Our Founder’s Story and
Inspiration

Terra Alpha’s co-founder and CIO, Tim Dunn, CFA, built his successful investment career on the premise that identifying and investing in truly great businesses brings long-term sustainable returns. He was also raised on the principle to try and make everything you are involved with a bit better – family, community, team, or business.

Over two decades into his investment career, and as a lead portfolio manager at Capital Group/American Funds, Tim had become frustrated by the growing shortsightedness of financial markets – particularly their failure to consider critical themes like climate change and natural resource constraints.

Determined to drive real change and make a broader impact, Tim stepped away from the investment world in 2009 to work directly with leading environmental organizations including The Nature Conservancy, CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), and the Piedmont Environmental Council. During that time, he developed the conviction that incorporating corporate environmental performance into company analysis could improve both investment
and environmental returns.

In late 2014, Terra Alpha Investments was born to put this thesis into practice. Tim recruited experienced investors Andrew Geller and Dan Sanborn to help him reimagine the traditional investment process, and Amy Dine to develop our corporate advocacy goals and strategy.Together, they built the team and implemented our unique hybrid quantitative/qualitative process structured around our proprietary Environmental Productivity framework.

Terra Alpha was founded on the belief that our rapidly changing world requires an evolved approach to investing. We envision a world in which our economy operates in harmony with our natural systems, where companies lead positive change – and those who adapt the fastest will derive significant benefits.

From the beginning, our work has also carried a deeply personal source of inspiration. Finley Broaddus was a senior in high school who planned to study Environmental Policy at the College of William; Mary when she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in January of 2014. Her fight with Cholangiocarcinoma ended five months later. Finley set up Finley’s Green Leap Forward on February 26, 2014 to “support local and global efforts that have a positive impact on the environment, moving us forward toward a healthy, sustainable planet.”

Finley was a close friend of several members of our team, and for all of us, she serves as an inspiration in our work on a daily basis. She left behind a legacy rooted in hope and action, and her belief in a healthier, more sustainable world reminds us why this work matters – not only for today, but for the generations who will inherit the world we help shape. Her inspiration, and the community that has grown around Terra Alpha over the past decade, grounds our conviction that thoughtful, environmentally informed investing can accelerate the transition to a truly sustainable global economy.