General Investing >> Money Manager Interviews >> January 19, 1998
DR. MATTHEW J. KIERNAN is Chairman and Chief Executive of the Innovest
Group International, S.A., an environmental finance and investment
advisory firm with offices in New York, London, and Toronto. The group's
directors and senior advisors include Mr. Barton Biggs, Chairman of
Morgan Stanley Asset Management, the Rt. Hon. Lord Nigel Lawson, former
Chancellor of the Exchequer for Great Britain; Sir Michael Sandberg,
former world Chairman of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank; and Mr. Frank
Potter, former Executive Director of the World Bank. The Group's public
sector clients have included the U.N. Environment Program and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. Its recent corporate clients have
included a world top-10 insurance company, two Fortune 100
manufacturers, a North American institutional investor with over $14
billion in assets under management, and one of Wall Street's leading
investment banks. Prior to establishing the Innovest Group, Dr. Kiernan
was Director of the Business Council for Sustainable Development in
Geneva. The Council included the Chairmen of over 40 of the world's
leading international companies, including Royal Dutch/Shell,
Volkswagen, DuPont, Nissan, Asea Brown Boveri, 3M, and Mitsubishi. The
Council acted as the senior industry advisor to Mr. Maurice Strong,
Secretary-General of the U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
Previously, Dr. Kiernan served as a senior partner with KPMG Peat
Marwick, one of the world's largest management consultancies. His
practice there was focused on competitive strategy and the management of
corporate innovation. He also acted as senior advisor and negotiator for
clients in a number of successful multi-million economic development
projects and transactions, including several privatizations. He had
previously founded a smaller strategy consultancy, which he subsequently
merged with KPMG. Prior to joining KPMG Peat Marwick, Dr. Kiernan was a
senior executive with the US$100 million Core Area Initiative project in
Canada. Working directly with cabinet ministers and deputy ministers
from three levels of government and senior executives from the private
sector, he helped catalyze over $US500 million in new investment over a
five year period. In 1986, the project was recognized by the OECD as one
of the most innovative and successful urban revitalization initiatives
in the industrialized world. In the 1970s, Dr. Kiernan spent five years
as an environmental planner in Canada, where he helped design the
framework for that country's first formal environmental impact reviews. Profile
objectives.
Dr. Kiernan: Innovest Capital Risk Advisors is really a privatized
outgrowth of some work that I was doing in
