Ken Mehlman, KKR’s Global Head of Public Affairs and Co-Head of Global Impact

Ken Mehlman discusses his journey from national politics to financial services, KKR’s strategy to align financial performance and social impact, and his perspective on the state of American politics.

On the investment case for sustainability: “If you can invest in the companies that are using labor market data analytics to figure out what are going to be the jobs and skills of the future, you're going to have a great investment opportunity. And so, you look at some of these themes we're talking about—in our case: clean water, adapting and mitigating the climate change, helping deal with the responsible use of waste, ag tech, workforce development, industrial innovation to make workplaces safer, make us more mobile—and [those] make all of our lives more sustainable.”

On KKR’s sustainable strategy: “These are areas where I think there's a tremendous opportunity, but I think people who are in this space, all of us have an obligation to make sure that we're doing it in an incredibly responsible and an incredibly authentic and aligned way.”