Episode 225: Kate Fox of Baillie Gifford: A Recipe for Positive Change

Kate Fox is an Investment Manager at Baillie Gifford based in Edinburgh, where she leads the impact strategy Positive Change and is a Partner at the Firm. Our conversation traces her career journey, explores the meaning of "positive change" within an investment context and examines the way to develop a successful career in portfolio management. We start with Kate's upbringing in a small village near Aberdeen and the love of maths and physics that led to finance as a possible career path - discovered through the milk round. She describes her desire to have a positive impact on society, and how, initially, she didn't conceive how a job in finance could deliver that. This sowed the seeds for a focus on how investing could focus on companies with positive change. We move then to what an impact strategy really is, and how positive change is defined and measured. We look at investor demand for and scrutiny of such strategies and discuss the likely evolution of this area in the future. Finally, turning the lens on the finance industry itself, we see what change has happened in a positive direction during Kate's career so far. The future is bright it seems. This bonus series is kindly supported by Sound Mark Partners, Sound Mark Partners LLC is a women-owned and led private credit firm focused on commercial real estate.