LBS team wins prestigious 2024 Turner MIINT Impact Investment Competition

Three London Business School (LBS) students have won this year’s prestigious Moelis Prize at The Wharton School Turner MIINT Impact Investment Competition for their company entry, Afterwind, a business which reprocesses end-of-life wind turbine blades into traceable, virgin-grade materials.

Competing against a total of 44 other business school entries, LBS’s Yen Tran Hai (EMBA, 2024), Shahvir Pooniwala (EMBA, 2024) and Zeib Khwaja (EMBA, 2024) won the Moelis Prize and a $50,000 investment cheque from Turner MIINT that gets deployed directly into Afterwind.

The Turner MIINT competition, hosted annually by the ESG Initiative at Wharton School, empowers the next generation of impact investors to "think like an impact investor." Students worldwide engage in rigorous due diligence processes, assessing early-stage impact venture capital deals and presenting their findings to an expert judging committee. Running for 13 successful years, competition winners attract international acclaim and a bursary for future investment.

Previous business school winners have included teams from UCLA, Yale, INSEAD, Wharton, MIT, Kellogg, and McCombs.

The Turner MIINT (MBA Impact Investing Network & Training) is an experiential-lab designed to provide students with hands-on education in impact investing. Its aim is to train the next generation of impact investors. It is co-produced by the BRIDGES IMPACT FOUNDATION and The ESG Initiative at the Wharton School.

"This has been one of the best experiential programmes I have ever been a part of,” said Zeib Khwaja. “On one side, we worked closely with faculty from Wharton and London Business School, and on the other side, we immersed ourselves in Afterwind, the company we were assessing. Months of research and learning culminated in winning first place and securing a $50,000 investment into the company. We were thrilled to connect with fellow students, impact investors, and alumni, all sharing a singular mission focused on 'Impact'. Through this course, I've forged invaluable connections and expanded my network significantly. Entering the world of Impact Investing has empowered me to make a positive contribution to the planet. This is definitely where I see myself making a difference."

The three LBS students also wished to thank the management team at Afterwind for permitting the LBS team to nominate their company. The LBS team also deeply acknowledged the support they received from Julia Minici and Sune Bertelsen, “for always being there with us”, and team mentors, Ahmed Raafat and Cristina Spiller, “for their invaluable advice and patience”.

“We would also like to thank Luisa Alemany, for her wisdom and expertise that have guided us through our financial due diligence, as well as the invaluable support from the Investment Committee of London Business School’s Student Impact Investing Fund (SIIF).

Luisa Alemany, Associate Professor of Management Practice in Strategy and Entrepreneurship, and Academic Director, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital (IEPC), said, “it has been a delight to work with this strong team of LBS EMBAs. They are engaged, comprised with having an impact and diverse. The company they found can have a massive impact and their analysis was impressive. IEPC proudly supports LBS students throughout the various rounds of the MIINT competition and will continue to provide the financial assistance required to enable them to participate in the finals.”