In the final episode of the season, hosts Ray Horton and Sandi Wright lead listeners into an engaging live discussion with eight distinguished Columbia Business School alumni, whose careers in social enterprise span industries from climate adaptation to financial inclusion, education equity, and impact investing. Together, they explore critical themes emerging from this season’s conversations: The evolving role of business schools in social enterprise: From experiential learning to incubating no...
Apr 04, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 11
In this episode of More MPE, hosts Ray Horton and Sandi Wright speak with Ron Gonen ’04, founder and CEO of Closed Loop Partners, a New York-based investment firm composed of venture capital, growth equity, private equity, project finance, and an innovation center focused on building the circular economy. During this engaging interview, we discuss Gonen’s career trajectory, and he offers lessons on the transferability of leadership skills across different sectors, from entrepreneurship to govern...
Mar 18, 2025•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 10
In this episode of More MPE, hosts Ray Horton and Sandi Wright speak with Justine Zinkin ’02, CEO of Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners, a national social enterprise providing financial services to low-income workers. Born and raised on New York's Upper West Side, Zinkin’s journey into social enterprise was influenced by her family's academic background and her parents' diverse experiences. Zinkin joined Neighborhood Trust directly after graduating from Columbia Business School in 2002, initi...
Mar 11, 2025•54 min•Season 2Ep. 9
In this episode of More MPE, hosts Ray Horton and Sandi Wright speak with Kaushik Kappagantulu ’17, co-founder and CEO of Kheyti, a groundbreaking social enterprise. Kappagantulu shares his journey from the conventional career in engineering his parents favored to founding a social enterprise aimed at lifting millions of India’s small farmers out of poverty. Columbia Business School played an important, but somewhat atypical role, in the development of Kheyti. The inspiration for Kheyti (also a ...
Mar 04, 2025•43 min•Season 2Ep. 8
In this episode of More MPE, hosts Ray Horton and Sandi Wright speak with Shaba Keys, adjunct faculty at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies Nonprofit Management Program, founder and president of the Bridge Lab, and a dynamic leader in academia and community development. Born and raised in Washington, DC, Keys was deeply influenced by her parents, both educators who championed marginalized communities. This early exposure to civic engagement laid the foundation for her future in...
Feb 25, 2025•40 min•Season 2Ep. 7
In this episode of More MPE, hosts Ray Horton and Sandi Wright speak with Mary Jane McQuillen ’07, head of ESG and portfolio manager at Clearbridge Investments, on her journey into sustainable investing, which might not be what you expect. It began with her experiences as a seasonal park ranger in New York City, where she witnessed firsthand the environmental impacts of oil spills and water pollution. These early experiences, along with influences from National Geographic magazines and Jacques C...
Feb 18, 2025•35 min•Season 2Ep. 6
In this episode of More MPE, hosts Ray Horton and Sandi Wright speak with Daniel Nissenbaum ’88, CEO of Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), one of the largest of a special kind of nonprofit organization known as Community Development Financial Institutions. As such, LIIF is able to aggregate funds from all levels of government, banks, and foundations to make targeted investments in low-income communities. Nissenbaum graduated in 1983 from Grinnell College, where he first developed an interest in ...
Feb 11, 2025•54 min•Season 2Ep. 5
In this episode of More MPE, hosts Ray Horton and Sandi Wright speak with Lindsay Kruse ’06, CEO of All Means All, an organization dedicated to transforming education to be more inclusive. Kruse shares her inspiring journey from management consulting to becoming a passionate advocate for equitable education, especially for students with disabilities and other marginalized groups. Kruse discusses how her personal experience as a parent of children with learning differences became a catalyst for f...
Feb 04, 2025•47 min•Season 2Ep. 4
In this episode of More MPE, hosts Ray Horton and Sandi Wright speak with Phoebe Boyer ’93, president and CEO of Children’s Aid — one of the oldest and largest of New York City’s nonprofit social welfare agencies. Before joining Children’s Aid a decade ago, she spent 15 years in the foundation world giving money to nonprofits. The way the foundation experience prepared Boyer for running a complicated organization is one of the topics discussed in the episode. She also discusses how her family an...
Jan 28, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 3
In this episode of More MPE, hosts Ray Horton and Sandi Wright speak with Kesha Cash ’10, founder and general partner of Impact America Fund. Cash's journey from humble beginnings to becoming a trailblazer in impact investing is a testament to her resilience and vision. She was the first in her immediate family to attend a four-year college and her experiences growing up in a low-income household — witnessing the challenges faced by small business owners — shaped her perspective on economic disp...
Jan 21, 2025•42 min•Season 2Ep. 2
In this episode of More MPE, hosts Ray Horton and Sandi Wright speak with Rohit “Rit” Aggarwala ’00, the chief climate officer and commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) of the City of New York, a position he has held since being recruited in 2022 to the administration of Mayor Eric Adams. The hat Aggarwala wears as commissioner of DEP puts him in charge of a major municipal agency, one with nearly 6,000 employees, a $1.5 billion operating budget, and a capital budget o...
Jan 14, 2025•47 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Over the last three decades, thousands of Columbia Business School students have taken part in the elective course, Modern Political Economy. Last year, we took this institution outside of the classroom with More MPE, where host Professor Ray Horton and Columbia Business School faculty casually discussed some of the most current and controversial issues that affect business, government, and society. This season, Ray and his colleague at the Tamer Institute, Sandi Wright, are going outside the bu...
Jan 07, 2025•2 min
This final session features Professors Glenn Hubbard and Tano Santos, the faculty who teach the popular course Modern Political Economy at Columbia Business School. Hubbard is the director of the Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business, Dean Emeritus, and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School; and Santos is the director of the Heilbrunn Center for Graham and Dodd Investing and Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Asset Management and Finance at Columbia...
Apr 12, 2024•50 min•Season 1Ep. 10
This session of More MPE focuses on the increasing importance of social entrepreneurship and the unique role the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise plays in supporting social entrepreneurship in the United States and around the world. Our guest is Sandra Navalli OAM ’03, the managing director of the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise. She first proposed and now oversees the development of the distinctive and highly successful Tamer Fund for Social Ventures, which supports social entrepreneurs by...
Mar 08, 2024•35 min•Season 1Ep. 9
In another session devoted to climate change, we focus on an unconventional way of halting global warming known as solar geo-engineering. In this session, host Professor Ray Horton speaks with Gernot Wagner, faculty director of the Climate Knowledge Initiative at the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise and senior lecturer at Columbia Business School. Wagner is an expert in engineering solutions to the problem of climate change. The conversation with Wagner begins with the meaning of solar geo-eng...
Mar 01, 2024•45 min•Season 1Ep. 8
In this session of More MPE, host Professor Ray Horton speaks with Tano Santos about Europe. Santos is the director of the Heilbrunn Center for Graham and Dodd Investing and Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Asset Management and Finance at Columbia Business School. The conversation begins with talking about the major problems facing Europe today, which Santos believes are two-fold. The first and most obvious problem is the war between Russia and Ukraine. Europe has a huge stake in containing Russia’...
Feb 23, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 7
In this session of More MPE, we focus on an issue that bedevils many business leaders: Should they speak out on socio-political issues? Host Professor Ray Horton speaks with Vanessa Burbano, the Sidney Taurel Associate Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. Her award-winning research addresses the question. We began by talking about how she became interested in the question. Before entering academia, Burbano worked for several years in the private sector in positions that led her to ...
Feb 16, 2024•44 min•Season 1Ep. 6
There are lots of things to be bummed about these days. Climate change is at the top of Professor Ray Horton’s list because of the scale of the threat it poses to humankind and because, in his opinion, humankind lacks the ability to contain it. Fortunately, we have Columbia Business School colleagues who are both more knowledgeable and less pessimistic. In this episode of More MPE, host Professor Ray Horton speaks with Bruce Usher, co-director of the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise; Elizabeth...
Feb 09, 2024•53 min•Ep. 5
Artificial intelligence, according to some, is far and away the most important innovation in history with the capacity to bring unprecedented good and unprecedented evil to humankind. In this episode of More MPE, host Professor Ray Horton speaks with Sandra Matz, the David W. Zalaznick Associate Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. Matz begins by distinguishing big data and artificial intelligence, the former being the raw material the latter uses for its designer’s purposes, which...
Feb 02, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 4
The world’s people are migrating in record numbers with wide-ranging effects on the nations they are leaving and entering. To discuss international migration are two students of the subject from Columbia Business School, migrants themselves. Dan Wang is the co-director of the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise and Lambert Family Associate Professor of Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School. Sandra Portocarrero is a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia Business School, who studies und...
Jan 26, 2024•46 min•Season 1Ep. 3
In this episode of More MPE, host Professor Ray Horton speaks with Geoffrey Heal, faculty leader of the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics and Donald C. Waite III Professor of Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School. More MPE devotes three sessions to climate change because it is the paramount issue facing the businesses, governments, and societies of the world. An economist and conservationist, Heal’s teaching and research has left an indelible mark on the Sch...
Jan 19, 2024•44 min•Season 1Ep. 2
In this episode of More MPE, host Professor Ray Horton speaks politics American-style with Glenn Hubbard, director of the Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business; Dean Emeritus; and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School. Hubbard is the School’s most knowledgeable observer of American politics. A practitioner too, his career with the School has been interrupted twice by important assignments in the nation’s capital. The conversation begins with a ...
Jan 12, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Over the last three decades, thousands of Columbia Business School students have taken part in the elective course, Modern Political Economy. We’re taking this institution outside of the classroom with More MPE, where host Professor Ray Horton and Columbia Business School faculty casually discuss some of the most current and controversial issues that affect business, government, and society both at home and abroad. Throughout the series, you're invited to submit questions that will become part o...
Dec 12, 2023•8 min
