Welcome back to the 279th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Erika Karp. Erika is the Chief Impact Officer at Pathstone, an independent RIA based in Englewood, New Jersey that oversees $35 billion in assets under management for a few hundred ultra-high-net-worth households.
What’s unique about Erika, though, is how she and her firm are incorporating sustainable investing by utilizing their own internal ESG analysis to align their ultra-high-net-worth clients’ sizable amount of capital with their own values.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Erika and her firm utilize environmental, social, and governance analysis to find the intersection between investments that are expected to be sustainable and produce a strong investment return, how Erika focuses on the factors of intentionality, additionality, and measurability to ensure the impact of their investments decisions align with her clients’ values and objectives, and how Erika and her firm use manager due diligence discussions and their own thematic research to better identify managers that better fit with, and then hold them accountable to, the firm’s investment standards.
We also talk about how Erika was inspired to begin her own firm after becoming frustrated with the relatively slow pace that her prior firm was (not quickly enough) recognizing the emerging shift towards sustainable investing, how Erika’s confidence in her abilities was juxtaposed with the intense pressures of putting up her own capital to launch and then having to quickly reach $25 million in AUM within 90 days to receive SEC approval on her Federal registration, and how Erika leveraged publishing her own proprietary ESG investing research through a monthly report and doing corporate consulting to create a revenue stream on the side while she was launching her own firm and getting her initial clients.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Erika shares how the realization that we all have to make decisions that are based on imperfect information known at the time helped her have fewer regrets in her own life, how Erika struggled with wanting to be known as a trusted advisor while also feeling the pressure of needing to sell herself and her services to acquire clients as she was building her firm, and why Erika believes it is important as an advisor to focus on the work that brings personal joy and to keep aspiring to do more of that work to develop a better career.
So whether you’re interested in learning about how Erika and her firm analyze and measure the ESG impact of their investments, how Erika was able to navigate the pressures of having to fully fund her own firm and get SEC approval in a short amount of time, or how Erika was able to reach a point where she could focus more on the aspects of her career that she loves, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Erika Karp.
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