Stefania Di Bartolomeo was an early proponent of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing movement when she started Physis seven years ago. Her mission was to show just what companies were doing with the money investors gave them to fight climate change and encourage diversity – to bring transparency to sustainable investors.
The Italian-born, Harvard-educated fund manager rode the wave of ESG in the early 2020s but then suffered, like many others, as President Donald Trump returned to the White House with a vow to stamp out climate change investing. Suddenly business was drying up and ESG was a banned word on Wall Street. Even worse for Di Bartolomeo, a few of her tech team staff from India were even stopped on the Harvard campus by ICE agents looking to expel immigrants.
