12 zeros for a better world
Money is passed on: Over the coming years, millions upon millions in private assets will be transferred to the next generation. How private wealth will make the world a better place in the future.
Some changes are difficult to describe in words – but maybe they can be captured in numbers. One such number is 41,000,000,000,000. Credit Suisse and the University of Zurich estimate that USD 41 trillion will be passed on to the next generation of high net worth individuals in the coming years. Forty-one million millions is a lot of money – or a lot of energy that can make a difference.
This story is about that energy, and about how the members of the next generation of investors are using their assets effectively to promote a sustainable economy and social progress.
The Impact Investing for the Next Generation program, held once a year at the University of Zurich and at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, aims to build a solid foundation for these investors’ efforts. It offers 20 to 30 participants the information and tools they need for impact investing.
Naiana Miranda (35), who lives in Miami, participated in the program in 2022. It led her to reconsider her definition of sustainability, and she subsequently expanded her investments beyond the United States to include the Amazon. Last year, Naiana Miranda flew from Miami to Zurich for an intensive course in impact investing at the University of Zurich. Traveling that long distance led her to rediscover her roots – something she had never done before.
Naiana Miranda was six years old when she and her parents left Brazil. Her parents were entrepreneurs who owned a medium-sized company, and the business was doing well. Then the government decided to take radical steps to fight inflation. Bank accounts held in dollars were zeroed out, and not for the first time. “My parents got tired of it,” says Miranda, and in the early 1990s they decided to emigrate to the United States – to New Jersey, where Miranda’s aunt had an apartment. There they started a new life.
James Gifford is one of four founders of the Next Gen program, which was held for the first time in 2015 at Harvard University. The Australian speaks calmly and clearly, and he knows how to break down complex issues and explain them in an accessible way.
Gifford’s professional career follows the philosophy of “additionality”. He asks himself this question: “How can I contribute to the greater good?” He did just that at the United Nations, where he initiated and led the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) for ten years. He subsequently moved to Harvard University to set up the Next Gen program, and then to the private sector. Today he is Head of Sustainable and Impact Investing Advisory at Credit Suisse, where he applies the concept of additionality to private assets and private clients.
James Gifford
Australia native James Gifford has served as Head of Sustainable and Impact Investing Advisory at Credit Suisse for the past three years. He was the founding Executive Director of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment and led the organization from its founding in 2003 until 2013. He is co-founder of the Impact Investing for the Next Generation program, and also teaches in the program.
According to James Gifford, impact is difficult to measure objectively because “personal preferences always play a role in assessments”. He believes that the strength of the Next Gen program comes from the interaction of different people who have very different stories, views, and value systems. This is compatible with James Gifford’s philosophy of additionality – a philosophy that is as multifaceted as the next generation of private investors.
