In episode 40 of the Investing in Impact podcast, we speak with Rekha Unnithan, Managing Director and Co-Head of Private Equity Impact Investing at Nuveen, on deploying over a billion dollars in capital to address income inequality and climate change.
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Rekha is the Co-Head of Private Impact Investing. Rekha was an early visionary and established the intentional and leadership impact investing platform for TIAA, and is responsible for executing Nuveen’s private equity impact investing across Inclusive Growth and Resource Efficiency.
Prior to joining Nuveen in 2012, she worked for Bank of America Merrill Lynch as a vice president in the Institutional Investment Group. She has also held various positions at Merrill Lynch in Institutional Investments, and Investment Oversight and Risk Management.
Rekha graduated with a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and an M.B.A. with a specialization in Financial Instruments and Markets and Social Innovation and Impact from New York University’s Stern School of Business. She holds the CFA designation. Rekha is a board member of Aeris, a non-profit organization that helps investors make and monitor mission investments.
Rekha is also on the Advisory Board of the Operating Principles for Impact Management and serves as the Chair of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association’s Impact Council.
Nuveen, a leading global investment manager with over $1.3 trillion of assets under management, recently announced the final close of the Nuveen Global Impact Fund, LP and affiliated entities (the “Fund”). The Fund, which is the first private equity impact fund raised by the company, has secured a total of $218M from a diverse mix of global investors, with the aim of generating strong financial returns and addressing two of the greatest sustainable development challenges: climate change and inequality.
Additional information about the first two deals out of the Global Impact Fund can be found here: Annapurna and Advanced Battery Concepts.
The company made its first impact investment in the 1980s and has since invested over $500 million in direct and indirect private equity capital across over 200 portfolio companies in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
