Alumni Spotlight: Amantia Muhedini

Name: Amantia Muhedini
School: Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (‘20)
Degree: Masters in Public Administration, Economic and Political Development, Management
Current Role & Organization:
Head, Sustainable & Impact Investing Americas, UBS GWM CIO Global Investment Management

Bio: Amantia Muhedini is an Executive Director and Head of Sustainable and Impact Investing Americas in the UBS CIO Global Investment Management group of Global Wealth Management, based in New York. Amantia supports clients with thought leadership, investment advice, and strategy on a range of topics related to sustainable and impact investing. She specializes in topics tied to impact measurement and reporting, sustainable investing strategic asset allocation, and portfolio construction, identifying impact objectives, and market trends tied to sustainability.

Prior to joining UBS, Amantia was a Sustainable Investing Fellow with Morgan Stanley’s Investing with Impact Wealth Management team. She also spent time at Working Capital – The Supply Chain Innovation Fund, conducting impact and commercial due diligence. Amantia started her career as an Investments Associate with the Omidyar Group’s Humanity United, where she helped design and implement a strategy to address forced labor in global corporate supply chains.

Amantia is a board director for United World Colleges International (UWC), a global education organization, and was a founding board member and acting Executive Director for UWC in Albania. She is also a board director of GoodWeave International, a global non-profit focused on eliminating child and forced labor from global supply chains.

Amantia received a BA magna cum laude from Princeton University and a MPA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Q: How did Turner MIINT shape your understanding of impact investing? 

A: Since graduating, the term impact investing has become far more widely recognized, and there is no shortage of graduates and soon-to-be graduates looking to break into the industry. When I was participating in the program at the time, I think Turner MIINT was helpful in both raising awareness for impact investing and helping students build the appropriate investing skills.

Now, in some ways, Turner MIINT matters even more after 15 years, not just in shaping one’s understanding of impact investing, but in helping students gain access to the industry and build the knowledge and skills needed to enter it. Aspiring professionals increasingly need a solid understanding of common frameworks and terminology, having read key resources from the GIIN and other leading organizations. And that is exactly what Turner MIINT increasingly provides students: the resources, training, and professional network needed to establish that baseline knowledge and prepare for—and ultimately land—a job in impact investing.

Q: Looking back, what part of the Turner MIINT program was most valuable for your professional growth?

A: The most valuable part of the Turner MIINT experience for my professional growth was the opportunity to do a deep dive into financial analysis and write an investment memo. Prior to graduate school, I worked for a private foundation that was closely aligned with my personal interests and values, where I was exposed to the ideas behind impact investing. However, at the time I didn’t yet have strong financial skills. While pursuing my graduate degree in public policy at SIPA, I began taking finance courses to build that foundation, which is when I came across the Turner MIINT program.

Participating in the program created a space to apply those developing financial skills I was learning in the classroom to a real-world company. The back and forth that we had with the company as we were preparing our investment memo and presentation also allowed us to help them as mock investors and prepare them for their next rounds of funding.

Q: Are there skills or perspectives you gained through Turner MIINT that you still use in your work today?

A: While my day-to-day role is not directly tied to investing in companies, the Turner MIINT program gave me the confidence and foundational knowledge that helped me navigate my job search and ultimately land a role with my current employer.

The experience also created a close network of friends and colleagues, including my Turner MIINT teammates, with whom I remain in touch with to this day and who continue to be an important part of my professional network.

Q: What was your experience like competing in the Turner MIINT competition?

A: What is great about the Turner MIINT program is that it is open to all graduate students, not just MBAs. While many MBA programs participate, my team of five was multidisciplinary, with three of us from SIPA’s policy school. Working closely with this team, I gained a firsthand appreciation for the importance of teamwork and for how to engage a company throughout the entire investment process.

Out of the five of us, four have gone on to investment consulting roles within the impact space, and the fifth is now the head of DE&I at an impact-focused company. This experience has created a close network of friends and colleagues that I continue to rely on today.