
Sydney took a circuitous path to Impact Investing, spending four years after she graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in Government and French to train and compete for the opportunity to represent the US in sailing at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Having participated in the Occupy Wall Street movement while in college, it had never crossed her mind to work in finance, an industry that she perceived to be extractive and the cause of much of the social, environmental and economic injustice in the world. Four years later, she was introduced to impact investing and intrigued by the opportunity to harness the financial system and channel it to create a better world. Having experienced the mainstreaming of impact investing and the proliferation of impact funds that seek to “do well by doing good,” she became somewhat disillusioned with the industry and began asking, “What could it look like to truly transform our economic system rather than support incremental change within the system as it exists today?” Sydney has supported high net-worth individuals and foundations in building impact investment portfolios using a total portfolio activation approach, integrating ESG and impact across all asset classes. Most recently, she developed and currently co-leads the Catalytic Impact Investing program at Tiedemann Advisors, through which we seek to deploy patient, flexible and creative capital into alternative investment and business models that demonstrate a new economic system based on solidarity and sustainability. A California native, she is currently living nomadically throughout the Western US during this time of physical distancing and finds joy in meditation, spending time in nature, and reading historical fiction.