53: How to Understand Impact Investment & Wealth Management in the Simplest Terms

Guest Bio - David O’Leary
David is a wealth management expert, impact investment professional, public speaker, and writer. David spends his time as Founder & Principal of Kind Wealth, a holistic wealth management practice helping early to mid-career Canadians manage their money in a way that matches their values. (See full BIO at the end of the notes)

Summary

This is yet another  fascinating episode that covers so many questions:
What is the role of a wealth manager? Or an Investment Manager? Or a Financial Planner? 
What is the fiduciary duty? And what is the duty of the pension funds and other institutions that are the largest investors in the world? 
And from a personal perspective, what are some of the best things the “average” person can do to “vote with their dollar”? Do you have to be a high-stakes, risk-taking investor to make a difference? Or can you be involved from early career stages to shape the future world into a sustainable landscape and impact wealth reality?
What is the best intersectionality between advisors and clients? How do we measure impact, the access and the inclusion to products, services and the effect they are having on people, the environment and the returns? 
These and so many more topics are covered during this in-depth episode. Enjoy! 

Key points

• The definition of “impact investment” and the spectrum of capital: where or how you want to participate is your personal choice based on your wealth management goals.
• Somehow, sustainable investment and profit-generation became mutually exclusive, but it doesn’t have to be.
• The impact of having a theory of change
• Whatever it’s called, when your approach to wealth management includes using finances to better the world, your investments will be healthier than if you were only trying to get more money with little regard to how profits are generated.
• Milton Friedman vs Real Sustainable Fiduciary Duty
• Brow Stocks and the prisoners’ dilemma 
• Key definition: Investment Management vs Financial Planning 
• The Intersectionality of wealth managers and clients
• Measuring Impact, Qualifications & God’s call

Time stamps

[6:09] How David defines sustainable and impact investment

[9:04] The spectrum of defining “impact investment”

[18:07] The real intent of fiduciary duty vs the old Milton Friedman interpretation 

[21:30] Brown stocks perform worse than sustainable ones 
[24:10] Short-term vs. Long-term wealth management plans

[31:35] The age range (and reason) of people who have been most historically underserved in quality financial advice

[33:33] Investment management vs financial planning: two separate personal finance issues that have traditionally been erroneously combined, now should be intentionally treated separately

[41:00] Wealth managers & advisors tend to serve people like themselves  
[42:00:] Measuring Impact, underrepresented groups, access & inclusion 
[50:37] The Bottleneck: Perfect is the enemy of good - Financial advisors vs. ESG investments
[56:00:] Some relevant qualifications in the UK and Canada 

[1:00:35] David working in Sierra Leone on microfinance projects, how that relates to impact investing
[1:02:00] World Vision and the work of missionaries
[1:05:00] Call to action

Useful links

JP Dallmann on Forbes

David O’Leary’s website
Connect with David and listen to his podcasts - Sign up at impactinvesting.how

Kind Wealth webs