Rising Star Award
Michelle Rogers
Firm: COMMUNITY CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
Michelle Rogers has worked in fixed income for roughly 17 years, but 10 years ago she moved to a fixed income firm with a different kind of approach. Based in Weston, Fla., Community Capital Management is an institutional fixed income manager and registered investment advisor that focuses on impact investing – making investments that are intended to generate social or environmental impact along with financial returns. The new approach suited her.
“It’s more exciting because I’m actually researching things that impact people. Instead of just saying this is a fair price for this bond, I get to say, ‘Can we work with this municipality that was hit by Hurricane Sandy?’ for example,” she told Traders. “It requires a lot more innovativeness, so for me it is something additional.”
Just as the new responsibilities suited her, Rogers was well suited to them as well. Beginning as a trader in 2003, Rogers was promoted to senior portfolio manager in 2010. She is responsible for client portfolio management and for overseeing and managing trading functions for all the firm’s products. She is also involved in portfolio research and new business development, and sits on the firm’s board of directors as well as the firm’s investment management and trading committee, and valuation committee.
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Deciding which projects to invest in can involve a lot of research, and selected projects undergo extensive screening. In addition to credit analysis and yield analysis, projects are weighed against a set of criteria to ensure that they will be impactful. In some cases, the firm will work with the project receiving investment to try to find extra ways to increase the investment’s impact.
“With a public housing project, for example, we may do some underlying research or work with the housing authority to get what we call bells and whistles included with the property,” she said. “That could be computer training or job placement services or something like that attached with it to try to help stop the cycle of poverty and get people out of public housing.”
The firm’s marketing department often tracks the progress of projects that have been beneficiaries of impact investing, and in some cases Rogers has had the opportunity to take property tours to witness an investment’s impact first-hand.
Investors benefit as well, according to Rogers. With a lot of impact investing going toward projects that have some form of government subsidy, investment portfolios have a good credit quality while generating market rates of return.
“I think there’s a common misperception that you can’t make responsible investment choices and get market rates of return,” she said, “but you can and we’re here to prove it.”
