A Global Leader Preparing for What’s Next
As one of the world’s largest asset managers, Nuveen, a TIAA company, has long been recognized for its leadership in responsible investing, pairing deep market expertise with a sophisticated approach to ESG integration, stewardship, and long-term value creation. Their Responsible Investing (RI) team plays a central role in shaping sustainability strategy with $108 billion AUM (out of $1.2 trillion AUM at Nuveen overall) with work across asset classes that need supportive decision-making and advanced research that informs both clients and portfolio companies. With AI reshaping analytics, risk modeling, and research workflows across finance, Nuveen sought to ensure its RI leaders remained ahead of the curve and equipped to harness emerging tools both strategically and responsibly.
Advancing With AI
Nuveen approached PPWA with a clear objective: help their RI team deepen its understanding of AI’s rapidly evolving capabilities and explore how these technologies could accelerate sustainability and investment goals. AI represents not only a technological trend, but a structural shift affecting due diligence, insight generation, workflow efficiency, and approaches to research. The challenge was moving beyond awareness into applied, practical exploration and showing how responsible investing professionals can use AI to work with greater speed, scale and analytical rigor.
A Practical Immersion
PPWA designed and delivered an applied, hands-on workshop for Nuveen’s Responsible Investing team's onsite event. The session brought together our Applied AI & Sustainability curriculum with the real analytical needs of institutional investors. Through demonstrations and guided exploration, participants practiced how AI and analytic tools can support materiality assessments, thematic research, stewardship preparation, scenario exploration and more efficient day-to-day workflows.
Throughout the workshop, participants gained an understanding that AI can be an accelerant to their workflows and analysis powered by their expert judgement. The event equipped leaders with practical techniques, governance considerations and a grounded understanding of how to responsibly integrate AI into their research and operational toolkit.
Momentum for Innovation
Feedback from the session was deeply positive. In a public reflection, Amy Muska O’Brien, Global Head of Responsible Investing, described the program as helping position Nuveen “on the leading edge of innovation, harnessing artificial intelligence for our RI and sustainability capabilities.” She emphasized how the workshop helped the team explore ways AI can advance long-term goals, increase efficiency and deliver stronger data-driven insights for clients.
For Nuveen, the session strengthened internal momentum toward responsible adoption of AI by supporting a high-performing team as they explore new ways to scale insight, enhance stewardship and deepen sustainability analysis. For PPWA, it marked an exciting extension of our Applied AI & Sustainability work into the corporate and financial sectors, demonstrating how leading organizations are preparing their people to shape the next era of sustainable finance.