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Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode, Adam Torres interviews Cara Williams, Senior Partner at Mercer, about the evolution of sustainability across finance and HR. The conversation explores ESG’s growing influence, the role of AI in impact measurement, and why purpose-aligned performance is the future of long-term value creation.
About Mercer
At Mercer, the belief is in building brighter futures.
Together, Mercer’s 25,000 employees in over 130 countries are helping redefine the future of work, reshape retirement and investment outcomes, and unlock real health and well-being.
For over 75 years, Mercer has provided trusted advice and solutions to build healthier and more sustainable futures for clients, colleagues, and communities.
Balancing economics and empathy in its approach, Mercer works side by side with clients to find solutions that benefit their people and their business. By turning ideas into actions that spark positive change, Mercer helps enrich employees’ lives and careers and drive innovation, pr
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today my guest is Cara Williams and she is a senior partner over at Mercer.
And today’s interview is part of our Milken Global Conference coverage series where we bring to you the best from the conference.
the organizers, VIP, speakers and panelists. So first thing first, Cara, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me. Cara, so we got a lot to talk about today. I definitely wanna Get more into what you’re doing over at Mercer and of course, you know, you’re, you’re experience in sustainability. But I guess just to get us kicked off, I want to talk a little bit about the conference. So Milken global conference in Beverly Hills. I know you attended.
What’s your connection? Have you been in the past? ? Is this your first time attending? Like, give me some more. Yeah. So I am lucky to say that I have been in the past, I think this might have been number three or four, I can’t remember. Ooh. Yeah. But there are always, you know, always amazing .
Obviously , they set up an incredible agenda, like of speakers and speaker panels. Mm-hmm. And there’s just, you know, tons of places that you can go and just sit and be , a basically reactive per participant. But it’s really the conversations that take place along the sides. Mm-hmm.
. And I’ve had some incredible reach outs and it’s led to, you know, me personally or my firm, having some really interesting collaborations with organizations , that are fascinating and doing great stuff.
So it’s always exciting to go. It’s exhausting. But it’s um, it is so valuable and I think it’s valuable to our clients. It’s valuable to my colleagues and me personally. Yeah, , I’m a big fan. It’s funny to me, it’s like , my super bowl of conferences every year kind of is the feeling I have. .
, I’m curious how you, with so much going on, and this is just , my curiosity here, how do you choose , what panels you’re gonna pop in or otherwise? ’cause I’m always, I’ve heard, I’ve had other people this just say it’s like a Disneyland for like content. It’s like a brain candy. I don’t know.
How do you choose what you’re gonna go to? ’cause I could never figure that out. That’s just for me. Well, no, you’re, you’re totally right. I mean, I definitely, you know, I do try to sit in on the ones that I know are extremely relevant to kind of the daily work that I do. So, you know, sort of chasing the sustainability things.
But given the breadth of content sometimes I just go, Ooh, that sounds really interesting. And it’ll be something I know nothing about and I’ll never have probably anything to do with. But , it’s sort of like a. The chat GBT of conferences. Right. You can just kind of, oh my gosh, you just now dropped another bomb.
Now I got another one. I got the Disneyland conferences, I got the chat GBT conferences. I got the brain candy. Exactly. Oh, I love it. That’s wonderful. Yeah. And , let’s switch it up a bit here. But , thanks for sharing that and your experience. And you’re right, I’m on three or four conferences in now too, actually.
Time flies, I swear. So just as we get into the rest of the discussion, let maybe just start with talking a little bit more about, for those that aren’t aware, haven’t worked with, I’ll talk a little bit about Mercer and what you do. Sure. So we’re part of the Marsh McLennan family which already sort of really broadens our portfolio of capabilities within Mercer itself.
, We have three sort of. Clear distinct practices. So we’ve got what we call our health wealth and our career practices. So health and career are very much focused on HR and HR consulting, and wealth is very much on the investment of management and investment consulting side.
So kind of two sides of the people business investments and people.
it’s a fascinating place. I mean, I’ve been there over 20 years and it is rarely a dull moment and it’s, you know, always something to learn about there. Yeah, I liked the way you explained this, and I know that one of the things that Mercer is involved in and cares about , is sustainability.
How would you define sustainability across, , you know, the people side of things and maybe even in the investment domains? Yeah, I don’t think you can be in the people business without thinking about sustainability and the importance of it.
Mm-hmm. Because uh, vast majority of businesses are people based. So for us it’s, it’s always been about aligning purpose with performance, and that’s working with companies , and asset owners on aligning that. Right. So if we wanna stick to, you know, sort of, nomenclature that’s becoming less popular like ESG, so environmental, social, and governance.
Considerations. We believe that those three components are still really important to generate long-term value for both people and portfolios within companies. And if you look at like McKinsey continues , to do their research and, they found that companies with , strong gender and ethnic diversity on executive teams are 39% more likely to outperform on profitability.
You know, so that, pretty substantial and leads to the bottom line. And we think these things are not mutually. Exclusive that, really thinking about sustainability , is core to you know, good, strong profitability and, growth. Yeah. as you mentioned, you’ve been, you know, at Immer for, you know, 20 plus years.
I feel like , that even just the word and the way we view sustainability has kind of evolved over the last couple of decades. At one point it was kind of like a catchphrase and it was like, oh, is that like just, you know, something that feels good or it’s part of like an investment thesis, you know, to.
Dollars maybe for some individuals. It’s more ingrained in the culture. People are starting to understand it more, you know, decades later. It’s not just a catchphrase like we we’re seeing the impact of it. , How do you feel just overall about , in your tenure about, you know, how this has evolved from your perspective?
Just the idea of even sustainability and context to what we do. Yeah, you’ve hit numerous nails on the head. You know, I, think that initially it was very much sort of , a marketing opportunity, especially if you’re thinking about investment management. Calling a fund an ESG fund or a sustainable fund , was sort of a neat label, which didn’t frankly say very much.
Ultimately, you know, sustainability is about risk and opportunity, right? Mm-hmm. , It’s looking. Mm-hmm. , The potential negative side. So if you’re a corporation, obviously, if, you know, if you look at the sort of social aspects, there are significant risks in how you treat your people or how you operate in the communities that you, have operations in you know, environmental risks.
Again, if you have op operations in areas which are more exposed to environmental impacts. That’s going to affect your bottom line. , And then obviously governance, right?
So it has very much evolved, from, neat marketing label to something that I think is becoming much more fundamental in how organizations are organized. How they’re thinking about their business and then how people are investing, right? So it’s taking into account all available information, all available risks that could potentially, , impact a business , or investment portfolios.
Mm-hmm. So this is obviously , a hot topic , in any conference or just any conversation really, especially when it comes to investments or otherwise. I’m thinking about the role of data ai, and how these are going to shape or play a part in the sustainability landscape in the coming years.
Any thoughts on that? Like just the role of data in AI , and, kind of this new environment. Yeah, so you, data has been kind of , a core. Component and challenge frustration to, basically , the buy side, so the asset managers. Mm-hmm. As well as the organizations that are trying to report out, if you can’t manage what you can’t measure there’s too, it is gonna be a frustrating exercise.
I think data has gotten significantly better. And there is no question that I think the excuse of organizations and investment managers saying, well, we don’t have access to the data. Even private markets , are getting much better about reporting. Europe is way ahead in reporting requirements , and that’s for the private sector as well.
So I think that’s becoming much less of an issue and which is a good thing in the end because it is a foundational component to either running a business or to investing. AI is. Quickly becoming really critical to how if you look at things like impact investment mm-hmm. Which have been, relatively difficult to truly measure your impact.
But now things like using. Echo technology to assess, you know, increased bird song. To see whether mm-hmm or not you’re having a positive environmental impact is really unique and really quite interesting. And you think about drones and the information that they’re gathering it makes it a lot.
Easier and more accessible for folks to invest in impact where you can actually measure whether or not you’re truly having an impact. So I think AI is critical, when it comes to global supply chains detecting labor rights violations , on the positive side boosting social sustainability., We, with our colleagues over at Marsh and Oliver Wyman have developed something called centris, which really allows you to do all that, but you wouldn’t be able to do it without ai.
You know, climate tech innovation has been rapidly growing. I think the technology has completely changed The face of sustainability and , the number of organizations that are popping up, small startups all across aspects , of AI and climate tech , is really exciting and just gonna have a really, yeah, I think a massively positive change.
So, Cara, , we’re heading into, you know, the second half of the year. We’re in the second half of the year, I should say. Um, What’s up? What’s next? What’s next for you? What’s on the agenda? What’s going on for the rest of year for you’s?
Yeah. So you know, staying , on top of the regulatory changes Yes, ma’am. That, keeps us busy. we look around the globe I think what’s happening in the Middle East as far as sustainability is concerned is fascinating. Mm-hmm. Um, They are very quickly.
Fogging the rest of the world. When it comes to, you know, social innovations and , advancing societies and communities. We kind of have to bow our hats , to the work that’s taking place in the
Middle East mm-hmm. So that keeps us extremely busy. , they’ve already made major strides and when it comes to the environmental aspect, but I think when it comes to the social piece, , we’re seeing a a lot happening , in that market. You know, Europe as well is very similar where,
again, it’s more regulatory, but sort of the centrally the governments are, uniting to, come up with what is more streamlined, a little bit less cumbersome, . you know, I say kind of keeping our eye , and our finger on the pulse of what’s going on around the globe.
And I’ve skipped Asia in the United States, but two major markets where there’s a lot happening as well. . So yeah, it’s a, very large world , with lots of focuses, lots of different challenges that are trying to be addressed. , And I think in the main, most organizations and asset owners .
Are trying to do what’s right for their shareholders and mm-hmm. And their underlying participants. That’s what we’re here to do, is, help all of those within those areas. Wonderful. Well, Cara, this has been great having you on the show today , and catching up and hearing about your experience , of course, the Milken Global Conference, and just the work you’re doing at Mercer of course, as well.
That being said, if somebody’s listening or watching this, and if they wanna continue to follow your journey or to learn more about Mercer, how do they do that? , I’m on, LinkedIn. I’ve got a pretty regular blog that covers all different aspects of, of sustainability, sort of environmental, social, as well as governance , and , who’s sort of well positioned , to make a change.
And then of course, you know, Mercer, we’ve got our websites and information that people can always access there as well. Perfect. And Fri listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put some links in the show notes, so you can just click on the link and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. and Cara, ,thanks again for coming on the show. thank you so much for having me. It was really fun.
Enjoyed it.
