Forward Global Summit 2025 | Claire Trottier, Philanthropist & Economic Justice Advocate

Clips
More from Forward Global Summit 2025

Claire Trottier

Philanthropist & Economic Justice Advocate

play_circle_outline Utilizing climate lens in investments and promoting climate action in businesses.

play_circle_outline Involvement in Patriotic Millionaires movement advocating for tax justice.

Info
Transcript

Claire Trottier, Philanthropist & Economic Justice Advocate

Claire Trottier

Philanthropist & Economic Justice Advocate

Exploring Change and Impact at Forward Global Summit 2025

In this insightful interview, Claire Trottier, a seasoned economic impact investor, shares their knowledge at the Forward Global Summit 2025. Held in Los Angeles, this significant event draws together philanthropists, entrepreneurs and investors dedicated to creating a just and equitable future for all.

Trottier, who directs investments at the Canadian equity Trottier Family Foundation, discusses their views on wealth inequality and the immense impact of money in politics. In a sessio... Read more

explore Keep Exploring

What role can philanthropy play in promoting climate action and encouraging companies to decarbonize and cities to become more resilient to climate disasters? add

What is the Patriotic Millionaires community advocating for and who is involved in it? add

bolt Powered by CUBE AI

Claire Trottier, Philanthropist & Economic Justice Advocate

search

>> Hello, welcome to theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, your host. We are here in LA for the Forward Global Summit 2025. This is an event that brings together all the top change agents, impact investors, philanthropists, entrepreneurs. Part of a movement that's really changing the game, as the world needs change now and more than ever, kind of integrating into both communities. We've got a great lineup here for full day of CUBE coverage, kicking off with Claire Trottier who's with the Canadian equity Trottier Family Foundation. You're doing a lot of work there and you're also an economic impact investor. What was the-

Claire Trottier

>> Yeah, so I do a lot of impact investing, for sure. So, we're trying to direct our investments towards climate targets, and also, advocating for tax justice as well.

>> Well, great to have you on the show, kicking it off. Talk about Forward Global mission, and then we'll get into some of the work you're doing. Why is this event so important? And what's your agenda here? What's your role? You gave a speech yesterday, I don't want to blow the content cover there, but talk about Forward Global and what it means.

Claire Trottier

>> Yeah, I mean, I think Forward Global is really incredible because it brings together philanthropists who share a lot of common values, who believe in a more just and fair society and who are coming at it from lots of different angles from around the world. So, it's a really amazing group of people who really care and who are putting their money where their mouth is and really trying to have profound impact on the world.

>> You come from an entrepreneurial family. You're an entrepreneur yourself. You've got an , but you're also managing a huge fund that you and your sister have your hands on, you're directing funds. You gave a talk here that got a lot of peoples' attention, got mine. Resonated with me. Some of the things you said, you're looking at things a little bit differently around the role of money and one of the things that's coming up in the Pew Research is the role of money in politics is the number one concern in society today, not just in the US, around the world. And so, the role of money was kind of your talk and you are in the business of deploying philanthropy on behalf of your family. Having that entrepreneurial edge gives you a little bit of a unique perspective, at least from my perspective. What's your thoughts here? What's your position as you look at the work you're doing? What's different about right now, given the context that the world's now waking up to the fact that there's influence in the market, big time, people buying influence, the role of money in politics, the role of money in general, and how to direct that? What's your current state of mind?

Claire Trottier

>> Yeah, I mean I think that we're witnessing right now what happens when folks with immense wealth who are really insatiable in their desire to accumulate greater wealth and power really start directing decision making for their own benefit, and it harms us all. So, I really fundamentally believe that we have to address issues of massive wealth inequality. You said it just now that it is quite striking that there is consensus across political affiliations and across geographies that there is too much inequality, that there's too much money in politics, that there's too much influence in that way. So, we really have to go and address that directly. And I think a lot of people are afraid to say those things. So, as a wealthy person myself who benefits from the system, I recognize that and I think that we really do need to take action and have the courage to address those core issues.

>> You strike on something there because there's the systematic thing of money, but also, we're seeing a lot of people in the market, entrepreneurs, businesses, who are mindful of the fact that they could align with impact and this effort in the community, versus I don't want... This might be a little bit over the top, but not a throwaway side thing or hey, we checked the box, we give money over here. There's a lot more integration going on in groups and community. And community has been a big word here. So, the role of community and the new formation of people. What's your view on that? Because I see a lot of movement around people teaming up, partnering, being more aware, not just in the philanthropy side, but also on the commercial side. What's your view on that? Because I think that's something that's coming out of this event.

Claire Trottier

>> Yeah, I mean I think that if everybody's working in their own little silo and doing their own little thing and not aware of what others are doing, you could be duplicating effort. You could be making the same mistakes that people have already made and learned from. So, when you have shared values and shared interests, it's much better to work together and learn from each other's successes and learn from each other's failures, and build that community brings so much value to the work that we do. So, I think it's essential.

>> One of the things I heard coming out of all the talks was a couple of themes. Confidence. There's not a lot of confidence in political system, but there's confidence in the people. Community was a word that was kicked around. If I did a little frequency word chart of most-used word, community won. But community is about groups. New systems, new thinking around systematic things has come up a lot. Those are the same areas. And then, I was reflecting this morning about breakfast, like, hey, the game is still the same, but there's new rules, there's new things are changing. The work that you're doing, obviously, with climate change, you're in the middle of all the action. What's the biggest thing that you see happening that could be a force for positive needle-moving change? Is it tweaking the system? Is it galvanizing the community? What would you say is the high-order bit for some of the new things that need to change to make the game that we're all trying to do better?

Claire Trottier

>> Yeah, I mean, I think that philanthropy can play a really important role as a lever in trying to prompt climate action and helping companies decarbonize and helping cities prepare themselves to be more resilient to climate disasters. I think on the investment side, we do have a lot of assets and so investing with a climate lens is the right thing to do, and it's also the smart thing to do. If the companies that you're investing in don't have a climate plan, you are in for a world of hurt. So, not only should we be investing in climate solutions, but we should be applying a climate lens to all of our investment decisions, because if we are not doing that, we are going to be investing in businesses that will ultimately fail.

>> Yeah, I want to get to unpack that a little bit, but I want to come back to something that we said before we came on camera. We were talking about being climate ready and you mentioned the Getty Estate is near where we are right now in LA. The fires were devastating. I mean, I call it the 9/11 for LA because it was so disruptive. Not a lot of lives lost like New York, but it was so disruptive, but they saved it. Tell that story. I think it's super, super valuable.

Claire Trottier

>> Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, talking about climate change here in LA is obviously super pertinent because we had these devastating fires. And just a few miles down the road from here is the Getty Villa, and they had an actual proactive plan in place, anticipating and predicting that climate change would inevitably lead to devastating fires. And so, they had a plan in place to protect their collection, to protect their buildings, which they were able to also operationalize in a state of crisis. And along with, obviously, firefighters and a bit of luck, were able to preserve their building and their collection. So, for me, that's an example. They had a plan, they knew this was coming, so we all know that these events are going to continue to happen. They're going to be more frequent, they're going to be more devastating, whether it's fires, hurricanes, floods, heat waves, et cetera. If you are not actively preparing and planning for how you're going to cope for those things, you're in trouble.

>> So, it is a great example and I wanted to bring that up because I think that brings the next question is, okay, proof that doing it has value, I mean clear value there. How do people become ready? Because I mean it's complicated. Climate ready is a big concept. Is it just being tapping advisors? Do you put technology in place? In the tech world there's two concepts, bolt-ons and then resets, the architecture and things or resetting it up. How do people prepare to be environmentally-ready? What are some of the things? Is it better hygiene in how they do business? Is it technology? What's the-

Claire Trottier

>> I mean, I think that there's many different components that are necessary. I think that every company needs to be measuring, first of all, how much emissions they are currently producing and having an active plan to reduce their emissions to try to mitigate the number of crises that we're going to be facing collectively as a planet. And then, looking at what are the risks, whether they're at risk of it being impacted by climate events, and how is their supply chain going to be impacted by climate events? So, there's a lot of components to consider.

>> So, they should look at their business model and decompose it and look at where the impact risks are from not being climate ready?

Claire Trottier

>> Yeah, not being climate ready, and also trying to contribute to the solution as well by reducing their own emissions because we all need to contribute. Carbon emissions from every business, as much as the oil and gas, every company needs to be working towards net-zero.

>> Okay, great. Great stuff there. Talk about your foundation and what you do. And you're talking about aligning values, great concept. You also talked about the role foundations can do. You used the word rich people, which I loved because it was a very candid conversation, but you have a philosophy that we could do more.

Claire Trottier

>> So, I think that for me, philanthropy can do great things and does do great things, but I really fundamentally believe that we have to move beyond philanthropy. You can't rely on the voluntary generosity of wealthy people who make a decision to give back to society and who also decide where to put that money to solve these massive systemic problems. Everybody needs to contribute. So, that's one of the reasons why I advocate for wealth taxes and other forms of progressive taxation, to make sure that all wealthy people and corporations as well are actually contributing back to society in a fair way, just like working people do.

>> Yeah, and you had some examples of groups that are formed, Patriotic Millionaires. There's real traction around this. Can you share insight into some of the activities, the momentum? It's not just you shouting into the void, there's actual work being done and examples.

Claire Trottier

>> Yeah, so I'm part of this community called Patriotic Millionaires, which was founded in the US but is now international in scope. I'm Canadian, so I'm involved from Canada. And it's basically a group that brings together wealthy folks to advocate for wealth taxes and other tax justice-related issues. And it is a growing movement. There is a momentum building, for sure. There's a huge branch in the United Kingdom that's had a lot of success. So, there are definitely a lot of wealthy people that are reckoning with the fact that they need to step up publicly and actually say, "You know what? I'm rich and tax me, and it's for the betterment of society and I will be okay." Taxing me, speaking for myself, will have no real tangible impact on my life. But if you tax all wealthy people, it will have a dramatic impact on everybody's lives, including wealthy people as well.

>> And the mindset on the other side of that argument would be what? "I earned it. I deserve it." Or is it just more of, "I don't want to give back"? I mean, what's the counter-argument?

Claire Trottier

>> There are lots of counter-arguments. People think that they know what to do better with their money and most people don't want to pay more taxes, but the fact is that actually wealthy people benefit from enormous tax breaks. Just in the way the tax system is structured, wealthy people pay less tax than working people. Warren Buffett famously observed that he pays less tax than his secretary. And so, that is a reality. The dollar amount that wealthy people pay in tax may seem high because we have so much wealth, but as a percentage, it is lower than wealthy people. So, how is it fair that we get a massive tax break? That to me, is a fundamental question.

>> I was just in another session around Bitcoin talking about how rich people actually gain, but their gain is actually fake gain... Not fake gain, but not representative because the losses on the other side are higher. The argument was is that with all the debt and all the other financial stuff going on, it's like you're gaining at the expense of the system and that made me think about your talk. And I think the economics sometimes can get skewed because it's complicated, there's so many moving parts, you're thinking about it more-

Claire Trottier

>> It is complicated, but the data is extremely clear that wealth inequality has been growing at a massive scale. The amount of wealth that people have is... If you look at the oligarchs like an Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, we're not in the days where Bill Gates was the wealthiest man in the world and he had $40 million at some point in the earlier days. Now, we're talking about billions and billions and billions of dollars and on track to have trillionaires. So, that amount of wealth concentration is unprecedented at a time when everyday people are struggling, because of inflation and all these different things, the cost of food, the cost of housing. So, that disparity is enormous. We have enough resources for everybody to live a dignified life. We just need to be able to use it better.

>> That's a good point. We've never seen that kind of wealth growth in such a short period of time. It's not like Rockefeller with the oil, that all happened over time. Talk about some of the work you're doing. Can you share where you're deploying capital, work you're passionate about, that you're leaning into, your favorite project? What are some of the things you got going on in the foundation?

Claire Trottier

>> So, at the Trottier Family Foundation, our primary focus area's climate change. So, one of the things that I really excited about is the work that we do with cities, actually, because a lot of carbon emissions happen in cities and cities is where we need to make major changes in how we transport people, how we live our lives and that's where a lot of climate action can happen. So, we do a lot of work at the city level in Canada that's had very significant impact and I'm very excited about that.

>> If you could have a magic wand and saying, "Okay, the conversation's here," and something could just happen, what would it be, three wishes? The genie in the bottle question.

Claire Trottier

>> I mean, for me, really, the main issue for me is absolutely wealth inequality. I think that it influences all the issues that we're talking about here. People are working on issues of food insecurity, of inequitable access to healthcare, journalism, all of these different issues. A lot of them are problems because of issues of inequality. So, I think that if we had a system that basically had more money flowing into the government in order to provide the services that people need, we would all be better off.

>> And you come from a family entrepreneur. Your dad was video entrepreneur. We love video. Obviously, tell him we said hello. We'd love to get some free gear, tell him we'd love to get some equipment. But you come from that thing. Your journey in this was you kind of were brought in. Talk about how you got here and the process.

Claire Trottier

>> Yeah, so my professional background is I'm a scientist by training, and so I know nothing really about investments, about philanthropy, about any of these things. But to his credit, my father decided that he wanted to bring my sister and I in well over a decade ago. So, started getting involved in the foundation, started getting involved in investment conversation. So, the first step was the foundation and helping to make the collective decision to focus really on climate change. And then, after that was starting to meet with some of our investment advisors and getting familiar with how we were managing the assets of the foundation and also private family assets. And realizing that at the time, we had a lot of holdings in oil and gas companies, which seemed like, "Wait a minute. On the one hand, we're doing philanthropy to try to solve climate change, but on the other hand, we're investing in these companies that are doing so much damage." So, started having some more difficult conversations to see how we pull back some of those investments and invest in climate solutions?

>> And you guys done that?

Claire Trottier

>> Yes, absolutely.

>> Claire, thanks for coming on. Great conversation.

Claire Trottier

>> Thank you so much.

>> for the session. Thanks for coming on theCUBE today.

Claire Trottier

>> It was a pleasure.

>> Appreciate it. I'm John Furrier here in theCUBE. We are at LA for Forward Global. This is where the innovators are looking at changing the system, putting those dollars to work on really great causes, but also, it's a cultural shift that's happening. More community, more integration, more partnerships. It's a whole brave new world and we're here. Thanks for watching.