Part I: Tobacco Gets Smoked

Eighteen. Trillion. Dollars. That’s trillion with a T followed by a lot of zeros. This outrageous sum is the amount of money now held in the dozens of large funds that, in the last decade and a half, have divested themselves of tobacco-related securities after thoughtful stewardship from Tobacco Free Portfolios. And it all started with a mortgage application.

Other Options

In the spring of 2010, Bronwyn King, MBBS, and her husband were hoping to buy a house, and as is routine for such an adulting endeavor, they gathered the requisite financial data required for a loan application. To fill in the blank about how much money she had in her pension plan, she had a pleasantly uneventful meeting over a latte with the pension plan representative. Papers with numbers shuffled across the table. Box checked.

But then a quick afterthought and a question to the pension plan rep. Didn’t he want her input on how her assets were invested? No, no, it’s all taken care of. You’re on the default option. Does that mean there are other options? [a quick sigh, an eye roll] Oh, there is this one special option for people who have a problem with investing in mining, alcohol or tobacco.

There was, for the young Dr. King, at that precise moment, in that coffee shop, with the faint hiss of a milk steamer in the background, an epiphany.

Flashing through her mind were her years of training to be a radiation oncologist, her daily practice of caring for patients whose lives were broken by smoking-related cancers, the frightened and weary looks on the faces of their family members, and the unsettling realization that she and others were unwittingly underwriting products with devastating health effects.

As Dr. King describes her thoughts at the time, “That is just a circuit that needs to be broken because it makes absolutely no sense…I'm gonna have a crack at fixing that.”

Enter the Mentor

Did she know anything about finance? Nope. Did she have a strategy? Negative. Did she have a list of deliverables to accomplish on a path toward fulfilling the strategy? Oh, wait, we just said that she didn’t have a strategy.

Professor David Ball

Did she have any idea where to start? Not really. But she knew she had to start talking about the issue with colleagues, at least. And so, when it was her turn to present an interesting lung cancer case for the weekly Friday afternoon departmental conference, she instead shared what she had learned about their faculty pension plan, the plan endorsed by the renowned Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the one that supports companies that distribute the most indisputable carcinogen ever sold. There was unanimous outrage and a call to action. She needed to go straight to the CEO of the organization and let him know that this was a big problem.

Among the attendees of that assembly-turned-rally was Professor David Ball , the head of the Peter Mac lung cancer unit. Yes, that David Ball, internationally known clinical researcher, principal investigator of the CHISEL study, leader in many influential cancer-related organizations, key mentor for Dr. King, and all-around good guy. Professor Ball helped to prep Dr. King for that initial meeting with the CEO and came along for moral support. Reassuringly, the CEO was completely supportive of the idea of constructing a pension plan portfolio sans tobacco investment. And this is where the real work began.

Forming the Path

Years from now, when Zendaya is playing Bronwyn King in the biopic “Kicking Ash,” based on the NY Times best-selling memoir, there will be a scene set in a hotel lobby somewhere in Europe, circa 2017, where Bronwyn is rehearsing and tweaking her presentation for the 500th time in preparation for yet another meeting to convince a group of financiers to eschew the chew. She sees in the Venetian mirror that her attorney/friend/confidante Clare Payne (played by Florence Pugh) is seated in a Barcelona Chair, scrolling through emails on her phone.

In a moment of existential anxiety and self-reflection (note to cinematographer: that’s why you need the mirror), Bronwyn turns to Clare and asks, “Where’s my life going? Where is all this going?”

By this time Tobacco Free Portfolios had been gaining substantial momentum. Although they could not guarantee windfall returns from a tobacco-free investment approach, what they could do was leverage good will that would be amplified. The mantra Name and Fame captured their promise to financial executives that in exchange for a commitment to divest, Tobacco Free Portfolios would do everything they could to generate favorable publicity and respect for any institution that joined the crusade. In fact, never had they encountered an investor who staunchly opposed their ideas on principle. Nevertheless, their success rate was not nearly 100%, and the effort was taking a toll. Time away from family, emotional energy drain, wearying travel.

The Zen response from Clare in that hotel lobby resonated with Bronwyn then and remains a soothing meditation to this day. “Just keep stepping forward, the path is forming under your feet.”

Banning a Word

In her teens, Dr. King trained hard for years as a competitive swimmer, reaching an elite junior level of competition though falling shy of making it to the Olympics. Still, she loved the people she met along the way and thoroughly enjoyed the environment, so much so that she jumped at the chance after graduating from medical school to serve several years as a doctor for the Australian national team. Tobacco Free Portfolios was not even a concept at that time, but lessons she learned as swim team doctor have continued to inspire her and inform the advice she would give to anyone who wishes to emulate her and chase a crazy big dream.

Epitomizing her experience from that time is an instance she recalls one year at The Commonwealth Games. An ordinary start to the day, a casual breakfast with some of the athletes, who are all engaging in small talk and typical young person conversations, just regular human beings hanging out together. And then a little while later in the day, during a race one of them breaks a world record and thus shatters Dr. King’s preconceived notion of what is possible for a normal person to accomplish.

Citizen King is not campaigning to win an election. Not yet, at least. But if she ever does take a shot at politics, part of her policy platform might already be set. “If I was the Prime Minister of Australia, I’d ban the word impossible.”