Keesa Schreane: Hello, I'm Keesa Schreane, and thank you for joining Climate Money Work. Today, I'm here with our guest, Dail St. Claire. Dail is an investor, business advisor, board director, and audit committee member. She focuses primarily on advising private equity and venture capital funds, climate tech, and fintech companies, institutional investors, and family offices. Now, Dale is a co-founder of Williams Capital, now the largest women and minority-owned, broker-dealer, investment bank in the U.S. With her role now with St. Claire Consultants, she currently designs and implements business and investment frameworks, fully integrating ESG and DEI, and importantly, she is RRCA certified in running and as a fitness coach. I follow Dale and her visuals, and she does great work there as well. Thank you so much for joining us.

Dail: Thank you very much for having me, and congratulations on Gambling On Green.

Keesa Schreane: Thank you, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. So I want to get first into where we are with the economic environment. We're hearing that inflation is cooling and that we may not see longer-term higher interest rates. You know, the Fed is steadily boosting up interest rates. So with that said, what tools does a board have in today's market to look at new scenarios? Perhaps, unknown factors, or unidentified factors to get an accurate understanding of a company's financial situation today, as well as what it might be in the near term.

Dail: That's a great question in the wake of the recent Fed statement. Post-pandemic, there was a lot of pent-up demand, so for those sitting in CFO seats, audit committee seats, and other roles tied to finance in particular, looking at an immediate, twelve-month time horizon, alongside the three, five, and ten in some cases, inflation has been factored in for a while. On the investment committee I sit in on another board, we started addressing asset allocation, which we address on a three-year cycle, but more frequently during the pandemic, but depending on how you're diversified, you may look at some hedge-type instruments to address inflation depending on how your portfolio is structured. In terms of corporations, those factors, again, are not surprises, for the most part. It's really management coupled with existing supply and demand factors, so the shift should be a realization of what boards, investment committees, finance committees, have been discussing and now in fact are executing according to business plans.

Keesa Schreane: So, are you really being attentive to the due diligence piece, financial modeling? Would you say that's something that the board is really laser-focused on? Is that something that's a management piece that you simply review?

Dail: It depends on what committee. I mean, I sit on investment committees and finance committees. As you know, boards have multiple committees. This is something generally at a committee level that requires oversight, and this is not generally a discussion other than a more statement of fact of actions at the general board meeting. In the finance and investment committee meetings, it's certainly discussed. Sometimes, a monthly, or quarterly meeting happens more frequently. Certainly, if they were quarterly, they did during the pandemic and post, so these are discussions with the staff and they’ve been ongoing even before the pandemic, but certainly as we know the pandemic resulted in major shifts in the economy and the post-pandemic has been an adjustment period and here we are today.

Keesa Schreane: So in terms of those things that you're discussing with staff and things that have a lot more prominence today than maybe they did in the past, if we look at environmental, social governance issues, and sustainability issues, do you feel that boards, specifically the boards that you're working on? Are they doing enough to come up to speed on some of these issues that for some people may be relatively new? What's worked well in terms of getting boards up to speed on some of these ESG issues?

Dail: Well, that's a great point. For some boards it is relatively new, for some boards it is not relatively new, and some boards have taken a position that is not a factor in their decision-making. Other boards have taken the position that it is a factor in decision-making. I drill back, always. No matter what seat I'm in, no matter what geographic location I'm in, I think, you know, I work with several families in Florida and Texas, in particular, and I named those states because it's pretty public the position on what some of the states have taken on ESG, and I drill back to what is ESG?

What is the definition of ESG? Because first and foremost, no matter what seat I'm in, people have different views today, yesterday, and, you know, at any time. So it's so critical to be on the same page and understand what ESG means at this particular discussion point? And then drill down to, what is in the best interest of the company, what is in the best interest of the portfolio from a risk management perspective? If it's an investment portfolio, particularly at a public pension level as a fiduciary, there are laws that govern the fiduciary portfolios, and public pensions in particular. I hope you don't mind if I integrate public pensions in this conversation.

Keesa Schreane: Very appropriate.

Dail: Good, I do think that for the vast standpoint of the millions of people that have public pensions and a risk requires that funds to manage assets solely, in the best interest of the beneficiaries and family offices. The heads of the family offices have the discretion of running their capital in the manner that they see fit, so it is understanding what seat you have, and what that definition is and if it's tied to risk management. Now, the data is clear that ESG, as defined across climate, social, and governance matrix, has data associated with each of those matrix. I find myself both educating and speaking, at the same time, on the ESG matrix because when, in some cases, when ESG comes up, the definition of the individual bringing it up is unclear.

There is a common ground when it comes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, of which there are seventeen, and each of those seventeen goals are specific in terms of matrix, definitions, reporting, evaluating. I always approach any situation when it comes to ESG and meet people where they are. As you said in the beginning, for some people it's new, and for those people, or companies, that it is new and if there is enthusiasm to, let's do the SDG goals, there's seventeen!, I ask everyone to pause and say, let’s speak about each one, let’s understand what the requirements that are written and guidance that is written for each one, and what does that mean to the company or the investment portfolio in terms of of time frame to achieve the goal? What is the reporting mechanism? What is the monitoring mechanism? Will it require an additional staff person? Or what percentage of time that staff person, a new staff person or an existing staff person, must dedicate to the monitoring?

Before any goal is addressed, those questions must be answered. Often, it comes down to, I don't, obviously, My gut is always saying start at one or two, but I always like to arrive at that decision as a group.

So once we go through the seventeen, and once we speak about each one and what that means, whether it's the portfolio or the company, in terms of time frame reporting, monitoring, then it often, well, it always has come down to one or two. They’re large pension funds and this is public information. The New York state government retirement fund follows nine, nine of the seventeen, and that's a two hundred and fifty billion dollar fund.

I don't always say this up front, but sometimes toward the end when we get to one or two, and then I share, well, you know, you have a large, very large public pension fund that's following nine of the seventeen. So I go back to say, what does it mean? And which ones are top frames in terms of addressing, whether it's one or two or, or four or five, and what will that look like over time, and what are our goals and expectations?

Keesa Schreane: Great, I love the strategic approach around, let's think about the goals, let's think about the outcomes. Clearly, you’re extremely well versed in this working with a pension fund as well as your work on boards, Verde and others. My question is, if we're looking at identifying risk and clarifying what is financially material, taking that same strategic approach, how would you gain some sort of consensus, speak with and challenge other board members to see this as being framed in a financial materiality structure, as opposed to simply ESG for ESG sake? How do you frame that conversation if you want to influence others? How do you frame it so they can see what's financially material and what is considered a risk without having an ESG thought that might be biased for some folks who maybe see ESG is something that they don't want to include in discussions?

Dail: Sure, well, the marketplace is littered with examples and it's also littered with a lot of data sources. Which is good, good in the sense that there's a lot of choices. The whole world would like more uniform definitions and sources, and maybe in COP28 we will have some of that, but the good news is that because there's a number and some of them are brand names. That is, the information is fairly accessible when it comes to, linking risk management with financial goals, risk management with social goals, risk management with, you know, basically the very operations of the company.

Now, I always go back to words that are corporate friendly, and I say that because social goals aren't necessarily, with some companies, a corporate-friendly word, but I do go back to, you know, I used to say to people, the most important aspect of any corporation are the individuals that go up and down the elevator every day, but then we had hybrid, and then we had remote, so I can't say that anymore. The reality is, looking at the S in terms of diversity is the way that I address that, and there's data and metrics that go along with diverse staffs, as well as diverse asset managers if it's an investment company. So drilling back to your question, I had the great opportunity to really have the pillars of ESG, at the very beginning of my career, ingrained in my professional life, which is very much tied to my personal life.

So from inception, practically, I grew up with one of the early environmentalists, who is also the first female meteorologist in the United States, June Bacon-Bercey. I was very close to my mother. She took me everywhere. Every opportunity was to take your daughter to work day, and not that she had to, but she believed in exposure often and early, so I was around nobel laureates and on the back when they had, but they still have TV sets, but, you know, big giant cameras is when she did the weather and sitting in at UN assembly. It was just an enormous opportunity at a very young age to see thought leaders advancing discussions on the environment and the weather.

My first job was at New York City Public Pension Fund and part of that, my responsibility, was managing the Emerging Manager Program as defined as managers under a billion dollars. It was not defined by race, it was not defined by gender, it was defined by asset management. The fact was that 94 percent of the managers, under billion dollars, were diverse owned firms, women and minority-owned firms. Co-founding Williams Capital in the nineties, which the success of Williams today is really a tribute to the team.

Co-founding a firm in the nineties with a handful of people, and there were several other firms sort of co-founded in the nineties that were women, minority-owned, in both the investment banking and the asset management space. It was a lonely road, so to speak, to demonstrate to corporations and investment pools of capital, you know, across the public pension space and all types of pools of capital, that we were trained that some of the large companies had formed a company that could deliver as good or better business.

Today it’s a different environment, but back then, we naturally collaborated, today there's more collaboration of the global, and I'm speaking about a time when there were a handful of firms, you know, many of some are nonexistent, many are still standing, Williams, of course, achieved that, but the reason I bring that up is that the conversation, what does a company deliver in terms of asset management, in terms of bond underwriting? Ties directly into the responsibility of the decision-maker to look at all the options.

So let me give you a specific example. This is 2010, I worked with the California Public Utility Commission, which is the regulator for public utilities and the large utilities in California were, at the time, with specific gas and electric, SoCalEd, and SEMPRA Energy.

At the time, these utilities were learning about the opportunities and the capabilities of women minority-owned firms, given the California Public Utilities Commission was independent, so working with them and sharing with them a host of at least 20 companies, you know, not just Williams, but the universe of companies so that the CPUC and their conversations in there as they educate the utilities about the capabilities of these firms, were coming from an independent source.

Exelon and Chicago, which is now one of the largest utilities, who we’d been working with for years, and had done not only managed assets, but, also, lead underwriter when Exelon came to market and the bond and equity markets. That means that's a position in investment banking that is, well, well sought after. The California utilities had not had a women minority-owned firm as lead underwriter before 2010. So the education of the opportunity was what we were able to achieve with independence, and Williams was not the first firm disappointing to my colleagues to have that role, it was actually Luke Capital.

The reason I raise this, is it's after due diligence and having conversations about what are people concerned with, independently, where we're not in the room, but they're with a third party. I actually asked Exelon to come and speak with Sempra and PG&E because, you know, colleague to colleague, I thought it would work. So the strategy behind education was honestly pivotal in a historic moment, at least in the space of the utility investment banking world and the asset management world.

And what were the results? The results were that small firms were able to get more diversification of in-buyers of securities. You know there are data points, I mean, I have multiple examples, and I took a little bit more time with that, but I was trying to explain the essence of the opportunity lies in the data.

There's not one source. There's multiple examples. I shared one where ultimately the corporation is a beneficiary of more, in different shareholders of their bonds, versus a Goldman Sachs in the time period that I shared. So it's all about understanding what is the end result, what data supports that, and in having conversations as being specific, I'm going to always get to the specifics because I don't know how else to do anything to make sure everyone's on the same page and honestly, it always comes back as, you know, frankly, it's an indefensible argument because they’re facts.

Keesa Schreane: So let me just switch gears slightly here. Let's get to the advice piece of things. So if you were on, say, an advisory board with a small, with a climate tech, who is really focused on going public, or who wants to be acquired by a larger firm. When it comes to the top things that, you know, the advisory board for this climate tech, this physical climate risk data firm, things they should look at if they really want to progress toward the IPO are, if they really want to be acquired by a larger firm, what sort of things would you, would you advise them to do? Entrepreneurs and advice boards.

Dail: So companies are staying private longer than even, you know, five or ten years ago, for the very reason of proof of concept and capital. There's a path to stay private, there's a path to stay public, you know, so you lay out both opportunities and the opportunity to stay private it's essential that the company works on institutional quality and institutional quality matters because the opportunity to stay public, it's easier for a large company to see companies operating that way by very different definition that you're public, you know, and you're 10 cues, and this information is coming out, you're already producing what large companies and frankly, large investors are accustomed to seeing.

So when I speak to companies I try to understand what they think the benefits of going public are? It's very different than it even was 10 years ago and, also, then I educate them on the exchanges. It's typically a pre-IPO company. It may be the New York Stock Exchange, it may be Nasdaq, it could be the Toronto Stock Exchange, you know, there's multiple exchanges for small and low middle market companies. Absolutely all of them should be looked at and addressed, so that the founders and all stakeholders have an understanding of what the options are, and what that will mean ultimately for the company. Depending on the technology, I try to work with companies that are positioned to scale. It doesn't necessarily mean they're positioned to go public, but it does mean that they're positioned to scale because scaling, any technology is the only path to success, and having a sustainable company that could be achieved on a public or private basis.

Keesa Schreane: Dig deeper into that, so scaling versus going public, when you say that those should be looked at differently, what questions would you ask or what sort of things would the founders look at if they simply want to scale versus going public?

Dail: I was unclear, I apologize, let me dial back. First, when working with the company, I evaluate the technology with the lens, that is, the scalable? Is it scalable nationally? Is it scalable globally? Frankly, not every innovation is. It could be a great idea, but it may not be scalable.

I don't work with those companies, but I certainly refer them to others who I know, if I have anyone in mind, I'm always happy to refer people. If the company's technology is such that it is, potentially one that can scale globally, then the question is, what does that company need to achieve that goal?

That's when I map out a path for the company to stay private and what that would mean in terms of financing, what that means in terms of resources and strategic partners, and reporting, and a potential path to go public. According to multiple matrix that those matrix also include the cost of going public, and what the potential outcome of going public is, you know, for many companies by virtue of going public, it's not as much about the stock price. It's more about the fact that they now are adhering to multiple regulators and publicly reporting information that gives stakeholders a level of comfort that the transparency, is in fact the transparency that they think, and particularly in the climate space with the overhang of greenwashing, and what that might mean is somewhat alleviated with a public company given that this information is public, and there should be very few places to hide.

So the opportunity, back to the question of the founders, is that having a fantastic, innovative technology. What are the benefits and what are the risks of going public and from the standpoint of the company’s IP, intellectual property? From the standpoint of at what point do they want to fully disclose and share that information or their protocols? And at one point do they want to expand their base beyond their inner circle of investors to the general public or to a broader circle of investors?

There's multiple, I actually have a hundred questions.

Keesa Schreane: A survey, complete survey, yeah.

Dail: Yeah, there’s generally a minimum of a month conversation that I'm trying to consolidate to a minute. I'm trying to not be as detailed, given the medium that we're in.

Keesa Schreane: That shows the thoughtfulness that you would anticipate and that you would expect the founders to have as they entered the conversation. This is not something that, you know, just a fly-by-night sort of conversation.

Dail: Oh, no, There's an education element. I always look at the opportunity to educate with anyone, whether it's a founder, whether it's a board of director, you know, a company, or any pool of capital. The opportunity to educate is huge. It may mean that I'm not the right person to work with them as a board member, and if I have a referral, I'm more than happy to do that, but it's so important to define ESG, define the founders goals, define the financing. There are many founders who didn't anticipate having as much, you know, frankly, being as successful financially as they find themselves being, and they haven't necessarily thought about trust in the States.

I haven't necessarily thought about, should I roll part of my business into a family office structure? I mean there's a lot of considerations, not just for the founders, but also all stakeholders. Particularly, if they want to attract outside capital, what does that look like and what will that mean? Because, you know, a co-investment from a family office is very different from a co-investment from a venture capital fund, or a private equity fund.

Keesa Schreane: Such an exciting time. Those things are on your plate, but also it sounds like it's exciting, but it also warrants a high degree of thoughtfulness going into understanding what you want your outcome to be.

Dail: Yeah, absolutely, and I think, also, for me, I approach businesses with an institutional quality lens. Not every founder is prepared or wants to be institutional quality, and that is absolutely their decision. That's what I go back to before, is whether it's a climate technology or financial technology, is this such that it can scale? Sometimes the technology is just meant for a much smaller audience or a much smaller region, has no intention of scaling, the founders has no interest or position to, or necessarily have the financial resources, to be institutional quality because there is an expense associated with running a company in that manner. So those are all discussion points and facts for founders and their stakeholders who evaluate.

Keesa Schreane: You raised some great points earlier about your work with Williams, and just the environment of being a woman of color, a firm focused on women of color, their emerging managers, the selection there. With the recent Supreme Court decision around affirmative action in colleges and universities, I found Dail, that has opened up conversations with corporate leaders around diversity, around inclusion, around ensuring that they have diverse perspectives at the table when they make decisions.

I'm wondering, as a board member and as a woman of color board member, what types of concerns are being addressed now? What sorts of questions are being discussed now with using or looking at that Supreme Court decision as an impetus to really drive thinking around bringing in women of color as board members.

Dail: Thank you for asking that question. The discussions haven't necessarily changed to the extent of bringing in more women and people of color, per se. The discussion continues to be on diversity of thought, which stems from multiple sources, including women and people of color.

You know, I always go back to Louis Pasteur and the bovine virus. You may have heard this, the bovine virus, which is derived from cows. It was discovered after men and scientists of the time, leaders of the time, leading executives from all industries, including science, were trying to determine the smallpox vaccine because smallpox was ravaging Europe. So the smallpox vaccine is bovine-based. The reason it's bovine-based is because after months and months and months of trying to figure out the smallpox vaccine what one would look like, a farmer said that the milkmaids were not getting smallpox.

Why was the farmer in the room? You know, I don't know. We can speculate all day. I've actually tried to figure out how after months and months that farmer is in the room. I don't, I can't say that, so I won't speculate, but I will say that after months of these scientists and thought leaders from all around the world, not just Europe. Farmer in the room made a statement, and that's why the smallpox vaccine is bovine-based. I share with you that diversity of thought is rooted in race, rooted in geographic location, rooted in, you know, frankly, labor, rooted in, gender, and rooted in, gender from all types of identifications of gender, which we are now better positioned as a world to speak about today.

So diversity is demonstrated by many different avenues, no matter what the industry is, it's evident that contributing to thought process, and important decisions that corporations are positioned to make, whether it's a Fortune 50 corporation or a Fortune 1000 corporation, the fundamentals around risk management, around governance, around investments in finance, around human resources, strategic planning, these are all elements of decision making that benefit from diversity, and there's data around all of these factors and more. That's often why I go back to the seventeen UNPRI principles because it's easier for me to connect data with seventeen, health, education, inclusive environment, I'm saying this from memory, sustainable economy, climate change, seventeen. It covers what every company will end up thinking about is the course of the business they're running, no matter what the industry is. I hope I answered your question.

Keesa Schreane: Yeah, definitely, definitely. I want to wrap up talking about something I was really excited about you sharing with us. I know we spoke about this in the past. Your mom, who was just inspirational to many folks from the climate area, to meteorology, to those of us who were in broadcasting. I mean, it just covers a lot, her legacy really covers a lot. I'm wondering if there was a piece of advice that she shared with you, or shared broadly with mentees, that you want to socialize because you think it's really that important and that universal. So a piece of advice and negative wisdom that your mom, first female meteorologist on broadcast TV, shared that you think on this particular day at this particular time where we are as a society, what really resonates? What would that piece of advice be?

Dail: I think the world is in a global transformational period. My mom has always said reach for the stars, and she said that to women, to people of color, she said that and I learned that no is never an answer.

That's why, you know, I share with you about education because I always find I learned from her, education is on the same page. I learned from her preparation. That I look at a woman who in 1979, I mean, she was a broadcast journalist and she was also a government scientist, at NOAA in the Atomic Energy Commission.

So she wasn't a multi-millionaire. She chose a road of service, for the most part, and in 1979 started the June Bacon Bercey Scholarship for women to study meteorology, as a single mom of two girls. I couldn't figure out how she did that, but she was asked to star in a show, John Philip Sousa, which won one-hundred thousand dollars and that was the foundation of the scholarship.

Now, my mom was deeply religious, as well. I don't know how she got invited to the show. It was about preparation. So she spent, in addition to working and being a mom, there were seventy, eighty hours a week studying John Philip Sousa because that was a topic she chose knowing that, that was her ticket to finding a scholarship that she had been dreaming about for ten years. So I will say to reach for the stars and with conviction and faith because I see the vision that my mom had and the path that she was prepared to realize her dream.

Most people don't know that she actually became the first female meteorologist, frankly, in the world in the seventies, not because she was asked to be, she was credentialed and had asked all over the country, and all the no's, and she took a position as a weather reporter, which I couldn't understand as a young girl because she was at the Atomic Energy Commission. She had left the National Weather Service to become a weather reporter, but that was my first lesson. Seeing how she was strategic in her career, as a weather reporter, and being prepared to step into the role of chief meteorologist, albeit, that was not her position.

The chief meteorologist robbed a bank at WGR in Buffalo in the early afternoon and there was no one to step in to do the 5p.m. news, and my mother knocked on the door and said she was ready. It was an interim position, up until she came on the air and the public spoke. So I share these things to say, it's not about the how, it's always about the vision, and being prepared, and reaching for the stars, you know, when it's seemingly completely impossible odds.

I'm very fortunate to have grown up with my mom and watched her do, not just with her career, but also lay the path for others. She started funding the meteorology lab at Mississippi State University, a historically black university because after she started the scholarship and wonderful women applied, there were no people of color.

So part of the credentials of being a meteorologist is having lab time. So, of course, she's going to look at the historically black colleges because they're mostly going to be people of color, so my mother was always strategic, cause, and solution.

That lab exists today, and when she passed two years ago, I had a chance to meet some of the graduates of Jackson State University, JSU, from what she started, so I try to honor her legacy every day.

Keesa Schreane: Well, thank you so much for sharing this with us, and, Dail, thank you for sharing so much more of the importance of risk management, the importance of really creating a strategy when working with a company who's really keen to move in a direction. Finding out the reason why, finding out the expected outcome or the desired outcome, and even when advising companies such as climate tech companies, really getting a sense of why they want to go public, and if it's in their best interest based on the data, based on what they share, if they should focus on scaling, or when they should focus on going public, and, of course, thank you so much for sharing so much about your mother's life, her journey, her legacy as a scientist, as a woman in STEM, as a philanthropist, and as a teacher who shared with you and many others to always be prepared and to always have the vision, and then from there, reach for the stars. Dail St. Clair, thank you so much.

Dail: Thank you, Keesa, for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation and I look forward to sharing your book with many others. I just finished it yesterday.

Keesa Schreane: Oh wonderful! Thank you.