Impact-Investing Boom Gives Funding Jolt to $1 Trillion Asset Manager
Nuveen funds are focused on combating income inequality and climate change.
Asset manager Nuveen made an impact investment of $10 million in Oakland, California- based Revolution Foods, which provides chef-designed meals using fresh ingredients to schools in underserved communities.
Photographer: Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
In less than a decade, Rekha Unnithan invested $1 billion in a niche part of the market that was once so small most people on Wall Street hadn’t even heard of it.
Unnithan is co-head of impact investing at Nuveen, which oversees more than $1 trillion of assets, including over $5.8 billion in impact strategies. She joined the firm in 2012 to develop a business for investments that can both make money and leave a measurable positive impact on society and the environment. Just last week Nuveen attracted $150 million from institutional investors for a strategy focused on combating income inequality and climate change.