With a background in portfolio management and a growing interest in impact finance, Lawrence Luo viewed business school not just as a path to new opportunities, but as a way to gain the tools necessary to seize them effectively. Among the many experiential learning opportunities that drew him to NYU Stern, the NYU Impact Investment Fund (NIIF) stood out as a unique space to bridge theory and practice. What began as a vision shared in Luo’s application essay became a defining part of his MBA experience—allowing him to engage deeply with the impact investing process, collaborate across disciplines, and help source a new addition to the NIIF portfolio. In this Fridays from the Frontline, follow Luo’s journey to and through NIIF, as he recounts being part of the fund’s first investment in a media company.
Learning by Doing: Lessons from NYU’s Student-led Impact Fund
By Lawrence Luo, NYU Stern (MBA ‘25)
NYU Stern’s MBA application asks candidates to complete the school’s “Change” brand call to action using a word that resonates with their personal journey. Considering my professional and personal experience up to that point, and envisioning what I hoped to achieve at Stern, I chose the tagline “Change. Earn it.” With an interest in impact finance and building a career that promotes sustainable societal growth, my hope in attending business school was not just to be positioned for new opportunities, but to have the skills and knowledge necessary to effectively capitalize when they arose.
At the time, I’d read about NYU’s Impact Investment Fund (NIIF) and included joining it in my “Change” essay as one significant step I hoped to take to embody my personal tagline. As a second-year MBA candidate, I got my chance to join the team. Turning vision into action, I learned about impact investing in theory and in practice, taking away lessons from classmates, industry professionals, and founders on how to connect finance with positive social change. I was also privileged to help source and pitch NIIF’s sixth portfolio investment into Rolli, a company dedicated to fostering a thriving media ecosystem by equipping journalists with innovative tools and resources.
Becoming an NIIF Associate
After six years in portfolio management before Stern, I was familiar with sustainability-oriented investment strategies and their appeal to clients. However, I often found myself wondering if more could be done, particularly around matching interested institutional client funding with companies who were “doing good” well. Many existing funds had the propensity to be overly broad, subject to thesis drift, or focus only on negative screens instead of actively sourcing companies. I knew that my ideal program would have some offering that could satisfy my curiosity, allowing me to learn with the granularity I desired. NIIF fit the bill. While having classroom structure to act as a helping hand, its student-run tilt also meant that I would have the independence and support to grow.
A year-long experiential learning course, NIIF is composed of graduate and undergraduate students at NYU Stern, Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and NYU Abu Dhabi. Divided into deal teams focusing on particular sectors (food systems, media, health and aging, etc.), NIIF combines in-class education with hands-on experience sourcing and interacting with early-stage companies. The year culminates with investment pitch presentations from the deal teams, each of which has selected one prospect for the consideration of NIIF’s investment committee.
Being an NIIF Associate
As part of the inaugural Culture, Media, & Democracy team, my teammates and I began the sourcing process by crafting an investment thesis, focusing on platforms that foster civic discourse and serve as vital hubs for community connection. Over the subsequent several months, we interviewed dozens of potential founder partners, leveraging NIIF’s alumni network, personal connections, and introductions made by our faculty advisor Professor Andrea Armeni. We refined our initial investment thesis into a set of ranking parameters for each prospect, including evaluating the potential scope of impact, additionality of our investment, and business viability. Eventually, we narrowed the field to two prospects, and with input from the broader NIIF associate team, decided to move forward with Rolli.
With our finalist determined, we spent the spring semester working closely with Rolli’s co-founders. While our goal was to complete an objective analysis of the company’s viability for the NIIF portfolio, it was just as rewarding to spend time learning more about the challenges facing the media space and the potential solutions offered by Rolli’s tools. Through its platform, Rolli aims to help journalists by connecting them with a diverse range of vetted experts and providing advanced AI newsgathering resources. Understanding the vision for Rolli’s impact was just as critical as our own criteria in making a robust pitch to the NIIF investment committee. While two of our fellow deal teams also presented exceptional candidates, we were immensely privileged to have Rolli join the NIIF portfolio as this year’s investment.
Moving Forward
Participating in NIIF offers an opportunity for students to not only understand the current landscape of impact investing, but also to apply a vision of what it can become. I’ve come away from the course with a deeper appreciation of the work it takes to meaningfully support businesses pushing forward measurable, positive societal progress. Rather than exist purely as a theoretical exercise in impact investing, NIIF’s structure gives hands-on, real-world experience, allowing the associate class to invest themselves in the deal creation process. Getting to work in this environment alongside individuals similarly interested in developing their understanding of the connection between finance and social impact was a unique experience, and I’m immensely grateful for the new lessons and skills I’ll carry for the rest of my career in finance.
