Anna Nikolova is a recent graduate from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where she earned an MPA in environmental science and policy (MPA-ESP). As a fellow, she worked with the Global Sustainable Finance team on projects spanning firmwide sustainability strategy, ESG data integration, and thought leadership. To advance Morgan Stanley’s future sustainability targets, she conducted a benchmarking process of ESG reporting across peer institutions and a landscape analysis of relevant initiatives and metrics in the emerging theme of biodiversity finance. She also identified new applications of ESG data sets to improve the sustainability and transparency of municipal bond products and themed investments in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). The fellowship empowered Anna to understand how sustainability is integrated across the full spectrum of financial services and their role in driving global development.
Anna has a professional background in international development, impact investing, and social enterprise. She started her career as a program analyst at the US Agency for International Development in Washington, DC, where she coordinated public-private partnerships to address social issues in the world’s most underserved regions. From 2017 to 2018, she was an investment fellow at Unitus Ventures, an impact-driven venture capital firm in Bangalore, India where she scouted startups for the fund’s investment pipeline. Prior to attending Columbia University, she worked in business development for several social enterprises and nonprofits in Mumbai, India until 2020.
As a graduate student at SIPA, Anna focused on improving the sustainability of corporations and their role in society. She served as a consultant on projects identifying US conservation policy instruments for the World Resources Institute, creating the first sustainability strategy for an urban AgTech startup in New York City, and assessing biodiversity risk for ING Group.