'Society is now demanding a response from business'
LIKE OVERPECK, DAVID BLOOD '81 THINKS ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY ISSUES writ large, but his emphasis is on global corporate investment and responsibility. When Blood was young his family lived in São Paolo, Brazil, a teeming city where he saw the crushing effects of poverty on people's lives. It never left him. It was natural that Blood would attend Hamilton — his father was an alumnus, as was his grandfather — and after graduating in 1981, he received his MBA from Harvard.
David Blood '81
Hamilton College was important to Blood. "My fellow students, the faculty, and Hamilton's commitment to a liberal arts education were critical elements of my personal development," he says.
Building on that experience, Blood thinks the big thoughts and makes the big connections. He rose through the ranks of Goldman Sachs until becoming CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. But this wasn't enough; he believed he could have a greater effect on the world. So when a mutual friend put him and Al Gore in a room in 2003, it wasn't a surprise that the two men formed a business together. Their business — Generation Investment Management LLC — has offices in New York and London, where Blood is based.
Generation manages the assets of institutions and individuals committed to responsible sustainable investment. In a 2006 op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Blood and Gore wrote, "We believe that sustainable development will be the primary driver of industrial and economic change over the next 50 years." Because of this, Generation takes the long view and integrates sustainability research into its fundamental equity analysis. This goes beyond the days when "responsible investment" meant staying away from tobacco companies. Blood's group focuses on global issues including climate change, water scarcity, pandemics, poverty and urbanization.
"We believe that the context of business is clearly changing," Blood says. "Multinational businesses are oftentimes better positioned than governments to deal with some of the most complicated global challenges, such as climate change, HIV/AIDS, water scarcity and poverty. We've reached a point where civil society is now demanding a response from business."
