Crestview Partners – Nishit Shukla – 2023

Goals

The overarching goal of Nishit’s fellowship was to conduct in-depth research and analysis toidentify opportunities and limitations across private equity ESG programs, propose interventions to address these limitations, and develop a structured proposal to further expand the potential impact of these ESG strategies. 

This process involved thorough evaluation, benchmarking, risk assessment, and the creation of practical recommendations for Crestview Partners.

Solutions

As a Climate Corps fellow, Nishit outlined three key focus areas for Crestview to consider. First, Nishit demonstrated the importance of aligning ESG goals and KPIs with core business goals and processes and establishing a clear roadmap for integration, data collection, and risk management. 

Secondly, he proposed ESG screening and due diligence processes that can be utilized at different deal stages and developed an ESG due diligence and screening toolkit. As part of the latter, Nishit highlighted the importance of an ESG-financial materiality analysis and identification of value-creation opportunities. 

Thirdly, Nishit suggested ways that Crestview could offer further support to its portfolio companies, including organizing executive workshops and sharing resource libraries.

Potential Impact

Nishit’s recommendations have the potential to impact Crestview’s people, processes, and portfolio companies. In a constantly evolving environmental, social and governance landscape, Crestview will be able to leverage the strategic roadmap and due diligence toolkit to mitigate ESG-related risk and create value.