The 2025 Fowler Center Impact Investing Competition
The 2025 Impact Investing Competition was held in person on February 28th in the Peter B. Lewis Building at Case Western Reserve University, Weatherhead School of Management. The competition featured both undergraduate and graduate teams, with student teams presenting their investment strategies to a panel of professional judges from diverse fields in impact investing.
This competition allows teams to tackle real-world impact investing challenges and showcases innovative solutions to managing investment portfolios aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Fowler Fellows
The competition was organized by Fowler Center fellows: Kendyl Biondich, Brooke Kahl, Serena Molina, Richard Manigault, Delisa Williams, Victoria Schurr, and Chad Gepfrey. The case was written by fellows Richard and Chad.
Panel of Judges
The panel of judges included:
- Amy Wiley, McDonald Hopkins
- Uma M. “Raj” Rajeshwar, BNY Mellon
- Sarah O’ Keeffe, City of Cleveland Mayor’s Cabinet
- Lynn Carpenter, EPOCH Pi
- Kirstyn Wildley, McDonald Hopkins
- Scott Hackenberg, JSH Impact Advisors
- Ben Cooper, Key Bank
- Rosalind Madorsky, Great Lakes Energy Institute
The Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit at Weatherhead would like to thank the students and judges who helped make our 2024 Impact Investing Competition a big success.
Competition Format
This year, student teams were tasked with executing an investment strategy of a $25 million budget aimed at reducing carbon emissions in Cleveland through alternative energy. Students identified economic and environmental metrics aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) to support their investments.
Each team had a total of seven minutes to present their pitch, followed by a six-minute Q&A session with the judges.Teams with the strongest ROI’s in social, governance and environmental areas won the competition.
A networking reception followed the competition, where students connected with judges and industry professionals before the announcement of the winners.
Winning Teams
1st Place: Spartan Capital
Quinn Flaspohler, Behzad Bahrami, Salman Ahmad, and Ryan Stefancin
2nd Place: Triple Bottom Line
Priyanshi Gupta, Caelin McManis, and Sierra Petties
3rd Place: Genuine
Ithabeleng Makhetha, Isabella Alvarez Harris, Manuel Rocha Pereyra, and Alex Sirvent-Suarez
4th Place: Green Capital
Naomi Joseph, Jahrule Davis, and Jaylan Hewitt
5th Place: Eco Equity Ventures
Cassandra "Casey" Groves, Shubhankar Sinha, and Tejaswini Rane
Each winning team received a cash prize and first through third place teams received a commemorative trophy in recognition of their efforts.
The Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit extends its gratitude to all participants, judges, and organizers for making the 2025 Impact Investing Competition a success. We look forward to another exciting event next year!
2025 Competition Judges
Amy Willey
Amy Willey, Member of the Mergers & Acquisitions Practice Group and Chair of the ESG Practice Area, McDonald Hopkins LLC. Amy Willey is a Member in the firm’s Business Department. Her practice is focused on representing sellers, strategic buyers and financial buyers in various types of transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, leveraged buyouts, distressed acquisitions and dispositions, and investments. She has a strong passion for helping entrepreneurs and businesses on corporate social governance matters to help impact-driven companies continue to grow the revenues while having a positive social impact by assisting with business initiatives. Amy brings this passion to her M&A practice by helping both buyers and sellers to ensure cultural alignment and integration planning in their transactions, and works as general outside counsel for companies with the dual objectives of profit and purpose.
Lynn Carpenter
Co-founder of EPOCH Pi, Lynn Carpenter has previously served as director for both South Franklin Street Partners and Candlewood Partners LLC. She also worked as an associate on the buyout team for Morgenthaler where she assisted in the management of $1 billion in capital. Carpenter has experience using culture assessment tools and is certified in using Denison Consulting's Organizational Culture Survey and has substantial experience adding both cultural and strategic alignment to traditional investment banking.
Scott Hackenberg
Scott Hackenberg is the founder of JSH Impact Advisors, where he develops purpose-driven investment strategies for fund managers in the private capital markets. Hackenberg worked in private equity for Blackstone, was the co-founder of Swander Pace Capital and a director with Triplepoint Capital, a venture debt firm on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley. Hackenberg pivoted to impact investing soon after that term came into existence and was brought in to help one of the early pioneers (RSF Social Finance) professionalize its $150 million social enterprise loan program. Hackenberg also worked with The Non Profit Finance Fund where he sourced and underwrote funding for community development projects in Oakland and California’s rural Central Valley. Hackenberg graduated with distinction from Cornell University and relocated back to Cleveland several years ago after 25-plus years in Silicon Valley.
Theo Legwaila
Theo Legwaila is an Associate at Avivar Capital supporting the team with portfolio monitoring, reporting, and due diligence. Previously, Theo spent over 3 years in financial services working with companies in the renewable energy, cleantech, and sustainable products industries. He worked at EPOCH Pi, an impact focused investment bank that helps business owners and entrepreneurs raise capital or sell their business while preserving the social and environmental impact of their companies beyond the transaction. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in finance from European University Business School in Geneva, Switzerland.
Uma M. Rajeshwar
Raj is a Managing Director, Wealth Manager at BNY Mellon Wealth Management, providing integrated Investment Management, Fiduciary and Wealth Advisory Services to multigenerational HNW families. In this role, Raj works within a teams based framework that internalizes clients’ financial profiles, goals and aspirations, risk appetite, desired margin of safety, dispositive intent and legacy objectives, and blends these into appropriate investment portfolios while remaining firmly anchored to their evolving goals.
Raj is also experienced in managing Endowments & Foundations, Donor Advised Funds and Sustainable & Impact Investing portfolios, helping Investment Committees and individuals reconcile the complexities of fiduciary governance with investment policy and their mission/personal objectives.
Raj joined the firm in 2023 and has more than 30 years in the Wealth Management business. His previous experience includes serving as Managing Director, Wealth Management at Glenmede and Senior Vice President, Private Asset Management at Key Bank.
Ben Cooper
Ben Cooper is the Senior Vice President, Team Lead, of Utilities, Power and Renewable Energy (UPR) at Keybank National Association. Ben leads a team of six talented individuals charged with negotiating, structuring, underwriting, agenting, and maintaining Key’s book of utility and project finance lending. The broader UPR group is consistently at the top of the league tables for renewable energy project finance in North America. Key’s commitments to renewable energy lending are nearing $10bn with another $6bn in commitments to utilities.
Ben has been at Key for 10 years, structuring renewable energy deals at the utility, C&I, and residential scales. Ben also briefly led Key’s public-private partnership underwritings. His B.A. in Economics is from the University of Chicago and he holds an MBA from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University.
Sarah O'Keeffe
Sarah O'Keeffe serves as the lead for the Mayor's Office of Sustainability in the City of Cleveland, directing sustainability and climate justice initiatives and a staff of passionate sustainability leaders. As a part of Mayor's Bibb cabinet, Sarah is currently working with peers to evaluate, update and establish priorities in circular economy, transforming energy, transportation, land use and other resource-intensive systems at the local and regional levels in the pursuit of equitable solutions to climate change and other environmental issues facing the Greater Cleveland community. A specific 2023 priority for the city will be the scoping of a regional decarbonization framework that is centered in equity, is inclusive of nature-based climate solutions and will help better quantify climate action goals to reach science-based targets. Sarah and the Office of Sustainability also work collaboratively with a number of community-based groups, non-profit organizations and other governmental agencies on these priorities, including the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District, Cleveland Tree Coalition, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, Power a Clean Future Ohio, the Cleveland 2030 District, Greater Cleveland Partnership, NOACA, NEORSD, OH EPA and others.
Kirstyn Wildey Fritz
Kirstyn is a tax credit finance and commercial real estate attorney with experience representing investors, developers and lenders on tax credit transactions, including federal and state historic tax credits, new markets tax credits, and renewable energy tax credits. Her practice also extends to the solar energy arena, where she has significant experience working with lenders and investors in connection with project and construction financing.
Kirstyn's practice is backed by her experience at InSite Capital, the community development arm of Chemical Bank (now Huntington National Bank), where she handled asset management and financial analysis for their tax credit and loan portfolio.
She draws on both her professional experience and her deep passion for historic preservation and community development in her role as Vice President of the Historic Gateway Neighborhood Corporation, a nonprofit organization committed to advancing the revitalization of Cleveland while preserving its rich architectural heritage.
Rosalind Madorsky
Rosalind is an Operations Manager for the Great Lakes Energy Institute at Case Western. She is currently serving as Program Manager for the Cleveland Regional Decarbonization Framework - an interdisciplinary project developing a regional climate action plan for the 5-county Cleveland-Elyria Metropolitan Statistical Area in Northeast Ohio. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) with a concentration in energy systems from the University of Michigan and wrote her thesis on power sector decarbonization.