From Conviction to Catalyst
Reflections from the CalSTRS x CalPERS Catalyst 2025 convening
There are moments when ideas you’ve been carrying quietly, sometimes for years, suddenly find their echo in a room full of people you deeply respect. That was the sense in the room earlier this week at the Catalyst convening, hosted by CalSTRS and CalPERS, where the conversations felt urgent, generational, and deeply grounded.
The opening day began with remarks from Malia Cohen, California’s State Controller, who set the tone with clarity and urgency on the responsibility we hold, not just as stewards of capital, but as stewards of futures. She challenged the room to embrace the power of diversity, not as a checkbox, but as a strategic advantage for California and a model for the world.
Immediately following was a fireside chat that stood out not just for its substance, but for its tone, real, unvarnished, and deeply human. Marcie Frost, CEO of CalPERS, moderated a conversation with Jessica Alba and Carla Vernón of The Honest Company. Alba spoke candidly about the founder grit it took to build a company rooted in values, starting with a problem she experienced as a child that, a decade later, remained unsolved. She shared how often she was dismissed for not fitting the traditional packaging of a finance executive, and how she had to push through that perception to create something enduring.
Vernón added her own reflections, drawing from her ascent through General Mills and later Amazon, emphasizing the power of a beginner’s mind. Her ability to ask the uncomfortable questions, to lead with curiosity rather than certainty, proved to be one of her greatest strengths. Together, they painted a portrait of leadership that was both principled and persistent.
As they spoke, I opened my phone, typed in $HNST on Robinhood, and bought my first stake.
It wasn’t only about alpha that Vernón presented on stage, it was about alignment and about investing in the world I want to help build.
Capital, for me, has always been a form of conversation. A way of voting for the kind of future I want my family to inhabit. That’s what drives our work at Cool Climate Collective and why I personally invest into every deal we do. I believe conviction is a muscle and the only way to strengthen it is to use it.
Throughout the rest of the convening, a rich tapestry of voices added texture to this idea of investing as stewardship. Cassandra Lichnock, CEO of CalSTRS, & Jennifer Siebel Newsom, California’s First Partner, challenged the room to consider how narratives shape capital flows, especially when we examine how many of those narratives have historically excluded, underestimated, or undervalued women.
It echoed a point Maggie Cutts made (through the data she presented) during our Catalytic Capital gathering at SF Climate Week: that women, are not a niche impact strategy; they are one of the most undercapitalized opportunities in the global economy. Recognizing that isn't charity or correction, it's alpha, overlooked. I’m proud that we’ve consistently backed powerhouse female founders whose contributions to our portfolio have been not just meaningful, but performance-defining.
Later in the convening, Stephen Gilmore, Chief Investment Officer of CalPERS, and Scott Chan, CFA, Chief Investment Officer of CalSTRS, took the stage. Their panel wasn’t explicitly about the Total Portfolio Approach, but the idea surfaced. And when it did, something clicked. It gave voice to an investment philosophy I’ve been quietly shaping for some time. Pension funds, after all, are inherently long-view investors. Their responsibility spans decades, investing on behalf of constituents who will retire into futures shaped by the very markets their portfolios touch today. That makes their fiduciary duty more than just financial, it becomes intergenerational.
Yes, they must seize market opportunities, identify high-performing asset classes, and deliver consistent returns. But there’s also a strategic superpower in aligning capital across the entire ecosystem, particularly within climate. Not just backing an EV brand (public company), but the lithium recycler (large private corporate), the mining transparency platform (NGO), the grid-integration software (AI startup), the charging infrastructure, and the workforce retraining system, all at once [hypothetical example]. That’s the kind of portfolio multiplication we’ve been actively executing on at Cool Climate Collective.
Now, layer onto that the pension lens: not just optimizing for return, but also for future-shaping. Because what’s the point of squeezing out another 1% return if your beneficiaries are inheriting a world where food, water, and healthcare costs have exploded because of climate volatility, ecosystem collapse, or the spread of forever chemicals like PFAS?
You cannot measure performance in isolation from quality of life. You can’t call it a return if it comes at the expense of breathable air, drinkable water, or stable supply chains.
This perspective aligns with discussions I engaged in at the Dubai Future Forum last November, where the Future of Progress report by the Dubai Future Foundation was a focal point. The report challenges the adequacy of GDP as the sole measure of a nation’s success and introduces a comprehensive roadmap towards a broader definition of progress. It emphasizes the need to include economic, social, and environmental factors to truly gauge prosperity, advocating for a transition beyond GDP to metrics that reflect well-being, sustainability, and inclusivity.
That’s the deeper responsibility of capital and the opportunity: to be both protector and progenitor of the future it compounds into.
What began as the Unified Climate Sustainability Framework I wrote in August 2020, has since evolved into something more expansive: A framework built not only around sectors or asset classes, but also around temporal responsibility.
What if capital wasn’t just managed for returns but for resonance across generations?
That moment helped crystallize what I now call a Temporal Impact Portfolio, a thesis that has been shaped over time by many voices, including the writings of Jeremy Grantham, whose clarity on systemic climate risk has long influenced my thinking.
In a timing of universal alignment, it was announced that Grantham Foundation recently led the Series A in InventWood, a company we were fortunate to have backed earlier on.
I’ll be sharing the full write-up of my Temporal Impact Portfolio thesis in the coming weeks. At its core, it’s about managing capital as if we are ancestors, not speculators. It’s about aligning investment with intent, and understanding that time is not a constraint, it’s the canvas.
The next chapter begins with a single question: What would it mean to design portfolios that outlive the present?
This post originally appeared on LinkedIn.