Hiro Mizuno is the recently departed Executive Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of GPIF, Japan’s $1.5 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund, which is the largest pool of institutional capital in the world. In taking the seat five years ago, Hiro sought to change how large asset owners go about investing capital.

Our conversation covers his differentiated thought process across drivers of return, the home country bias, implementation of investing, and structural alignment with active managers. We then talk about the Universal Ownership concept, stewardship of passively managed assets, evaluation of manager effectiveness, ESG integration in fixed income, and the current carbon footprint for GPIF and therefore for the global economy.

Hiro has made a serious dent in how asset owners, index fund managers, and companies consider sustainable investing principles and was the perfect guest to complete this mini series, Sustainable Investing: The Next Frontier.