Radical Truth

🎙️ SPOTIFY / APPLE PODCASTS DESCRIPTION

70% of the world's food is grown by smallholder farmers. 70% of the world's poor are smallholder farmers. And a 2% increase in global soil carbon concentration could offset climate change. One company is tackling all three challenges simultaneously — and doing it profitably.

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with John Denniston, co-founder and Chairman of Shared-X — a Silicon Valley-born, Latin America-focused agricultural impact company that has spent seven years cracking one of the hardest problems in development finance: how to lift smallholder farmers out of poverty while drawing down carbon and restoring soil health, at scale, with genuine financial returns for investors. John left a Senior Partnership at Kleiner Perkins to build it. His radical truth: regenerative agriculture is not just the cheapest way to address climate change, food security, and rural poverty. It is the only approach that addresses all of them at once.

In this episode:

• How Shared-X's hub-and-spoke model collapses the agricultural yield gap — the 5–10x difference in output between developed and emerging country farmers
• How to truly help smallholder farmers escape extreme poverty — not through aid, but through advanced farming techniques and direct access to international markets
• Why regenerative agriculture draws down carbon cheaper, faster, and more effectively than almost any other climate solution
• What the critical difference is between organic agriculture and regenerative agriculture — and why it matters for climate and food security
• How a 2% increase in soil organic matter concentration could offset global climate change
• What a genuinely profitable impact investment model in agriculture looks like — and why leading impact funds have invested in Shared-X

The key insight: The yield gap — the astonishing difference in agricultural output between a farmer in a developed country and one in an emerging market — is one of the greatest arbitrage opportunities in the world economy. Shared-X is closing that gap with regenerative techniques, and sharing the gains with the communities around it.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — The yield gap and why it is the world's greatest impact opportunity
• 0:X:XX — How Shared-X's hub-and-spoke model works in practice
• 0:X:XX — How to lift smallholder farmers out of poverty at scale
• 0:X:XX — Regenerative vs organic agriculture: what is the difference?
• 0:X:XX — Soil carbon, climate change, and the 2% solution
• 0:X:XX — What a profitable impact agriculture model looks like for investors

👤 About John DennistonJohn Denniston is Chairman of Shared-X, an agricultural impact company that collapses the yield gap by deploying advanced, sustainable farming techniques and sharing them with smallholder farmer communities. Previously he was a Senior Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he co-founded and co-ran the firm's $1 billion Green Growth Fund investing in sustainability companies. P U-M Erbrior to Kleiner Perkins, he was Managing Director and Head of Technology Investment Banking for the Western United States at Salomon Smith Barney. He earned his BA in Economics and JD from the University of Michigan. H U-M Erbe has testified before US Congressional committees and serves on the board of advisors of the National Renewable Energy Lab.

AgrividaFor anyone working in regenerative agriculture, food systems, impact investing, or climate solutions — this episode is essential listening.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTHReal experience. Real results. No greenwashing. TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years.🌐 tbligroup.com

#RegenerativeAgriculture #SharedX #JohnDenniston #SmallholderFarmers #ImpactInvesting #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #FoodSecurity #CarbonDrawdown #SoilHealth #YieldGap #AgTech #ClimateAndFood #RuralPoverty

There are nearly 100 million forcibly displaced people in the world. Most governments treat them as a burden. John Kluge has spent years proving that they are one of the world's greatest untapped assets.

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with John Kluge, founder of the Refugee Investment Network (RIN) — the first impact investing and blended finance collaborative dedicated to long-term solutions to forced migration. Launched on World Refugee Day 2019 at the Rockefeller Foundation, RIN has built a framework that connects capital to refugee-led and refugee-supporting ventures, advises governments and investors on refugee lens strategies, and is changing the narrative around one of the most politically charged and chronically underfunded challenges of our time. John's radical truth: the humanitarian aid system is both broke and broken. The only durable solution to forced migration is investment — in people, in businesses, and in the communities that host them.

In this episode:

• Why refugees are an asset, not a liability — and what the data on refugee entrepreneurship actually shows
• What the "Refugee Lens" investing framework is and how it helps investors identify, qualify, and measure impact for displaced communities
• What creative financial instruments RIN has developed to bridge the gap between humanitarian response and long-term economic inclusion
• How blended finance can unlock private capital for refugee-supporting ventures at scale
• What RIN's work in East Africa, Mexico, Jordan, and beyond reveals about building inclusive economies in displacement contexts
• What investors across the full capital continuum — from grant makers to institutional investors — can do to support refugee self-reliance

The key insight: Six years ago, John realised the humanitarian aid system was leaving behind millions of resilient, creative, entrepreneurial people with no path to pursue their potential. RIN was built to pick up where humanitarian response leaves off — and to prove that investing in refugees is not charity. It is smart economics.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — Why the humanitarian aid model is failing refugees
• 0:X:XX — The Refugee Lens: a new framework for impact investing
• 0:X:XX — Refugees as entrepreneurs: the evidence
• 0:X:XX — Creative financial instruments for refugee inclusion
• 0:X:XX — How blended finance unlocks private capital at scale
• 0:X:XX — What investors can do now — across the full capital continuum

👤 About John KlugeJohn Kluge is a social entrepreneur and impact investor dedicated to building more sustainable, just, and inclusive economies. He is the founder and Senior Advisor of the Refugee Investment Network, the first impact investing and blended finance collaborative dedicated to long-term solutions to forced migration. Refugeeinvestments He is also co-founder and Managing Partner of the Alight Fund, an investment and financing company for refugee and host country entrepreneurs, and previously co-founded Eirene, a multi-family-office impact investing fund, and Toilet Hackers, a social enterprise scaling access to sanitation. Refugeeinvestments He is the co-author of Charity & Philanthropy for Dummies and holds a BA from Columbia University and an MBA from Babson College. Refugeeinvestments

For anyone working in impact investing, forced migration, blended finance, or inclusive economic development — this episode is essential listening.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTHReal experience. Real results. No greenwashing. TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years.🌐 tbligroup.com

What does it actually take to align every dollar of a foundation's endowment with its mission — and what does that teach us about the future of sustainable finance?

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Clara Miller — one of the most influential and original thinkers in the history of impact investing and nonprofit finance. Over four decades spanning the founding of the Nonprofit Finance Fund in 1984, through her presidency of the Heron Foundation from 2011 to 2017, Clara has done something very few people have done: she has actually changed how money works in the social sector. Under her leadership, Heron became one of the first foundations in the world to invest 100% of its endowment — every dollar — in alignment with its antipoverty mission. Her radical truth: the way funders and foundations deploy capital routinely damages the organisations they intend to help. Most of the leverage to fix this is not in the management practices of nonprofits. It is in the financial practices of funders.

In this episode:

• What it took to move the Heron Foundation from 40% to 100% mission-aligned investment — and what it revealed about the gap between intent and practice in philanthropy
• Why deeply ingrained "best practices" in funding often hurt organisations more than they help
• What sustainable finance and impact investing look like when you take accounting and business models seriously — not just values
• Why revenue reliability matters more than capital availability for most social enterprises
• What forty years of social sector finance has taught Clara about what actually works — and what the field is still getting wrong
• How the nonprofit and for-profit sectors can learn from each other on finance, accountability, and mission

The key insight: Cash is king. If the revenue is flowing, the capital will come. Clara Miller has spent 40 years watching funders inadvertently undermine the organisations they care about — through overhead caps, bespoke metrics, restricted grants, and financial practices that would be laughed out of any commercial boardroom. This is her verdict on how to do it better.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — What 40 years in social sector finance teaches you
• 0:X:XX — How Heron moved to 100% mission-aligned investment
• 0:X:XX — Why funder practices damage nonprofits — and how to fix them
• 0:X:XX — Revenue vs capital: what social enterprises really need
• 0:X:XX — Accounting, business models, and the missing infrastructure of impact
• 0:X:XX — What sustainable finance looks like when it truly works

👤 About Clara MillerClara Miller is President Emerita of the Heron Foundation, which she led from 2011 to 2017, and advises, writes, and speaks on investing and enterprise finance. She founded and was CEO of Nonprofit Finance Fund from 1984 to 2011. Nonprofit Quarterly She is an advisor to the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, the US Impact Investing Alliance, and the Impact Management Project, and served as a Clinton Administration appointee who chaired the US Treasury's first Community Development Advisory Board. Nonprofit Quarterly She was the inaugural laureate of the Prince's Prize for Innovative Philanthropy awarded by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, and has received a Rockefeller Bellagio Residency. She has been published in the Financial Times, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and the Nonprofit Quarterly. Philanthropyforum

For anyone working in philanthropy, impact investing, sustainable finance, or nonprofit leadership — this episode is essential listening.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTHReal experience. Real results. No greenwashing. TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years.🌐 tbligroup.com

#ClaraMiller #HeronFoundation #NonprofitFinanceFund #ImpactInvesting #SustainableFinance #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #MissionAligned #PhilanthropyReform #SocialEnterprise #BlendedFinance #Endowment #100PercentMission #SystemsChange

Every diamond has a story. For millions of people in West Africa, that story has been one of conflict, exploitation, and poverty. Martin Rapaport has spent decades trying to change the ending.

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Martin Rapaport — chairman of the Rapaport Group, founder of the Rapaport Diamond Report and RapNet, the world's largest online diamond trading network, and one of the most maverick figures in the history of the global diamond industry. Since the early 2000s, when most of the industry looked away, Martin travelled to Sierra Leone, invested his own money to create alluvial mining cooperatives, helped establish the Kimberley Process, and has relentlessly championed Fair Trade Diamonds as the only durable solution to conflict diamonds. His radical truth: a Kimberley Process certificate does not ensure a diamond is free of human rights violations. The industry has a moral responsibility that certification alone cannot discharge.

In this episode:

• What a Rapaport Fair Trade Diamond actually means — and the four conditions every stone must meet
• Why blood diamonds are still entering global markets despite the Kimberley Process
• Why fair wages, community benefit, and independent monitoring are non-negotiable for ethical sourcing
• What the Rapaport Minimum Human Rights Standard requires — and how most of the trade still falls short
• How Fair Trade Diamonds can lift communities in West Africa out of poverty while creating a genuinely ethical luxury market
• What the rise of lab-grown diamonds means for artisanal miners who depend on natural diamond demand for their livelihoods

The key insight: Hundreds of millions of dollars of diamonds are traded on world markets with no benefit going to the governments or people of the countries they come from. The real challenge is not certification paperwork. It is stopping the illegal diamond industry from stealing entire nations' resources — and replacing it with a system that genuinely works for people.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — Why blood diamonds remain a crisis despite the Kimberley Process
• 0:X:XX — The four conditions of a Rapaport Fair Trade Diamond
• 0:X:XX — The Rapaport Minimum Human Rights Standard in practice
• 0:X:XX — Artisanal miners in West Africa: what fair trade looks like on the ground
• 0:X:XX — Lab-grown diamonds and the threat to mining livelihoods
• 0:X:XX — What a genuinely ethical diamond industry would look like

👤 About Martin RapaportMartin Rapaport began his career in the diamond industry in 1975 as an apprentice diamond cleaver in Antwerp, Belgium. In 1978 he established the Rapaport Diamond Report, the primary source of diamond price information. In 1980 he created RapNet, the world's largest online diamond trading network, with 1.6 million stones listed and members from 103 countries. H Rapaporte played an integral role in establishing the Kimberley Process and invested his own money with USAID and Global Witness to create four alluvial mining cooperatives in Sierra Leone. H Wikipediae hosts the annual Rapaport International Diamond Conference, bringing NGOs and industry leaders together on ethical sourcing.

For anyone working in ethical supply chains, impact investing, ESG, or sustainable luxury — this episode is essential listening.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTHReal experience. Real results. No greenwashing. TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years.🌐 tbligroup.com

#FairTradeDiamonds #MartinRapaport #BloodDiamonds #EthicalSourcing #WestAfrica #ImpactInvesting #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #KimberleyProcess #ConflictDiamonds #SierraLeone #SupplyChainEthics #ResponsibleMining #DiamondIndustry

What happens when you invest $64 million to expand a university in West Africa — and the new Vice-Chancellor tries to tear up the contract by claiming you seduced his predecessor into signing it?

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Andrea Pizziconi — TBLI Hero, serial social entrepreneur, Gates Cambridge Scholar, CFA, and one of the most tenacious impact investors working in African education today. As founder of The Christie Company, Africa Integras, and Girls First Finance, Andrea has pioneered education infrastructure public-private partnerships across Africa, developing over 1.2 million square feet of classrooms and dormitories for some of the continent's largest public universities. She has also faced down corruption, political risk, rogue counterparties, media attacks, and arbitration — and come out the other side with her most impactful venture yet. Her radical truth: investing in African higher education is one of the greatest impact opportunities in the world — and one of the hardest.

In this episode:

• What happens when political risk insurance works too well — and creates a moral hazard that incents your investor to walk away
• How to balance investor fiduciary interests with the vulnerable stakeholder interests of tens of thousands of students
• What extreme negative headlines and corruption risk do to a complex deal — and how you prevent the parties from walking away
• How Andrea flipped a nightmare outcome at the University of Ghana into the most impactful venture she has ever built
• What Girls First Finance is — and how it addresses the exploitation of young women who trade sex for education fees
• What it really takes to finance higher education infrastructure at scale in Africa — and why the private sector is the most viable path

The key insight: A nine-figure arbitration judgment won in London. A defamatory smear campaign. A university VC who tried to undo a $64 million deal. Andrea Pizziconi faced all of it — and used the experience to build a fintech platform supporting millions of vulnerable young women. That is what resilience in impact investing actually looks like.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — Why African higher education is one of the world's most urgent impact opportunities
• 0:X:XX — The University of Ghana deal: what went wrong and why
• 0:X:XX — Political risk insurance, moral hazard, and investor walkout
• 0:X:XX — Balancing fiduciary duty with vulnerable stakeholder interests
• 0:X:XX — From crisis to Girls First Finance: the most impactful pivot
• 0:X:XX — What the future of education infrastructure finance in Africa looks like

👤 About Andrea PizziconiAndrea Pizziconi, CFA, has raised and deployed tens of millions of dollars to pioneer education infrastructure public-private partnerships across North America, Europe, and Africa through The Christie Company and Africa Integras, and is the founder of Girls First Finance, a fintech platform democratising student loans and empowerment tools for vulnerable young women globally. Medium Through its investment in Africa Integras, The Christie Company has grown to become one of the largest developers of education infrastructure in Africa, with over 1.2 million square feet in development. The Christie Company She is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Cambridge, which she attended as a Gates Scholar, and holds the CFA designation. The Christie Company

For anyone working in impact investing, development finance, education, or African markets — this episode is essential listening.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTHReal experience. Real results. No greenwashing. TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years.🌐 tbligroup.com

#AndreaPizziconi #AfricaIntegras #GirlsFirstFinance #EducationFinance #ImpactInvesting #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #AfricaEducation #PublicPrivatePartnership #PoliticalRisk #WomenEducation #HigherEducation #SocialEntrepreneur #DevelopmentFinance

One billion people worldwide suffer from depression, anxiety, addiction, or PTSD. Conventional treatments fail most of them. What if the solution was sitting in a magic mushroom?

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Christian Angermayer — German serial entrepreneur, founder of Apeiron Investment Group, and the single most consequential financial driving force behind the global psychedelic renaissance in medicine. After a transformative personal experience with psilocybin in 2014, Christian went from lifelong teetotaller who had never taken any substance to seed-funding Compass Pathways in 2017 and founding atai Life Sciences in 2018 — now a NASDAQ-listed biotech with the world's largest pipeline of psychedelic drug programmes for mental health. His radical truth: we are on the verge of curing depression. And the question is no longer whether psychedelics work — it is how fast we can get them approved.

In this episode:

• Can depression actually be cured — and what does the clinical evidence on psilocybin, DMT, ketamine, and ibogaine say?
• What drove Christian to invest in mental health — and why he believes psychedelics will end the global mental health crisis
• Can you invest in happiness — and what does a portfolio built around the "Next Human Agenda" actually look like?
• Why conventional antidepressants fail most patients — and what makes psychedelic-assisted therapy fundamentally different
• How atai Life Sciences is building the world's largest mental health drug pipeline across multiple psychedelic compounds
• What the regulatory pathway to FDA approval looks like — and why rigorous clinical trials are the only path to scale

The key insight: After his first psilocybin experience, Christian came out thinking: if this brings this much positivity to a healthy, happy person, the medical potential for people with depression, anxiety, and addiction is extraordinary. Two years of reflection later, he invested. Today, atai has 18+ anticipated clinical milestones and the most comprehensive psychedelic drug pipeline in the world. The question is no longer whether. It is when.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — Can depression be cured? The state of the science
• 0:X:XX — Christian's journey: from psilocybin experience to billion-dollar biotech
• 0:X:XX — Why conventional mental health treatments are failing one billion people
• 0:X:XX — atai Life Sciences: the world's largest psychedelic drug pipeline
• 0:X:XX — Investing in happiness: the Next Human Agenda
• 0:X:XX — What regulatory approval of psychedelics would mean for global mental health

👤 About Christian AngermayerChristian Angermayer is a serial entrepreneur and investor whose Apeiron Investment Group manages over $3.5 billion across life sciences, fintech and crypto, future tech, and experiences and hospitality. Over 20 years he has founded three unicorns and been the lead investor in four unicorns and two decacorns. Salt In 2018 he founded atai Life Sciences, a NASDAQ-listed biotechnology company focused on developing treatments for depression, anxiety, and addiction using psychedelic compounds including psilocybin and DMT. He also co-founded Compass Pathways, the first company to conduct a large-scale clinical trial using synthetic psilocybin. Wikipedia He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a member of the Milken Institute Young Leaders' Circle, an advisor to President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, and a founding member of President Macron's Scale-Up Europe initiative. THE ORG

For anyone working in impact investing, mental health, longevity, biotech, or the future of human wellbeing — this episode is essential listening.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTHReal experience. Real results. No greenwashing. TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years.🌐 tbligroup.com

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Mats Andersson, former CEO of Sweden's Fourth National Pension Fund AP4 and the architect of one of the most consequential decarbonisation strategies in the history of institutional investment. In 2012, Mats surveyed ten of the world's largest pension funds about their exposure to climate change risk. None of them had any view at all. He went back to Stockholm and built a strategy that reduced AP4's carbon intensity by 50–80% with virtually zero tracking error — and then stood up at the UN General Assembly to challenge the rest of the world's investors to follow. His radical truth: carbon is mispriced, decarbonisation is a free option, and the biggest risk in a long-term investor's portfolio is carbon.

In this episode:

• How to decarbonise an institutional portfolio — practically, systematically, and without sacrificing alpha
• What the real challenges are for investors in decarbonising — from data gaps to tracking error fears to governance constraints
• How the Portfolio Decarbonisation Coalition grew from a $100 billion target to $600 billion committed — and what it took to get there
• Why carbon is currently mispriced — and what that means for patient, long-term investors
• How a carbon price is essential for system-wide decarbonisation — and what investors can do in its absence
• How to scale climate risk investment to the level the crisis demands

The key insight: AP4 started decarbonising in 2012 with its US equities portfolio, achieving 50–80% carbon intensity reductions with a tracking error of just 0.7%. And its decarbonised funds outperformed the wider benchmark. Andersson's lesson: decarbonisation is not a sacrifice of returns. It is a reduction of risk — and the market hasn't priced that yet.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — Why carbon is the biggest risk in a long-term portfolio
• 0:X:XX — How AP4 built its portfolio decarbonisation strategy from scratch
• 0:X:XX — What the challenges are for investors trying to decarbonise
• 0:X:XX — From $100bn target to $600bn committed: the Portfolio Decarbonisation Coalition
• 0:X:XX — Carbon pricing: why it is essential and what investors do without it
• 0:X:XX — How to scale investment addressing climate risk at institutional scale

👤 About Mats AnderssonMats Andersson is a Swedish financier and asset manager. After roles at Warburg, Deutsche Bank, and Skandia Liv, he served as CEO of Sweden's Fourth National Pension Fund AP4, where he led the work to redirect investments toward fossil-free companies and actively collaborated with the United Nations to raise awareness of climate risk from an investment perspective. H Wikipediae was the driving force behind the Portfolio Decarbonisation Coalition, co-founded by AP4 with UNEP FI, Amundi, and the CDP, which ultimately attracted 25 member institutions with $3.5 trillion under management and $600 billion committed to decarbonisation. H Wikipediae was awarded the CIO Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, ranked fifth on the Financial News 100 Most Influential list in the pension fund category, and received the Légion d'Honneur from France in recognition of his pioneering role in decarbonising institutional investment assets.

WikipediaFor anyone working in institutional investment, pension funds, climate finance, or ESG — this episode is essential listening.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTHReal experience. Real results. No greenwashing. TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years.🌐 tbligroup.com

#MatsAndersson #AP4 #PortfolioDecarbonisation #ClimateRisk #ImpactInvesting #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #PensionFunds #LowCarbon #ClimateFinance #NetZero #InstitutionalInvesting #CarbonRisk #SustainableInvesting

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Benjamin Bingham — founder and CEO of 3Sisters Sustainable Management, chairman of Scarab Funds, and author of the pioneering book Making Money Matter: Impact Investing to Change the World. A Yale-educated artist, biodynamic farmer, teacher, and Certified Financial Planner, Ben has spent two decades building something the investment world insists is impossible: 100% impact portfolios across both public and private asset classes that achieve high returns and low risk simultaneously. His story begins with inherited wealth from the Tiffany fortune — and a decision to use it to prove that money can be a force for healing rather than harm. His radical truth: you don't have to choose between financial returns and full impact. That is a false choice — and Ben has the track record to prove it.

In this episode:

• How a Tiffany fortune heir became one of impact investing's most original and committed practitioners
• What the real challenges are in getting buy-in from investors for genuine impact — and what it takes to overcome them
• What investors actually want when it comes to impact — beyond the marketing language
• How to achieve high returns, low risk, and full impact simultaneously through the Scarab Funds approach
• Why most ESG investing is still nowhere near 100% impact — and what the difference looks like in practice
• What the personal relationship with money has to do with the future of sustainable investing — and why Ben is writing his second book on exactly this

The key insight: Just 5% of foundation money is gifted to charitable causes. The other 95% has little to no charitable purpose. Ben Bingham has spent his career showing that the other 95% does not have to be that way — that foundations and investors do not need to increase risk or lower returns to invest fully for impact. They just need to ask the right questions about what they own.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — From the Tiffany fortune to full-impact investing: Ben's journey
• 0:X:XX — What investors really want from impact — and what they're not getting
• 0:X:XX — The challenges of getting genuine investor buy-in for impact
• 0:X:XX — How to achieve high returns, low risk, and 100% impact
• 0:X:XX — Scarab Funds: the farming philosophy of diversified impact portfolios
• 0:X:XX — The personal relationship with money — and the second book

👤 About Benjamin BinghamBenjamin Bingham is the CEO and founder of 3Sisters Sustainable Management, focused on 100% impact portfolios across private and public asset classes through Scarab Funds. His family were heirs of the Tiffany fortune, and he used his resources to co-found a successful social enterprise — Triform Camphill Community — in the 1980s, and two tech start-ups in the 1990s. H Intentional Endowments Networke became an investment advisor to his network of socially minded investors at Legg Mason in 2001 and has been an independent money manager for families since 2007. H Intentional Endowments Networke is a Fellow of Economists for Peace and Security, a member of the Investors' Circle and Social Venture Network, and a founding B Corp member. He studied at Groton School, Yale University, and Emerson College in England, where he was certified in biodynamic agriculture.

AmazonFor anyone working in impact investing, family offices, philanthropy, or the future of values-aligned wealth — this episode is essential listening.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTHReal experience. Real results. No greenwashing. TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years.🌐 tbligroup.com

#BenjaminBingham #3Sisters #ScarabFunds #ImpactInvesting #MakingMoneyMatter #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #100PercentImpact #FamilyOffice #ValuesAligned #TiffanyFortune #SustainableWealth #PhilanthropyInvesting #SRI

He convinced a billionaire to fund Indonesia's first online lending platform. Then he pivoted to building a waste management company with the waste pickers themselves. This is social entrepreneurship on steroids.

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Thierry Sanders — one of the most versatile and relentless social entrepreneurs alive today. From a global crowdfunding platform that attracted a personal $1 million award from Barack Obama, to co-founding MEKAR, Indonesia's first P2P lending platform, to building KOLEKT — a world-first waste management app designed with informal waste pickers across 48 countries — Thierry has spent three decades proving that social enterprise can scale, pivot, and deliver. His radical truth: the biggest problems in emerging markets are also the biggest opportunities — if you are willing to go where most investors will not.

In this episode:

• How Thierry convinced billionaire Putera Sampoerna to fund Indonesia's first social enterprise lending platform
• How to build a large-scale social enterprise in emerging markets — from scratch, across multiple continents
• When and how to pivot: lessons from a career spanning carbon credits, crowdfunding, fintech, and waste management
• The MEKAR case study: financing 25,000 small Indonesian businesses that no bank would touch
• How KOLEKT works: a waste app designed with informal pickers — 80% of whom own no smartphone
• What a genuine triple dividend looks like: waste prevented, picker incomes raised, supply chains made transparent

The key insight: The informal waste pickers who collect our plastic and cartons provide an environmental service worth billions — and receive almost nothing for it. Thierry built a technology platform with them, not just for them, now active in 48 countries. This is what inclusion actually looks like.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — From carbon credits to crowdfunding: Thierry's journey
• 0:X:XX — How to convince a billionaire to fund a social enterprise
• 0:X:XX — Building MEKAR: Indonesia's first P2P lending company
• 0:X:XX — When and how to pivot — the key lessons
• 0:X:XX — KOLEKT: waste tech built with waste pickers
• 0:X:XX — Scaling circular economy solutions across emerging markets

👤 About Thierry SandersThierry Sanders launched the Business in Development Network, a global platform attracting 60,000 start-ups from developing countries and facilitating $250 million in investment. Recognised by the Obama administration as a global leader in small business finance, he was awarded $1 million to promote his activities and invited to advise on entrepreneurship in Muslim-majority countries. H Indonesia Expate went on to become CEO of MEKAR, Indonesia's first P2P lending platform, growing from zero to 700 clients in six months and disbursing $10 million, primarily funded by Putera Sampoerna. H Globalsmefinanceforume is now CEO of KOLEKT — the world's first multi-material waste management app — which has facilitated over 40,000 transactions across 48 countries, with 80% of its 7,000 informal waste picker users owning no mobile phone.

BVRIOFor anyone working in social entrepreneurship, emerging market finance, circular economy, or impact investing — this episode is essential listening.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTHReal experience. Real results. No greenwashing. TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years.🌐 tbligroup.com

#ThierrySanders #SocialEntrepreneur #MEKAR #KOLEKT #CircularAction #ImpactInvesting #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #EmergingMarkets #Indonesia #WastePickers #CircularEconomy #P2PLending #WasteManagement

She built her career championing ESG from within some of the world's largest financial institutions. Then she blew the whistle on the biggest greenwashing scandal in history — and paid a heavy personal price for it.

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Desiree Fixler, former Group Sustainability Officer at DWS — Deutsche Bank's €460 billion asset management arm — and the woman whose whistleblowing triggered a federal police raid, the resignation of the CEO, and the largest SEC greenwashing fine ever imposed. With over 25 years in sustainable finance at JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, and DWS, Desiree had an insider's view of how ESG really works — and doesn't. Her radical truth: ESG, as currently practised by much of the asset management industry, is a multi-trillion-dollar marketing exercise. And the gap between public claims and internal reality is vast.

In this episode:

• Whether ESG funds are actually addressing the climate challenge — or primarily generating fees
• What institutional investors really think about ESG when the cameras are off
• How greenwashing happens — not just at DWS, but as a systemic feature of the ESG industry
• What the DWS scandal revealed about corporate governance failure at the highest levels of finance
• What evidence-based, honest ESG disclosure should actually look like
• What it costs to speak up — and why Desiree believes whistleblowing is worth it

The key insight: When Desiree raised her concerns internally at DWS about the gap between their $550 billion ESG claims and reality, she was publicly fired and discredited. Fifty federal police agents later raided the offices. The CEO resigned. The SEC fined them $19 million. The Frankfurt prosecutor fined them €25 million more. Truth, eventually, won. But it was not easy.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — Are ESG funds actually addressing climate change?
• 0:X:XX — The DWS scandal: what happened and why it matters
• 0:X:XX — What institutional investors really feel about ESG
• 0:X:XX — How greenwashing works — and how to detect it
• 0:X:XX — What honest, evidence-based ESG disclosure looks like
• 0:X:XX — The cost of speaking up — and the case for doing it anyway

👤 About Desiree FixlerIn a defining moment during her tenure as Group Sustainability Officer at Deutsche Bank's asset manager DWS, Desiree exposed material greenwashing — huge disparities between public ESG claims and internal statements and actions. When her concerns and her job were dismissed by the C-suite and board, she decided to speak out publicly. Subsequent investigations by US and German authorities resulted in a federal police raid, the removal of top executives, and the largest SEC and German prosecutor greenwashing fines to date. Desiree Fixler With over 25 years of experience in sustainable finance and investment banking, she now serves as a trusted advisor to financial institutions and regulators including the UK's Financial Conduct Authority and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and guest lectures at Cambridge University. CWG Speakers She is recognised as one of the Fifty Most Influential in Sustainable Finance 2023 and co-developed a Red Flag Greenwashing Indicator AI tool commissioned by WWF with the Universities of Zürich and Oxford. The CEO Magazine

For anyone working in ESG, sustainable finance, institutional investment, or corporate governance — this episode is essential listening.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTHReal experience. Real results. No greenwashing. TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years.🌐 tbligroup.com

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