Portfolio Data Discrepancy: Correcting a Stakeholder Misalignment
Identified a calculation error in portfolio company reporting, worked through the discrepancy with the company, and corrected the data before it reached investors.
Preeti Jain
Analyst ESG & Impact at GEF Capital Partners
From their time as
Analyst ESG & Impact
GEF Capital Partners • 2024
Overview
A portfolio company submitted data to GEF Capital that did not align with what the fund's stakeholders expected. The numbers were materially off, and the discrepancy needed to be resolved before the data could be used in investor reporting.
The Story
A portfolio company submitted data to GEF Capital that did not align with what the fund's stakeholders expected. The numbers were materially off, and the discrepancy needed to be resolved before the data could be used in investor reporting.
Preeti went back to the company to understand how they had arrived at their figures. Rather than flagging the gap and waiting, she worked through the calculation methodology with them in detail, tracing where the error had entered the process. She identified that the company had made a mistake in how they were computing the metric.
The conversation she held with the company was deliberate and instructive. She walked them through where the discrepancy was coming from and how the calculation should be done, which helped the company understand the error, correct it, and verify the revised figures. The corrected data was then usable for the fund's reporting.
The episode reinforced a pattern in how Preeti handles data quality issues: she goes to the source, understands the methodology, and helps the company fix the process rather than simply reporting the gap upward.