About CSP

Our history 

CSP's story begins in 2015 when Dr. Falko Paetzold, Dr. James Gifford, Temple Fennell and Dr. David Wood launched the first Impact Investing for the Next Generation (IING) program at Harvard Kennedy School, collaborating with the World Economic Forum and mission-aligned wealth holders and practitioners.

The approach of convening wealth holders in a protected, conflict-free space based on science and practice proved powerful in creating trailblazing impact champions. Wealth holders, entrepreneurs, educators and scientists founded and scaled the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth (CSP), initiated at the University of Zurich in 2017. Local teams followed in key locations with significant concentrations of private wealth: CSP Singapore for Asia-Pacific (2021) and CSP North America for the Americas (2022). 

The CSP Foundation, founded in 2025 by André Hoffmann, Monique Bär and Dr. Falko Paetzold as a spin-off of CSP at the University of Zurich, provides the umbrella for supporting and aligning all CSP activities globally and across universities including MIT Sloan School of Management and Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS).

Today, with the University of St.Gallen (HSG) as our academic home, CSP continues growing as a vibrant network of wealth holders, researchers, educators and entrepreneurs, deeply embedded in science and practice with close collaborations with key impact wealth holder communities, including Toniic, The ImPact, Family Business Network (FBN) and Young Investors Organisation (YIO). 

A decade of training tomorrow's impact leaders

Our flagship program, Impact Investing for the Next Generation (IING), has been running for over a decade, equipping next-generation wealth holders with the tools they need to create impact. With over 270 alumni and counting, program graduates are well-positioned to turn ripples into waves—and we're already seeing the effects of their actions in the world through our impact measurement project.

The questions raised and capabilities required by IING participants and alumni inform our broader work. This has led to our holistic suite of five CSP wealth holder programs. We also offer custom programs to key wealth holder communities, family offices and financial institutions. Our academic and applied research complements these programs, illustrated through the practical, ahead-of-the-curve insights in our Investor's Guide series.