Andrea Armeni
Associate Clinical Professor of Social Finance and Public Service; Director of Social Impact, Innovation, and Investment Specialization
Room 377
New York, NY 10003
Andrea Armeni is Associate Clinical Professor of Social Finance and Public Service and Director of Social Impact, Innovation & Investment at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He is also the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Transform Finance, a non-profit research, education, and implementation partner that supports investors and social change actors to challenge legacy investment approaches, seed transformative investment models, and build movement power.
A corporate lawyer by training, Andrea has spent the last decade exploring how capital can be made more just and equitable and how social change can be achieved both in and through finance. His current explorations focus on distributed governance mechanisms at the enterprise level as a fairer alternative to shareholder primacy.
He is the co-author, most recently, of “Grassroots Community Engaged Investment: Redistributing power over investment processes as the key to fostering equitable outcomes” and “Addressing Capital's Effects on Racial Justice: How investments drive injustice and what investors can do about it.” Andrea’s NYU Wagner course on finance and social justice received the 2021 Award of Excellence from the Financial Times and the Impact Finance Faculty Consortium.
Andrea holds a B.A. in analytic philosophy from Columbia University and a Juris Doctor from the Yale Law School.
The NYU Impact Investment Fund (NIIF) is a unique inter-disciplinary, experiential learning course that exposes students to the work of an early-stage impact investor, from crafting an investment thesis to sourcing companies, performing due diligence, and ultimately executing an investment.
The course is offered in tandem with a student-led and operated Impact Investing Fund of the same name (“NIIF” may refer to the course, the fund, or both, as applicable). Each year NIIF makes one or two investments; students in the course work in Deal Teams throughout the year to present investments for approval by NIIF’s Investment Committee. See the Annual Report on NIIF’s web page for more details. The Deal Teams also have access to the MIINT (MBA Impact Investing Network & Training) program, a competition and learning lab that attracts student teams from across the globe.
The course is chiefly open to NYU Wagner, NYU Stern, and NYU Abu Dhabi students. However, students from other programs across NYU are encouraged to apply also. Students participating in NIIF are expected to enroll in the course for the full academic year (fall and spring) and will receive 1.5 credits for each semester of participation. The course meets approximately every other week, but students are expected to complete assignments and deliverables on a weekly basis.
This course provides an introduction to the impact investing landscape and its evolution, players, and tools. After situating impact investing vis à vis both other forms of investing and other social change tools, we explore what makes an investment impactful - and how one would go about determining that and measuring it. Through a combination of readings, case studies, class discussion, and projects, students will gain deep insight into the perspective of the impact investor and consider how it relates to other stakeholders and to social change writ large. We will examine the process by which an investor develops an impact thesis, sources and evaluates opportunities, all the way to structuring a deal, monitoring financial and social returns, and exiting the investment responsibly. The course aims to combine practical knowledge about how impact investments are made with critical thinking about the field’s potential and limitations.
This course provides an introduction to the impact investing landscape and its evolution, players, and tools. After situating impact investing vis à vis both other forms of investing and other social change tools, we explore what makes an investment impactful - and how one would go about determining that and measuring it. Through a combination of readings, case studies, class discussion, and projects, students will gain deep insight into the perspective of the impact investor and consider how it relates to other stakeholders and to social change writ large. We will examine the process by which an investor develops an impact thesis, sources and evaluates opportunities, all the way to structuring a deal, monitoring financial and social returns, and exiting the investment responsibly. The course aims to combine practical knowledge about how impact investments are made with critical thinking about the field’s potential and limitations.
The NYU Impact Investment Fund (NIIF) is a unique inter-disciplinary, experiential learning course that exposes students to the work of an early-stage impact investor, from crafting an investment thesis to sourcing companies, performing due diligence, and ultimately executing an investment.
The course is offered in tandem with a student-led and operated Impact Investing Fund of the same name (“NIIF” may refer to the course, the fund, or both, as applicable). Each year NIIF makes one or two investments; students in the course work in Deal Teams throughout the year to present investments for approval by NIIF’s Investment Committee. See the Annual Report on NIIF’s web page for more details. The Deal Teams also have access to the MIINT (MBA Impact Investing Network & Training) program, a competition and learning lab that attracts student teams from across the globe.
The course is chiefly open to NYU Wagner, NYU Stern, and NYU Abu Dhabi students. However, students from other programs across NYU are encouraged to apply also. Students participating in NIIF are expected to enroll in the course for the full academic year (fall and spring) and will receive 1.5 credits for each semester of participation. The course meets approximately every other week, but students are expected to complete assignments and deliverables on a weekly basis.
Students interested in taking this course must apply to be admitted to NIIF in the spring semester prior to the academic year for which they seek to join. Information on how to apply for the course can be found on the course highlights page.
This course introduces students to the main areas of corporate finance and how they relate to policy issues and discussions. The course covers topics in the three main areas of corporate finance: 1) capital structure (financing choices), 2) valuation (project and firm valuation) and 3) corporate governance (optimal governance structures). We will analyze how public policy, through taxes, public expenditures and regulation, affect these aspects of corporate finance. The course will additionally explore how key economic events have shaped public policy and influenced corporate financial practices. Case analysis will be used to enable students to understand practical application of the corporate finance theory introduced in the course and will also incorporate discussion of corporate finance in the context of social enterprises.
This course provides an introduction to the impact investing landscape and its evolution, players, and tools. After situating impact investing vis à vis both other forms of investing and other social change tools, we explore what makes an investment impactful - and how one would go about determining that and measuring it. Through a combination of readings, case studies, class discussion, and projects, students will gain deep insight into the perspective of the impact investor and consider how it relates to other stakeholders and to social change writ large. We will examine the process by which an investor develops an impact thesis, sources and evaluates opportunities, all the way to structuring a deal, monitoring financial and social returns, and exiting the investment responsibly. The course aims to combine practical knowledge about how impact investments are made with critical thinking about the field’s potential and limitations.
The NYU Impact Investment Fund (NIIF) is a unique inter-disciplinary, experiential learning course that exposes students to the work of an early-stage impact investor, from crafting an investment thesis to sourcing companies, performing due diligence, and ultimately executing an investment.
The course is offered in tandem with a student-led and operated Impact Investing Fund of the same name (“NIIF” may refer to the course, the fund, or both, as applicable). Each year NIIF makes one or two investments; students in the course work in Deal Teams throughout the year to present investments for approval by NIIF’s Investment Committee. See the Annual Report on NIIF’s web page for more details. The Deal Teams also have access to the MIINT (MBA Impact Investing Network & Training) program, a competition and learning lab that attracts student teams from across the globe.
The course is chiefly open to NYU Wagner, NYU Stern, and NYU Abu Dhabi students. However, students from other programs across NYU are encouraged to apply also. Students participating in NIIF are expected to enroll in the course for the full academic year (fall and spring) and will receive 1.5 credits for each semester of participation. The course meets approximately every other week, but students are expected to complete assignments and deliverables on a weekly basis.
This course provides an introduction to the impact investing landscape and its evolution, players, and tools. After situating impact investing vis à vis both other forms of investing and other social change tools, we explore what makes an investment impactful - and how one would go about determining that and measuring it. Through a combination of readings, case studies, class discussion, and projects, students will gain deep insight into the perspective of the impact investor and consider how it relates to other stakeholders and to social change writ large. We will examine the process by which an investor develops an impact thesis, sources and evaluates opportunities, all the way to structuring a deal, monitoring financial and social returns, and exiting the investment responsibly. The course aims to combine practical knowledge about how impact investments are made with critical thinking about the field’s potential and limitations.
This course provides an introduction to the impact investing landscape and its evolution, players, and tools. After situating impact investing vis à vis both other forms of investing and other social change tools, we explore what makes an investment impactful - and how one would go about determining that and measuring it. Through a combination of readings, case studies, class discussion, and projects, students will gain deep insight into the perspective of the impact investor and consider how it relates to other stakeholders and to social change writ large. We will examine the process by which an investor develops an impact thesis, sources and evaluates opportunities, all the way to structuring a deal, monitoring financial and social returns, and exiting the investment responsibly. The course aims to combine practical knowledge about how impact investments are made with critical thinking about the field’s potential and limitations.
The NYU Impact Investment Fund (NIIF) is a unique inter-disciplinary, experiential learning course that exposes students to the work of an early-stage impact investor, from crafting an investment thesis to sourcing companies, performing due diligence, and ultimately executing an investment.
The course is offered in tandem with a student-led and operated Impact Investing Fund of the same name (“NIIF” may refer to the course, the fund, or both, as applicable). Each year NIIF makes one or two investments; students in the course work in Deal Teams throughout the year to present investments for approval by NIIF’s Investment Committee. See the Annual Report on NIIF’s web page for more details. The Deal Teams also have access to the MIINT (MBA Impact Investing Network & Training) program, a competition and learning lab that attracts student teams from across the globe.
The course is chiefly open to NYU Wagner, NYU Stern, and NYU Abu Dhabi students. However, students from other programs across NYU are encouraged to apply also. Students participating in NIIF are expected to enroll in the course for the full academic year (fall and spring) and will receive 1.5 credits for each semester of participation. The course meets approximately every other week, but students are expected to complete assignments and deliverables on a weekly basis.
Students interested in taking this course must apply to be admitted to NIIF in the spring semester prior to the academic year for which they seek to join. Information on how to apply for the course can be found on the course highlights page.
Capital is but a tool – one that can be used for many different purposes. This course explores the use of finance as a tool for social change.
The sessions provide an overview of different approaches to the question of aligning investments and values and aim to empower the student with a critical framework for the evaluation of the role of finance in society via case studies and a review of current practices along a continuum from “avoiding the bad” to “building the good.” It is geared toward both finance practitioners and social change agents seeking to understand the interrelation and intersection of capital and social change practice.
Using impact investing as a starting point – but not an end point – this course provides an actionable, practitioner-centered overview of the opportunities to advance social change via capital. It will cover emerging strategies ranging from divestment in the public equities space to direct investments into social enterprises and communities, touching on some of the major topics in the space, from the allocation of risks and returns among stakeholders, to impact measurement and management.