Laura Muller ’16SIPA

Laura graduated from the dual degree MPA program at the London School of Economics and Columbia’s School of International Public Policy. Her passion for environmental and social change formed at a young age in South East Asia, where she grew up. Her background is in finance, and she was intrigued to see how a global financial services firm like Morgan Stanley was responding to these challenges. As a Fellow, she worked on the research for what will ultimately become two Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing thought leadership papers. The papers focused on two rising trends that the Institute believes will be impactful in the sustainability space, but have not yet received much investor focus. She also carried out business model research for a social enterprise in New York City. The key takeaway this summer was to understand the power of private capital and sophisticated forward-looking investment strategies to address pressing global sustainable challenges.

Erwan Kerouredan ’17
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Erwan is an engineer with six years of experience in the telecom sector, as well as nonprofit activities in relation to the mining and metals industry of his home territory, New Caledonia. As a Fellow, he first worked on integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into mainstream equity research, helping analysts and investors gain a better understanding of the impact of ESG factors on firms’ financial statements and valuation. For his second project, Erwan produced a research paper on the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, highlighting key investment implications across sectors for each of the seventeen UN Goals. His key takeaway this summer was to appreciate the growing appetite for ESG analyses among Morgan Stanley analysts and investors and discover compelling ways of delivering those analyses.

Courtney Asher Thompson ’17
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Courtney worked within the bank’s wealth management division on the Investing with Impact Platform, providing solutions for individual and institutional clients to successfully achieve unique social and/or environmental impact objectives alongside their financial goals. During the summer she led several initiatives across the platform, including the development of a set of tools to facilitate discussion between financial advisors and clients about specific impact goals, as well as an original investment framework and client-facing primer on a particular impact theme. Through the course of this work she gained exposure to a diverse set of clients, financial advisors and asset managers while collaborating with Morgan Stanley colleagues from across wealth management, sell–side research and the Institute for Sustainable Investing.