Will Allen, Managing Partner, Nascent Group Holdings & Founder, Will Allen Foundation & Former Co-Captain of the Pittsburgh Steelers
Will Allen is the founder and managing partner of Nascent Group Holdings, LLC (NGH), a hybrid private equity and venture capital firm that invests in the Midwest’s most promising game-changers with the potential for significant growth and societal impact. Since 2016, NGH has operated with a vision to help people and create opportunities in the energy, technology, real estate, and manufacturing markets.
The mission of the Will Allen Foundation is to provide programs and resources in an effort to instill hope, remove barriers, promote education, advocate civic responsibility, and change lives in communities in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
Will is the former Co-Captain of the Pittsburgh Steelers and has played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Ohio State Buckeyes.
Learn more about NGH: http://www.nascentgroupholdings.com/
Learn more about the Will Allen Foundation: http://willallenfoundation.com/
Follow Will on Twitter: @WillAllenWAF
How did you get started in sustainability?
Like most people, I didn’t know much about sustainability or energy other than the general noise you hear in the news. About ten years ago I was interested in buying an electric vehicle but I didn’t know much about it other than the news stories around unsafe cars malfunctioning. That started me on a research journey that taught me a lot more about energy in general, I learned about things like geothermal, solar, wind, and sustainable neighborhoods, and I just became illuminated. The light bulb that went off above my head was bright, and it was an LED!
I wanted to learn more about why there wasn’t more general education around these topics and see if I could find a way to get involved in this space. I had the opportunity to see Richard Branson’s solar panel project in Aruba and just couldn’t understand why we didn’t see more projects like this in the US. If you look at the ROIs from a jobs, energy, carbon, or health and safety perspective, these are great projects that we should be doing more of. I just saw a huge opportunity to meld the human capital ROI with the economic ROI with projects like these.
I grew up in a low-income neighborhood and saw the effects of the education, health, housing, and racial disparities that are realities in our country and I want to do everything I can to solve those issues. Two of the mainstays of our economic society have been jobs and energy, everyone is dependent on both of those, so if we can find ways to help people while making our energy generation more sustainable and resilient then I think everyone wins. We just need to do the work of teaching people how clean energy technology can create jobs, make the environment cleaner, and make us less dependent on only a handful of fuel sources. We need to focus on the economics and human capital impact we can obtain from more diverse sources of power generation.
Sustainability means a lot of different things to different people, and the definition we use at NGH has multiple pillars. There is certainly a health and environmental component, but there’s also an economic component and a quality of life component such as creating better housing through energy efficiency. It comes down to this: we want to make investments that improve quality of life, create jobs, or improve health and the environment while still getting the bottom line returns we’re targeting.
How did you go about creating NGH?
I have a great partner in Trey Addison and when we were developing our principles we wanted to come up with a different way to think about investing. Traditional investing is just a transactional exchange, and we really desire to be less transactional and more transformational. We don’t want to go too far in the other direction and become a nonprofit, we still want to see great returns, but we decided to incorporate human capital benefits into our goals.
We have a lot of smart people around us, our board and investment committee are both filled with likeminded people. Our principles are something that we all want to live by and to instill in our families and our communities and I believe it’s a differentiator. If you can incorporate integrity, trust, and great returns, then you’ve got a really compelling story there.
What do you look for in a new investment opportunity?
We try to look at each opportunity from a wholistic perspective. We will invest in a younger company that might not have a big jobs or market impact now if we see that it has a big opportunity for growth and scale. If they’re creating something that could change the market then that will eventually cause the impact we’re looking for in terms of jobs creation or environmental change.
We also try to look at our investments using a moral compass. We won’t invest in companies that could ultimately destroy humanity or create conflicts, but we also don’t shy away from industries such as manufacturing. For example, we could consider purchasing a company which owns a chemical plant and take a deep dive into opportunities for reducing the hazardous materials used or making their processes more efficient and cleaner. Do they dispose of waste chemicals in streams? How could we improve things if that were the current process and what would be the financial impact? We always ask the tough questions like these when evaluating an investment.
We have an internal scorecard we use for each opportunity. Specifically, we have thresholds for IRR and ROI, and if a company meets those then we’ll take a closer look. Next, we look at the people – how effective is the management team? Do they treat the people working for them well? Do they have a moral compass? Does the company have sustainability goals? Are they conscious of their energy usage? What technologies are they using? Is this company respected in the community and are they good stewards? All of those questions have a human component that I think is a good reflection of how well the company is performing.
Do you feel your mission leads to higher returns?
We certainly hope so. Unfortunately, our society doesn’t produce too many companies that are led this way. It’s not difficult to find companies with good returns, it’s just difficult to sift through them and find companies that fit with our principles.
Do you measure the impact of your investments?
We’ve only been around for two years, but so far, the investments that we’ve made have all been good, they’re all performing on par with our expectations. We’ve gotten to know the people well in our portfolio investments and we know they’re going to run the businesses the right way. Once you’ve made sure the people are properly aligned it all works out.
What are your favorite resources to stay informed on this space?
I read a lot of Warren Buffet’s writing. His letters to shareholders are great, I like how he presents his information and how he thinks. He has to be as honest and transparent as he possibly can be because he’s handling shareholder capital. He also has some great books.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance has some really great energy and finance reports. They also have a lot of conferences and articles from thought leaders on new technology and where the industry is going.
Carnegie Mellon University has a number of professors who are industry experts in energy and technology so I follow them and read whatever they publish.
The Department of Energy also has excellent white papers.
The Pittsburgh Business Times has a great energy section that focuses on what’s happening on shale oil and gas technology in the region. I also try to keep up to date on the local and state energy job reports.
I also read the Wall Street Journal, Utilitydive, Energy-Storage News, and McKinsey’s reports on battery storage. EIA has great insight and pensions and investments.
What do you see as a sustainability game changer?
Battery storage is an area we all should be thinking about. Utilities are starting to understand that they need to keep up with technology so customers can have resiliency and grid modernization is real. Michigan and Ohio utilities have been real leaders in the adoption of new technologies for grid improvement it’s great that they’re making the right investments for their customers and resiliencies.
What is your proudest achievement?
I started my foundation 10 years ago and it’s been amazing to see the impact that it has had on young people. There was one particular young woman from Tampa who wrote something about her experiences that really touched me:
“Growing up I was always known for being the “problem child.” Then I met Mr. Labrawn Saffold and Will Allen. The sense of relief began to take over me, and for the first time in my life, I found something positive to do with my time. The Will Allen Foundation Quest Program molded and transformed me into a beautiful human-being and blessed me with a scholarship to pursue my higher educational goals.”
– Angela Mills, Quest Alumni
You plant the seeds and you think you know what the outcome will be, but sometimes there are intrinsic returns you just can’t put a metric to. Seeing the impact that these programs have had on young people really keeps me going.
Who (or what) is your sustainability hero?
My mentor, Peter Fox-Penner, is the Director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. He wrote a book called Smart Power which fairly accurately predicted the transformation of the power industry and the revolutionizing of our energy grid. He’s a really forward thinker. He’s my hero because he really introduced me to the energy game and he’s someone who is really passionate about clean energy and technology. He’s very accomplished he’s worked in the government, education, and private sectors, he has a PhD, and he’s an author, teacher, and mentor. He’s opened a lot of doors for me.
