YouSaid · the spoken record

Martin Whittaker

lines on the record: 67
first: 2019-06-24
most recent: 2019-06-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Great. So if we take it step back on the polling process, a lot of people try to conduct surveys for research to learn information. And as you mentioned, you have a board that had lots of resources for just, and I'm imagining that you could get at doing this survey however you needed to. What was most important in the survey you prepared to get the results of the polls that were going to be most accurate in your eyes?”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Create more value for the other stakeholders of a company, as I've mentioned, brings more balance back and creates a more prosperous long term future for everybody. So that's sort of the idea. And our mission, tying it back to just, is to try and be the countervailing force. We want the pendulum to swing a little further back. Why? Because that's what the American people want. We want to try and incentivize companies to think about it like that. We want to try and incentivize investors to think about it like that. Why? Because it's in their enlightened self-interest to do so. These companies do better in the market. So that's the big picture.”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What's interesting to us as we look at it now step back is like it's almost like the mirror image of the opposite of how markets traditionally prioritize those things in a way. In our model, work is most important, shareholders least in the markets, of course that's reversed. And in our polling, we ask a ton of questions about how people think about business and markets, are they working for you? Do you have faith in them? If you had a message for a CEO, what would it be? By and large, you get people very sort of impassioned about just wanting a steak, wanting to be treated fairly, whether it's as a worker or as a customer or as a community member. And the feeling is the pendulum has just swung a little too far in favor of just short-term profit maximization for the benefit of shareholders.”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now we've seen, especially in the last couple of years, a rise in importance on data privacy, but also includes things like labeling and advertising, the nature of a company's products is the third driver, and that really includes our product's high quality. It does include value and cost, but it also includes are they beneficial to society, to human health, environment. Then we have a company's environmental impact, its footprint, environmental issues, very important. A company's impact on the communities where it operates, not just its own operations, but throughout its supply chain, including human rights issues, its impact on the job market. Are companies creating good jobs? Are they destroying jobs? Are they stable jobs? So macro job impacts. And then lastly, does it make money? And how does it treat its shareholders? And does it have strong leadership with integrity?”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, what you get back is a very practical sense. So, benefits, people just looking for good benefits. People are looking for good treatment, you know, dignity at work. Be treated with respect and dignity in the workplace. And to get back a fair share of what is being produced, going down in order importance after workers were how a company treats its customers.”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I'll give you the headline right up front seven major themes have been prominent throughout, and we weight them according to their relative importance, although I should say the public weights them through quantitative polling. Their relative importance. The most important one is how a company treats its workers. So that's fair pay, benefits, safety at work, working conditions, training, those sets of issues have always been the most important set of issues. So am I being paid fairly relative to the person next to me doing the same job? Am I paid a living wage, millions of Americans in frontline industries and are paid a living wage and rely on food stamps to get by? So you tell me, is that just?”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would get back. So it was a real leap of faith. I think we believe that if we're going to build a market, it has to serve as many people as possible. It has to serve the public. And so it makes sense that they should be the ones to say this is what a just company looks like. And five years in now, we've actually got back results that make a ton of sense. It's very kitchen table values. We have a model now that has come from the survey and the polling work and we've done what I think is probably some of the most sophisticated survey work on how ordinary people think about markets, how they think about companies, what matters to them.”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that is a great question. It's also a defining one for us because the essence of what we do is that we don't define it. Now, that sounds counterintuitive, but what I'm saying is we actually turn to the American people. And that was, I think, Paul's insight. It doesn't matter what I think or what you think, Martin, or what DePak thinks. This is about connecting to Main Street. So we began in early 2015 surveying Main Street America on what a just company looks like. It sounds kind of simple. But that's how we started. We wanted the public to define the elements in a very sort of detail way, very practical way, of what does a just company look like? What does it do? What are the specific criteria that make up a just company? And of course, in the first time we did this, we didn't know what we were doing.”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is a wonderful mission to use capital markets in such a way that improves our vision of what should be. Let's start with how do you define as you started with Deepak was saying, how do you define what a just company is?”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a nonprofit. I've never worked as hard in my life as I have at this point in time. I think the advantages of the structure that we have and the approach that we have is we're really about trying to solve problems and we're trying to get markets to be better and to do more and to sort of breathe life back into this ideal of the American dream. And more and more people are warming to that fact, more and more want to support us and not just believe that it's a great investment thesis. This is like going to help me be smarter as how I see the markets in the world, but it connects something deeper inside about the purpose of business and the purpose of money even.”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I should make it clear just capital is a not for profit, which is even order insofar as we're not a classic 501c3, but that is indeed our structure. And we formed that way because we're really about the mission. And the mission drives everything we do. And I was lucky enough to have some great founding board members who were there at the beginning. So obviously I've mentioned Paul, who's our chair today, DPAC, Arianna Huffington, Ray Chambers, Ronaldo Bruticole, Gene Olwang. I mean, some phenomenal people there who had a vision for what this thing could become. My job was really to bring it to life. So it was everything from filing the documents to become a 501c3 to setting up the office to hiring people to really trying to bring the strategy to life. And it's like any company. It's actually even.”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As an investment proposition, would these companies outperform, but then more broadly and more expansively as an entire movement, that if you could shift the trajectory of the capital markets onto a slightly more just course, you could really channel vast amounts of, not just money, but innovation and resources to solving major problems that we face today.”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Came to me through referral on the board of something called a carbon disclosure project and the chair of that board knew about a search that was underway to find the CEO of Just Capital and put my name forward. But Just Capital itself was really, it's interesting. There are several co-founders, but the two that came together to spark it were DPAC Chopra, who was teaching a course at Columbia on capitalism and just capitalism. And what does a just company even mean? And somebody said one of the students, well, what if we track companies, like actual companies on how just they are? And that idea sort of sparked to a deep and he took it through Porschala and a few others to get to Paul Tudor Jones. And Paul loved the idea and really seized on it first.”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Focus in investment management became when I went to work for a guy called Jesse Fink, who's a co founder of Price Line. His family office is basically adamant that he wanted to invest his money for Intergenerational wealth transfer, all the classic sort of objectives of a family office, but he also cared about environmental social issues and he did not want to trade his values and the way he invested his portfolio. So that's what we did. We built a company called Mission Point. I was part of that. And then I began advising family offices and investors on how to do that. Why there is no trade-off, which is my belief, but also knowing that at the roots of it was the data and the processes and the discipline around how you get markets to focus on major social, economic, health, environmental challenges. And so when the opportunity to become CEO of Just Capital came along in early 2014, I jumped at it because it was everything I felt I don't in my career in one role.”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Signed was at the Rio Earth Summit and the whole issue of sort of sustainable development was. Of accelerating, and there was this part of it that was focused on finance and how the banking and the insurance and the financial industry should care about sustainable development. And I thought, that's interesting Everything's kind of a combination of luck and judgment. So I'm like, that's really interesting. I have an environmental background, but I think following the money is the right way to go. I did an MBA. I became an analyst. I was hard by Swiss Re who was very focused on sustainable development in the capital markets group. To build investment products and to help price risk and to trade risk. And I guess my real sort of”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. So, well, it's a long and complicated one maybe. So I started out life as a chemistry as my major. I grew up in England, the north of England, went to St. Andrews and Scotland, studied chemistry. Moved to Montreal because of love, not for anything else. Then my girlfriend, now my wife. Did a masses there. I found myself in the oil industry working for ELF Accutane. In London, in the environmental group The guy I was working for Tony Healis, his name was. Big six foot five oil guy would say if you care about the environment follow the money It kind of stuck with me and I I was fortunate enough to get the chance to do a PhD in environmental risk assessment in the early 90s at Edinburgh University in Scotland. And that was a really interesting time because George Bush”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My guest on today's first meeting is Martin Whitaker, the founding CEO of Just Capital, a nonprofit created by a group of concerned, influential leaders, including Deepak Chopra and Paul Tudor Jones. Just Capital is an independent research organization that ranks companies on the issues Americans care about most, with the mission to build a more just marketplace that better reflects the true priorities of the American people. Last year it launched the Just ETF in partnership with Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Our conversation covers Martin's history of following the money that ultimately led to his position at Just, defining a just company, engaging the public in the polling process, engaging companies in the results, applications of the research including the just ETF, common characteristics of companies that”
2019-06-24 · Capital Allocators · Martin Whittaker – JUST Capital (First Meeting, EP.02) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source