In Episode 1 of The Impact Investing Podcast, I talk with one of the biggest names in impact investing, Jed Emerson.  We dive into his personal origin story of entering the field of non-profits and philanthropy, his transition into impact investing, his newest co-authored book "The Impact Investor," total portfolio management and much more.  This episode was a huge honor for me, and I know you'll get as much value ou of it as I did.
More about Jed and his work can be found at his personal website BlendedValue.com
And on Twitter @BlendedValue

IIP 001 - Jed Emerson: Blended Value in Impact Investing and Life

Interviews with the leading impact investors and entrepreneurs who are using capital resources to create positive social and environmental change around the globe.

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Rehana Nathoo joined the Case Foundation in 2016 as part of the Social Innovation team. She serves as Vice President of Social Innovation, focusing specifically on the Foundation’s efforts around Impact Investing. A self-identifying New Yorker, Rehana previously worked at the Bank of New York Mellon to help design the firm’s Social Finance program. specifically working closely with the Wealth Management business to build internal expertise around Social Finance, and creating a prototype for the firm’s first Impact Investment Fund. Most recently, an Adjunct Professor of CSR and Social Finance at NYU Wagner School of Public Service, and also worked and honed her skills a program associate at The Rockefeller Foundation, helping to manage the thought leadership efforts around Impact Investing and Innovative Finance. Rehana and I have a wide ranging conversation, but dig in deep on the Case Foundations newest project, the Impact Investing Network Mapp. Fueled with publically available data, it's the first attempt to put all of the data around impact deals into one visual tool.  It's a bold new project, currently in the final leg of its open feedback period, after you listen to the podcast, make sure you go check out the map. Play with it, dive into it. What do you love about it, what's missing, and what potential do you see?  For me, I'm excited to see where impact deals are happening outside placed like the Valley and New York. Maybe we'll find some unlikely hotspots of impact. I'm also excited to see the definition of an "impact deal" continue to evolve and be solidified. I'm of the firm belief that there are far more "impact" companies out there that "non-impact" - and this map will be a tool to help increase and expand the public awareness of the space.   Show notes and resources  Rehana Nathoo LinkedIn | Twitter | Medium The Case Foundation Case Foundation - Impact Investing Network Explanation  The Impact Investing Network Map | Demo Rehana Nathoo at the Wharton Social Impact Conference 2017 The Impact Investor Rockefeller Foundation Rockefeller Foundation - Impact Investing    www.impactinvestingpodcast.com facebook.com/impactinvestingpodcast.com @impinvpodcast   Casefoundation.org @CaseFoundation

Rehana Nathoo on Social Finance, Next Gen Leaders, and the Impact Investing Network Map

For the past several years, John has been Director of Impact Capital at Santa Clara’s Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and has also been a mentor to social entrepreneurs at the Global Social Benefit Accelerator.  In 2011 he authored a report on impact investing entitled Coordinating Impact Capital: a New Approach to Investing in Small and Growing Businesses and recently co-authored a chapter on equity investing in New Frontiers of Philanthropy (Oxford Press-2014).  He is now pioneering a new investment vehicle – the Demand Dividend - that presents investors with a ‘structured exit’ alternative to equity.  In addition, he is co-founder and Director of Toniic, a syndication network of impact investors. John manages investments through Redleaf Venture Management, a venture capital operating company founded in 1993.  John's earlier background includes twenty years of executive level positions at Hewlett Packard, Silicon Graphics, Convergent Technologies and Unisys.  He was one of the founding executives at Netscape Communications. He led investments at AdRelevance (JMXI), Mosaic Communications (TWX), NetGravity (DCLK), RedCreek Communications (SNWL), and Wireless Online.  John serves as a board member at PACT, an NGO based in Washington D.C.  He received his bachelor’s degree concentrating in international economics from UCLA and completed executive programs at Wharton and Stanford business schools. Over the last 15 years, he was a managing member of the UCLA Venture Capital Fund and still serves on the UCLA Sciences Board of Visitors. Other recent advisory committees include the World Economic Forum, and HUB Ventures.  John has a vast wealth of knowledge when it comes to financing early stage companies, and he is now applying his skill set to helping social entrepreneurs build investment ready companies at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University. It's not often you get to have discussions with someone who launched the first micro VS firm back in 1993, and is now applying lessons learned from tech investing in Silicon Valley to the companies and entrepreneurs who are trying to build businesses addressing climate resilience, bottom of the pyramid customers, and is financing them through innovative means. Rather than always taking equity, there are alternative ways to fund social enterprise startups that align long term goals of both the investor and the company, and create a more sustainable model, and John is at the forefront of these methods.  Show Notes and Resources:  Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship Impact Capital Redleaf Venture Management  Climate Resilience Toniic Demand Dividend 1 | 2 | 3 Investors Circle GIIN Arabella Advisors      Facebook.com/impactinvestingpodcast twitter.com/impinvpodcast

John Kohler on Impact Capital, Micro VC Firms and Launching the Demand Dividend

 "The capacity for truly independent thought is first of all rare, and second of all lonely. And so to pursue that as an investor is critically important, yet really, really difficult."  Matthew Weatherly-White is the co-founder and Managing Director of the CAPROCK Group. A multi-family office based in Boise,ID with over 2 Billion dollars under management. Matthew has accomplished a ton, but maybe most interesting about him is his philosophical approach to investing, and the numerous mental models he applies to the endeavor. If you’re interested in exploring philosophical questions within Impact Investing, this is the episode for you. From applying mental models to your investment approach, to evolution, tribalism and Adam Smith, to shareholder activism, opting out, and why true impact investors are still so rare, and what it takes to develop the required skills to be one - this episode is designed to make you think deeply about impact investing, and how the markets, and the people working in them, operate as a whole.  "If the enemy of the good is perfect, then capital doesn't flow for fear of being wrong or unprofessional, or years later being looked back at with derision."  Shaping The CAPROCK Group’s initiative in Impact Investing, Matthew is a sought-after speaker and thought leader in the discipline. In addition to keynoting the 2013 European Commission's Annual Award for Social Innovation, Matthew has guest-lectured on sustainable business management and non-financial value creation at Harvard, Tuck, Kellogg, Booth and the American University in Paris business schools, has presented at conferences throughout the US and Europe, serves as a strategic adviser to several Impact Investing funds, and has been quoted in Barron's, International Business Daily, Bloomberg Business Week, Forbes and The New York Times. More recently, he successfully shepherded two pieces of legislation through the Idaho Statehouse, the first authorizing Pay For Success Contracting and the second awarding legal status to businesses structured as Benefit Corporations. Prior to co-founding The CAPROCK Group, Matthew was a partner in The Owyhee Group, a boutique advisory team within Smith Barney. During his fourteen years with the company, he was a member of Citigroup’s elite Leadership Development Program and helped craft the firm’s Private Wealth Management platform. Matthew graduated from Dartmouth College, has competed internationally in five different sports and continues to serve as a Director for the Lee Pesky Learning Center, an organization he helped launch nearly 20 years ago. When not working, Matthew can usually be found outside, running, skiing, mountaineering, cycling... and generally encouraging his daughter to enjoy wilderness with the same irrational exuberance as her father.​ Show Notes and Resources:  Caprock Group Integrated Impact Investing Matthew's Vlog on the Vatican Bank experience IPAR Bloomberg - Masters in Business Interview The Most Fascinating Impact Investor You've Never Heard Of Social Justice Fund  Devin Thorpe | Your Guide to Impact Investing Jed Emerson SOCAP Jed Emerson SOCAP talk Deval Patrick Bain Capital The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind Book of Five Rings Sapiens Meditations    www.facebook.com/impactinvestingpodcast www.twitter.com/impinvpodcast  

Matthew Weatherley-White: The Philosopher King of Impact Investing

Kusi joined Global Partnerships June 2015. He is responsible for identifying and researching social impact and financial return potential of new investment initiatives, refining existing investment initiatives as well defining GP’s overall investment strategy. He also GP’s lead for agriculture and health sectors. Prior to joining GP, Kusi worked three years as a management consultant for Bain & Company in South America and five years as an Investment Officer for the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. In both roles he has published numerous papers on private sector development and impact investing. He also has extensive experience presenting at international forums such as the UNCTAD Global Conference on Trade and Investment, Latin America’s Impact Investing Forum and World Bank Groups FPD Forum. He holds a B.A. with honors in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, an MPA/ID from the Harvard Kennedy School where he won both Center for International Development (CID) and ICICI Bank fellowships; and an MBA from INSEAD Global Business School in Singapore where he was Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellow. Kusi is also co-leader of the Harvard Kennedy School Network for Washington state, a member of the Impact Hub global community, and serves as an adviser to various social entrepreneurs around the globe. In this episode, Kusi takes us through a deep dive into his career path of economic development and impact investing, and discusses the great work Global Partnerships is doing to expand opportunity for people living in poverty in Latin America, the Caribbean and East Africa. Show Notes and Resources:    Kusi Hornberger | LinkedIn Global Partnerships INSEAD Harvard Kennedy School Cook Stoves | More Info  Doing Good Better | William MacAskill   Crazy is a Compliment | Linda Rottenberg    www.impactinvestingpodcast.com Twitter: @impinvpodcast Facebook.com/impactinvestingpodcast

Kusi Hornberger on Development Economics and Global Partnerships

Mark Horoszowski is co-founder and CEO of MovingWorlds.org, a global platform that helps people volunteer their expertise with social impact organizations around the world, on their own or through corporate-sponsored programs. Since its launch in 2011, MovingWorlds.org has already helped unleash over 5 million dollars worth of professional skills to social enterprises around the world and is the originator of the term, Experteering. Mark holds a Master's in Accounting and a BA in Business from the University of Washington, serves as a volunteer co-chairing the American Cancer Society's National Volunteer Leadership Team, and is a contributor at Huffington Post Impact. Moving Worlds is also a B-corp that has taken investment from the impact investing group,  Investors Circle, and has gone through the challenges in taking a social enterprise from idea, to market, and scale. In this interview, Mark and I dive deep into the hard and soft skills that are most needed in emerging markets, and the ones that can have the biggest impact in your impact career. Things like accounting, sales and marketing, and technical know-how are highly coveted skills abroad, and MovingWorlds gives individuals the opportunity to volunteer their unique skillsets to help social enterprises around the world solve their grand challenges.  Most importantly, Mark and I discuss the need for empathy when helping others, how to develop empathy, and how to make sure your impact is lasting, even after you’ve returned home from experteering. Volunteering can change the direction of your career, and open doors you never would've imaged possible. It has played such a large role in Mark's life, and mine as well, so I cannot stress its importance enough. It's something I continue to do through organizations like SCORE and Maine Startup and Create Week, and I highly encourage anyone listening to find ways you can volunteer. Whether you go on an experteering trip with Moving Worlds, or just find an organization or cause in your local community. Volunteering can have a massive impact on not only your life, but the people you’re volunteering for. I believe the quality of our life is greatly influenced by the quality of people in our lives, and volunteering is a great way to exponentially increase both.   www.movingworlds.org Facebook: ImpactInvestingPodcast Twitter: @impinvpodcast www.impactinvestingpodcast.com

IIP 001 - Jed Emerson: Blended Value in Impact Investing and Life

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