remedying exclusion as social and economic challenge and market opportunity, where need drives demand, innovation expands access, and both lead to social impact and strong business fundamentals. We walk through two portfolio examples in education (online literacy intervention) and health care (autism services).  Despite the turbulence of the current environment, Shell is optimistic. “Human capital is the first, best and greatest asset we have,” he says. “Investing in human capital is always the right decision, and if we do it the right way” can deliver extraordinary returns, on every dimension. Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu.  Mentioned in this Episode Goldman Sachs Inclusive Growth

    30 min
  4. Anna-Lisa Miller and Ownership Works: Reimagining Equity to Build Wealth for All

    MAY 1

    Anna-Lisa Miller and Ownership Works: Reimagining Equity to Build Wealth for All

    In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Anna-Lisa Miller, the Executive Director of Ownership Works, and a long time advocate of economic inclusion, empowerment and mobility.  Miller started her career in corporate law at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, and transitioned to the nonprofit sector – the Kohala Center and Project Equity – to pursue her passion for creating opportunities that uplift workers and families.  Today, at Ownership Works, she leads an organization and movement focused on employee ownerships models that “reimagine equity to build wealth for all.”  In 2024, Miller was named as one of Business Insider’s top 10 business leaders spearheading industry-transforming change. In this wide ranging interview, we learn how Miller’s commitment to finding pathways to economic opportunity and mobility for workers and families is rooted in her childhood experiences; she moved to the U.S. at a young age and was raised by a single mother who rebuilt her career as a nurse, supporting three children paycheck to paycheck -- and never far from financial insecurity.  Trained as a corporate lawyer, Miller moved into the nonprofit sector to test various models of employee ownership and economic mobility before meeting Pete Stavros, who had been successfully experimenting with owner equity in various portfolio companies he oversaw at KKR.  Both understood the broader potential of the approach as a way to build employee wealth and improve business performance, and in 2021 formally launched Ownership Works (OW).  Today, with 30 employees, nearly 100 partners (including 37 private equity firms, publicly traded companies, professional service firms, institutional investors, labor groups and foundations), and 130 companies across a wide range of industries implementing the model, OW aims to create $30 billion in wealth by 2030 and create proof points that influence how companies across the private sector harness the power of employee engagement and ownership. Miller walks us through various components of the OW model, sharing the example of Charter Next Generation, an Illinois manufacturing company that has used employee ownership to improve substantially employee engagement, retention and company profitability.  She hopes that the long-standing bipartisan support for employee ownership as a path to economic inclusion and opportunity serves the movement well in this moment.  In the meantime, she and OW are focused on collecting additional data and case studies that demonstrate employee ownership’s value and feasibility, to encourage broader adoption and new norms in business.  “You hear a lot about win-wins,” Miller says.  “This truly is.” Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu.  Mentioned in this podcast: Ownership Works Private Equity Is Starting to Share With Workers, Without Taking a Financial Hit New York Times January 2024 Charter Next Generation: Follow a Real Life Journey to Shared Ownership

    33 min
  5. Tom Steyer: Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War

    APR 17

    Tom Steyer: Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War

    In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with veteran investor and climate activist Tom Steyer. Over twenty-five years, Steyer founded and ran Farallon Capital Management, a $36 billion multi-strategy global investment firm. In 2012 he stepped away from Farallon to dedicate his time, resources, and energy to mobilizing climate action: clean air and energy initiatives in California; climate focused ballot initiatives in numerous states; youth voter engagement and mobilization (NextGen America); and a 2020 Presidential run largely focused on the climate crisis. Today, Steyer is the co-executive chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, a climate-focused investment firm, and the author of Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War. We begin the interview by discussing Steyer’s parents, both civically engaged members of the Greatest Generation. In his father’s case, a lawyer who served in the Navy and then as a prosecutor at Nuremberg. Steyer describes World War II as a crucible moment for Americans — galvanizing collective action and a sense of being part of something larger than oneself. For Steyer, the climate fight is a similar calling. We discuss why, despite current political headwinds, the momentum behind the climate revolution — the transition to net zero via the development and adoption of low carbon technologies — is very much alive, well, and accelerating. In Steyer’s view, this is because of the dramatic decline in costs of renewables — solar and wind are now the cheapest forms of energy — and because applied technologies like batteries and electric vehicles continue to improve in quality and cost, driving demand. “This is not eat your gruel,” he says. “It’s cheaper, faster, better. When you put eight billion people on a problem, they solve it.” We also explore promising new technologies coming on-line, from geothermal energy and AI optimization of the electric grid to geosynthetic seawalls. While these new technologies will enable the transition, Steyer notes that “climate capitalism” also requires new rules and policies to speed innovation and deployment; ultimately this means paying for carbon pollution. He argues that despite objections to the idea of a “tax,” people are already paying — in the form of destruction to homes, businesses, livelihoods, health — though often it is the most vulnerable, those who have contributed the least to the problem, in the United States and around the world, who bear the cost.   We conclude with a call to action. Historically, Steyer reminds us, “we’ve chosen to do the right things, even when they’re hard, and that has always paid off for us, and it will always pay off for us. That is who we are, and that is where this world is going. This revolution is happening. Our job, as Americans, is to be at the forefront.”  Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu.  Mentioned in this podcast: Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War, (Spiegel and Grau, 2024)

    33 min
  6. Michael Posner, Conscience Incorporated: The Role of Business and Investment in Protecting Human Rights

    APR 3

    Michael Posner, Conscience Incorporated: The Role of Business and Investment in Protecting Human Rights

    In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Michael Posner, the Jerome Kohlberg Professor of Ethics and Finance at NYU’s Stern School of Business, director of the school’s Center for Business and Human Rights, a long-time leader in the field, luminary thinker, advocate, former State Department Official, and the author of the new book, Conscience Incorporated. We begin with Posner’s early interests in international human rights issues, sparked in law school when he was tasked with investigating atrocities in Uganda under Idi Amin. He lays out the principals of early, post-World War II and UN inspired human rights law focused on universality, and the responsibility of governments to promote, protect and enforce human rights. Notably absent from this early framework is the role of business. Posner explains that his interest in the intersection of human rights took shape when he began to observe that large multinational corporations had a critical role to play, particularly when they operated in weak states that lacked the ability to protect human rights. We discuss why companies should care, fundamentally, about human rights on ethical dimensions (“outsourcing might be a smart business strategy, but you can’t outsource responsibility if you’re the main economic beneficiary,”) and because there are material costs that can arise from irresponsible practices, often reputational crises and/or regulation. We explore the deficiencies of various business frameworks: how and why Milton Friedman’s shareholder primacy worldview fails to account for environmental and social externalities and a broader set of stakeholders; how and why ESG conflate environmental and social considerations and emphasize risk rather than meaningful performance on issues like climate change or worker protections. Posner suggests that this moment of backlash against all things ESG, DEI and “woke capitalism” offers us an opportunity to do better. We touch on sometimes complex tensions between climate change and human rights concerns, acknowledging that climate change can only be solved if we transition to a lower carbon economy, with the scale up of renewable energy and the development of technologies like electric vehicles, which in turn rely on things like batteries. We know that today batteries are reliant on inputs like critical minerals, long mined in ways and places rife with human rights challenges, and today often controlled by Chinese companies. China is also the world’s largest and lowest cost producer of solar panels, and much of that production occurs in Xinjiang, with forced labor of the Uyghur ethnic minority. Posner discusses a number of ways to better integrate climate and human rights considerations. Before opening the floor to audience questions, we discuss the evolution of technology and human rights issues. When Posner was at the State Department from 2010 to 2012, he had a front tow seat to the Arab Spring and the “Facebook Revolution,” witnessing how activists used social media to fight authoritarianism. Although he says he still believes in the power of technology to open up political discourse, he has become much more concerned about issues of data privacy, surveillance, harmful violent and incendiary content, information and disinformation, and ways in which companies try to shield themselves with first amendment (to which they are not legally subject) to avoid more vigorous content moderation or human rights engagement. We conclude with the role of corporate leaders when it comes to human rights. While Posner notes he is typically conservative about how much executives should speak out on specific issues, he believes strongly that “business leaders need to be attentive and active if there are fundamental threats to our democracy.” This episode of Capital for Good was recorded as part of Social Impact Week 2025, a week of social impact-related events for the Columbia Business School community, organized by the Social Enterprise Club, Green Business Club, Community Impact Club, and LEO Impact Fund. Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu.  Mentioned in this Episode Conscience Incorporated: Pursue Profits While Protecting Human Rights The Fair Labor Association

    54 min
  7. Janno Lieber, Chairman and CEO, the New York MTA: “Never Bet Against New York”

    MAR 20

    Janno Lieber, Chairman and CEO, the New York MTA: “Never Bet Against New York”

    In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Janno Lieber, the chairman and CEO of New York’s MTA, one of the world’s oldest, largest, and most complex public transit systems. “New York is my passion,” Lieber says, and the throughline of his career.   Lieber, a lifelong New Yorker, business leader and transit veteran  —  he was a transportation advisor to Mayor Koch, an Assistant Secretary of Transportation in the Clinton Administration, and led the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site after September 11 attacks — talks about the complexity of overseeing a public transportation system that spans a 12-county, 25-million person region: 6,400 subway cars, 472 stations, 5,700 buses, and two major commuter rails. Lieber notes that the success of the region — it is the economic powerhouse of the local state and much of the national economy — rests on density and mobility. “The ability to get around New York only works if you have great mass transit,” he says; the MTA moves more than six million people per day. For users, trains, buses and subways are 15 percent the cost of owning an automobile. “The magic of transit,” Lieber explains, “is it is one of the very few things that makes living in New York City and the region affordable.”   We discuss congestion pricing, the decades in making the policy to charge automobiles $9 a day to enter the most congested part of the city to reduce traffic, improve emissions, air quality, health and safety, and help finance maintenance and upgrades to the 100 year old transit system. The program launched January 5 and early data is very promising: a 10 to 20 percent reduction in traffic; significantly reduced travel times for drivers from New Jersey, Long Island, Queens and the Bronx, and along some of the city’s most crowded thoroughfares (i.e., Canal Street, 34th Street, 42nd Street and 57th); increased transit ridership; and revenue generated for critical improvements: elevators and ramps to make all subway stations accessible and ADA compliant, new train cars and electric buses, new tracks, signals and power systems, mitigation efforts in areas that may see spillover traffic. Lieber notes that the economic benefits are already observable in the zone itself: increased pedestrian traffic, an uptick in retail, restaurant and Broadway sales, and promising indices in commercial leasing —  “a vote of confidence” in the program. For all these reasons the business community has long supported the policy. The MTA is equally pleased to see high rates of customer satisfaction coming from drivers with reduced commute times, which Lieber believes will also be important to counter the recent political opposition from Washington. Lieber reminds us that congestion pricing has been successfully tested in the courts, and there is nothing in the federal law or program design that would allow for its rollback.   We also speak about how central public safety, real and perceived, is to the economic and civic health of the city. “Public transit is where six million New Yorkers every day form their opinion about whether government works, and to some extent whether this community, this experiment in diversity and tolerance and economic dynamism, is working,” Lieber says. While the data show that overall crime in the city is down, crime in the subway is down, and subway crime accounts for less than two percent of overall crime, high profile and frightening crimes, and the city’s larger mental health, substance use and homeless crises that are acutely manifest in the subway system, play an outsized play role in the public’s sense of security, order and well-being. “Not only to the subways have to be safe, they have to feel safe,” Lieber insists, and we discuss numerous efforts the MTA is taking in coordination with other city agencies to address these issues.   We conclude with the resilience of New Yorkers in the face of adversity — the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, the September 11 attacks, the dotcom burst, and the financial crisis, Hurricane Sandy, the pandemic — and how the city “bounces back even better” to become a better version of itself. "Never bet against New York,” is Lieber’s motto.   Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu.  Mentioned in this Episode Congestion Pricing Reduced Traffic. Now its Hitting Revenue Goals, (The New York Times, 2025)

    29 min
  8. Introducing Capital for Good Season Four

    SEASON 4 TRAILER

    Introducing Capital for Good Season Four

    Capital for Good is the podcast where we hear from business and civic leaders about their visions, plans, and hard work to build a vibrant, inclusive, and sustainable society.  Through in-depth and candid conversations, we explore solutions to some of our most urgent challenges. In this season of Capital for Good, host Georgia Levenson Keohane will speak with an extraordinary line-up of guests, including business and government leader Janno Lieber, the CEO of New York’s MTA, one of the country’s largest and oldest public transportation systems; journalist, digital media CEO, and Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa; investor, climate champion, and former Presidential candidate Tom Steyer; Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino; Kevin Ryan, one of New York and the country’s leading internet entrepreneurs and investors; Anna-Lisa Miller, the founding executive director of Ownership Works; New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander; Greg Shell, managing partner and head of inclusive growth strategies at Goldman Sachs; and Michael Posner, the director of NYU’s Center for Business and Human Rights and author of the new book, Conscience Incorporated.

    2 min
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About

We find ourselves at a moment of unprecedented challenge – and opportunity.  While the COVID-19 health, economic, and racial crises have laid bare and exacerbated any number of structural inequalities, and global climate change remains an existential – and very urgent – threat, they also compel us to reimagine how leaders across the private, nonprofit, and public sectors can champion social and environmental change in ways that truly advance shared prosperity and a sustainable future.   Presented by the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change at Columbia Business School, Capital for Good provides a window into this reimagined future: a chance to hear from corporate and civic leaders about their visions, plans, commitments, and on-the ground efforts to build a more just, inclusive, and sustainable society. Through in depth and candid conversations, we will explore and unpack solutions to some of our most urgent challenges.    Can business be a force for good? What is stakeholder capitalism? What is the role of capital markets and philanthropy along the pathways to inclusive growth? How do we encourage and scale grassroots and broad-based innovation? How can public private partnerships help bring all of our resources and ingenuity to bear?   About the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change The institute educates leaders to use business knowledge, entrepreneurial skills, and management tools to address social and environmental challenges.   About the Host Georgia Levenson Keohane is a seasoned executive in the private and nonprofit sectors at the intersection of capital markets, responsible investing and business, and philanthropy and public policy; an award winning author; and an adjunct professor of social enterprise at Columbia Business School.

Information

  • Creator
    Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2025
  • Episodes
    41
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Capital for Good

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