Radical Truth

When nobody in the investment world wanted to touch an oat milk company, Gustaf Brandberg wrote the cheque. That company became Oatly — a $10 billion IPO. But for Gustaf, that was just the beginning.

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Gustaf Brandberg, co-founder of Gullspång Re:food and partner at Gullspång Invest — a Swedish family office built on patient, evergreen capital and a conviction that the food system is both the world's most important challenge and its most significant investment opportunity. From backing Oatly and Klarna before anyone believed in them, to co-founding Re:food to take a structured, systems-level approach to food transformation, Gustaf has built one of the most credible and forward-thinking food investment practices in the world. His radical truth: the food system is not broken. It is extremely efficient at producing calories and enormous damage simultaneously — and that is exactly why the opportunity for disruptors is so vast.

In this episode:

• How to find the next food unicorns — what Gustaf looks for that most investors miss
• Whether the present food system can be repaired — or must be transformed from the ground up
• How to convince other families and long-term investors to get on board with patient food system investing
• Why evergreen, family office capital is uniquely suited to food and agriculture investment
• How Re:food applies systems thinking to invest in root causes — not symptoms — of food system failure
• What the four investment themes of alternative proteins, regenerative farming, sustainable supply chains, and healthy diets have in common

The key insight: Gustaf didn't stumble into food investing. He attended a programme at the Stockholm Resilience Centre in 2014 and realised the magnitude of what needed to change. He then invested in Oatly the following year — a company he would never have met without that education. The lesson: understanding the system before hunting for the unicorn is the only reliable way to find it.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — How a tech investor found his way to food
• 0:X:XX — Why Gullspång invested in Oatly when nobody else would
• 0:X:XX — Can the food system be repaired — or transformed?
• 0:X:XX — How to find the next food unicorn
• 0:X:XX — How to bring other families into long-term food investing
• 0:X:XX — Re:food's theory of transformation for the global food system

👤 About Gustaf BrandbergGustaf Brandberg founded a software consulting firm working with Spotify, King, and iZettle before they became unicorns, then joined his family office Gullspång Invest as a tech investor. After attending the Stockholm Resilience Centre in 2014, he pivoted to food system investing, with Oatly as his second food investment in 2015. I Analisa Winthern 2020 he co-founded Gullspång Re:food to drive transformative change in the global food system, with Gullspång as the lead investor alongside a pension fund and entrepreneurial families behind global enterprises. R Family Capitale:food's portfolio includes Oatly, N!CK'S, Planted, Motatos, and Stockeld Dreamery — all companies driving sustainability shifts across the food system, backed with capital, contacts, and competence.

Investor ConnectFor anyone working in food tech, impact investing, family offices, or the future of sustainable food — 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

#GustafBrandberg #GullspångInvest #ReFood #Oatly #FoodTech #ImpactInvesting #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #FoodSystem #AlternativeProteins #RegenerativeFarming #FoodUnicorns #FamilyOffice #PatientCapital

She inherited millions from one of Europe's great chemical dynasties. Then she gave 90% of it away — by letting 50 strangers decide where it went.

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Marlene Engelhorn — Austrian-German activist, co-founder of the Taxmenow campaign, and one of the most radical and clear-eyed voices in the global conversation about wealth, power, and democratic legitimacy. A descendant of Friedrich Engelhorn, founder of BASF, Marlene inherited approximately €25 million from her grandmother — and promptly declared that the state should have taxed it, that she had no right to the power it conferred, and that she would give 90% of it away through a citizens' assembly of 50 randomly selected Austrians. Her radical truth: you cannot abolish poverty without abolishing extreme wealth. And philanthropy — no matter how generous — is not the same as justice.

In this episode:

• Why you cannot abolish poverty without addressing the structural concentration of wealth
• Why a wealth tax is critical to democracy — and what Austria's abolition of inheritance tax in 2008 reveals about political capture
• Why seven-digit private wallets are treated as more important than the common good — and how that political consensus was constructed
• What the Good Council for Redistribution revealed about what ordinary people do when given real power over money
• Why Marlene refuses philanthropy as the answer — and what democratic redistribution actually looks like
• What Taxmenow, Millionaires for Humanity, and Patriotic Millionaires tell us about the growing movement among the wealthy to be taxed

The key insight: Inheriting wealth means being born directly into the boss's chair — without earning it. The doors it opens are doors others never get to see. Marlene Engelhorn's argument is not that rich people are evil. It is that extreme wealth is a structural failure — and that nobody needs another foundation. What is needed is taxation, democracy, and the courage to say both out loud.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — Why inherited wealth is a democratic problem, not a personal gift
• 0:X:XX — Why you can't abolish poverty without abolishing extreme wealth
• 0:X:XX — The case for a wealth tax: what Austria's experience shows
• 0:X:XX — The Good Council: 50 strangers, €25 million, 77 organisations
• 0:X:XX — Why philanthropy is not redistribution — and never will be
• 0:X:XX — Taxmenow and the global movement of heirs who want to be taxed

👤 About Marlene EngelhornMarlene Engelhorn is an Austrian and German activist and heiress known for advocating the reform of inheritance tax policies. A descendant of Friedrich Engelhorn, founder of BASF, she inherited a fortune from her grandmother Traudl Engelhorn-Vechiatto, whose wealth was estimated at $4.2 billion. She co-founded Taxmenow in Germany in 2021 to lobby for higher taxes on the wealthy. Wikipedia In 2024 she created the Good Council for Redistribution — sending letters to 10,000 randomly selected Austrians and selecting 50 representative citizens to decide how to distribute €25 million of her inheritance across 77 organisations. Time She was awarded the Human Act Award in 2022 for her advocacy of wealth taxes in German-speaking Europe and is a member of the international initiatives Millionaires for Humanity and Patriotic Millionaires. Wikipedia

For anyone working in impact investing, economic justice, wealth redistribution, or the future of democratic capitalism — 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

#MarlenEngelhorn #WealthTax #Taxmenow #WealthInequality #ImpactInvesting #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #Redistribution #InheritanceTax #DemocraticCapitalism #GoodCouncil #MillionairesForHumanity #SystemsChange #EconomicJustice

Trillions of dollars sit in private banking accounts managed for the world's wealthiest families. More and more of those clients want their money to mean something. What happens when three of the people responsible for making that shift sit down to tell you what it actually looks like from the inside?

In this special TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein convenes a panel of three senior private banking ESG leaders to share their real experience of moving money into impact — the opportunities, the obstacles, and the honest truth about how far the industry still has to go.

The three speakers:Rosa Sangiorgio — Head of ESG, Pictet Wealth Management (Geneva/Zurich). With over 22 years of experience spanning Societe Generale, Capitalia, and Credit Suisse Investment Management, Rosa leads the full value chain of responsible investment at one of Europe's most respected private banks — from ESG data and scoring to active ownership, product development, and client education. A CEFA charterholder and TEDx speaker.

Rashila Kerai — Head of Group Sustainability, VP Bank AG (Liechtenstein/Singapore). A sustainability expert with deep experience across the public, private, and NGO sectors — from RobecoSAM and Holcim to VP Bank, where she led the "Investing for Change" initiative integrating sustainability criteria across all investment decisions. Holds an MBA and BSc in Civil/Environmental Engineering from the University of Michigan.

James Purcell — former Group Head of ESG, Sustainable and Impact Investing, Quintet Private Bank. A wealth management veteran with senior roles at UBS and Quintet, where he developed a 100% sustainable multi-asset discretionary solution deployed as the bank's default investment offering — a rare and radical move in private banking.

In this episode:

• How private banks are structuring ESG and impact offerings for UHNWI and family office clients — and what clients are actually asking for
• What the biggest barriers to scaling impact capital flows are — from data gaps to client education to greenwashing risk
• Whether ESG products at private banks are genuinely addressing climate and social challenges — or primarily managing reputations
• What the next generation of wealthy clients is demanding — and how that is reshaping the industry
• How to move from ESG as a product line to ESG as the default way of investing
• What three veterans of the industry agree and disagree on about the state and direction of sustainable private banking

The key insight: The wealth is there. The demand is growing. The tools are improving. What remains is the will — institutional, commercial, and cultural — to treat sustainable investing not as a niche offering for socially minded clients but as the rational default for any serious long-term investor.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — What private banking clients are actually asking for on ESG and impact
• 0:X:XX — The barriers to scaling: data, regulation, and client readiness
• 0:X:XX — Is ESG in private banks addressing real challenges or managing optics?
• 0:X:XX — The next generation: how wealth transfer is changing client demands
• 0:X:XX — Making sustainable investing the default — not the exception
• 0:X:XX — What three insiders agree and disagree on about the future

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

#PrivateBanking #ESG #ImpactInvesting #RosaSangiorgio #RashilaKerai #JamesPurcell #Pictet #VPBank #QuintetPrivateBank #TBLI #TBLITalk #WealthManagement #SustainableFinance #UHNWI #FamilyOffice

For over three decades, one Irish-born priest has been quietly — and not so quietly — changing how the Catholic Church thinks about money. Meet the rock star of faith-consistent investing.

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Father Séamus Finn OMI — Director of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate's Office of Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation, former chair of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and one of the most persistent voices in the movement to align religious capital with Catholic Social Teaching. For over 35 years, Father Séamus has used shareholder advocacy, proxy voting, and patient moral persuasion to move the Church from passive wealth holder to active agent of justice. His radical truth: with stock ownership come rights and responsibilities. Averting your eyes from what corporations do with your money does not diminish your responsibility as an owner — whether you are a hedge fund or a diocese.

In this episode:

• How Father Séamus mobilised the Catholic Church to deploy its financial resources for responsible investment over three decades
• What Catholic Social Teaching says about the responsibilities of shareholders — and why most Catholic institutions are still not acting on it
• How shareholder advocacy, proxy voting, and corporate engagement work as tools for moral influence on corporations
• What Pope Francis's Laudato Si' encyclical and the Mensuram Bonam framework demand of Catholic investors in practice
• Why faith-based investors were among the earliest advocates against apartheid, weapons manufacturing, climate inaction, and predatory banking
• What it takes to convince institutions rooted in tradition to become forces for financial justice

The key insight: The Catholic Church and faith communities broadly hold vast sums of invested capital — most deployed with no reference to the values these communities profess. Father Séamus has spent his life arguing that this is both a moral failure and a missed opportunity. He has the corporate dialogues won, resolutions filed, and executives held accountable to prove faith-based shareholders can change corporate behaviour.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — How one priest spent three decades changing how the Church invests
• 0:X:XX — Catholic Social Teaching and the responsibility of shareholders
• 0:X:XX — Shareholder advocacy: proxy voting, resolutions, and corporate dialogue
• 0:X:XX — Laudato Si' and Mensuram Bonam: what Pope Francis demands of investors
• 0:X:XX — Faith-based investing and climate: the track record
• 0:X:XX — What it takes to mobilise religious capital for justice

👤 About Father Séamus Finn OMIFather Séamus Finn OMI is a global leader in faith-based and socially responsible investing and a priest of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He directs the Oblates' United States Province Office of Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation, coordinating advocacy on behalf of marginalised peoples and communities living in poverty. H Berkley Centere served as chair of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility for five years and is Director of Faith Consistent Investing for the Oblate International Pastoral Investment Trust, which includes an active shareholder programme and a presence at the World Bank, IMF, and UN. H Berkley Centere has represented the Oblates at ICCR since 1988 and serves on the executive committee of the International Interfaith Investment Group.

HuffPostFor anyone working in faith-based investment, impact investing, or the intersection of values and capital — 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

#FatherSeamusFinn #FaithBasedInvesting #CatholicSocialTeaching #ImpactInvesting #ESG #TBLI #ShareholderAdvocacy #LaudatoSi #ICCR #ResponsibleInvesting #ReligiousCapital #FaithConsistentInvesting #ClimateJustice

Impact investing has a matching problem. There is capital that wants to do good and there are ventures doing good — but connecting them rigorously, at scale, and with genuine due diligence has remained one of the field's most stubborn failures. Audrey Selian has spent her career trying to fix it.

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Audrey Selian, Head of Artha Impact — a platform whose name, drawn from Sanskrit, means goal, sense, and purpose. Artha is building the infrastructure layer that impact investing has always lacked: a network that combines discovery, due diligence, and community to accelerate money flows to the ventures that need it most. Audrey brings deep operational experience from last-mile investing in India, a rigorous academic and policy background, and a practitioner's hard-won scepticism about impact washing. Her radical truth: most impact investing is still not rigorous enough, not deep enough, and not reaching the places and people it claims to serve.

In this episode:

• What Artha's network technology actually does — and why it is more than just another platform
• How discovery and due diligence can be scaled without sacrificing rigour
• What impact investors most struggle with — and how Artha addresses those specific friction points
• Why most impact platforms fail to move capital at meaningful scale — and what is different about Artha's approach
• What last-mile investing in India taught Audrey about the gap between impact claims and impact reality
• How to dramatically increase interest and money flows into genuine impact opportunities

The key insight: The bottleneck in impact investing is not the availability of capital or the scarcity of good opportunities. It is the infrastructure connecting the two — the discovery, the trust, the shared language, and the due diligence capacity. Artha is building that infrastructure.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — What the impact investing matching problem actually is
• 0:X:XX — What Artha's network technology does differently
• 0:X:XX — How discovery and due diligence scale without losing rigour
• 0:X:XX — Why most impact platforms fail to move capital
• 0:X:XX — Lessons from last-mile investing in India
• 0:X:XX — What genuinely scaling impact investing looks like

👤 About Audrey SelianAudrey Selian is Head of Artha Impact, an impact investing network and platform focused on connecting capital with rigorous, vetted impact opportunities across asset classes. She brings extensive experience in last-mile investing, development finance, and impact measurement, with deep fieldwork across India and other emerging markets. She has worked at the intersection of impact investing rigour and scalable technology infrastructure, and is a vocal critic of impact washing in all its forms.

For anyone working in impact investing, due diligence, platform technology, or scaling capital for social good — 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

#AudreySelian #ArthaImpact #ImpactInvesting #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #ImpactPlatform #DueDiligence #LastMileInvesting #India #ScalingImpact #ImpactWashing #CapitalAllocation #SustainableFinance #ImpactEcosystem

What does it actually take to transform a business around sustainability, instead of bolting it on as a compliance exercise? Dr Geoff Kendall — co-founder and CEO of Future-Fit Foundation and one of the most rigorous critics of how sustainability is currently measured. joins Radical Truth to explain.

Welcome to the TBLI Radical Truth Podcast, where we feature pioneers redefining the purpose of capital. For 25 years, TBLI Group has been the world's leading ESG and impact investing network.

Why Radical Truth is different: most finance podcasts protect the industry. Radical Truth interrogates it. Unfiltered conversations with the founders, fund managers, and system-changers actually moving capital toward a liveable future — and calling out the impact-washing that isn't. No sponsors. No pretending.

In this episode, host Robert Rubinstein, Founder of TBLI Group, sits down with Dr. Geoff Kendall, Founding Partner @ Transition Agency, on what it really takes to transform a business's operating model around sustainability — not just its marketing.

We explore:

• Why most corporate sustainability initiatives stay stuck at the compliance/reporting layer
• What actually changes when sustainability is built into the business model, not bolted onto it
• The internal resistance leaders face when sustainability threatens the existing P&L
• What separates companies with real sustainability transformation from ones with good sustainability marketing

Real research. No greenwashing.

For anyone serious about telling real business transformation from sustainability theater, this episode is essential listening. With a PhD in AI, two successful tech start-ups, and four years advising the world's largest corporations at sustainability think-tank SustainAbility, Geoff had a front-row seat to the gap between corporate sustainability claims and scientific reality. His radical truth: an oil company rated 85% sustainable by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index is not going to keep its CEO awake at night wondering how to decarbonise. That number is fiction — and trillions in ESG capital are partly financing it.

The key insight: Current ESG metrics measure relative improvement in today's best practice. They do not track absolute progress toward tomorrow's required practice. Until we define what the goal line is — what it genuinely means to be sustainable — we are flying blind. We didn't reach the moon by shuffling up the nearest mountain.

For anyone working in ESG, impact investing, or corporate sustainability — this episode is essential listening.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTH Real 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

#GeoffKendall #FutureFit #ESG #ImpactInvesting #SustainabilityMeasurement #TBLI #TBLITalk #CorporateSustainability #ESGRatings #SystemsScience #FutureFitBenchmark #Greenwashing #NetPositive #SustainableFinance #PlanetaryBoundaries

What if your relationship with money is the most important relationship you have — and you have never examined it?

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Peter Koenig — Zurich-based researcher, educator, and author of 30 Lies About Money, who has spent over four decades studying the phenomenology of money and how our relationship to it shapes everything: our health, our organisations, our societies, and our planet. This is not a talk about budgeting, investing, or financial planning. It is something far more fundamental — and far more rarely discussed. Peter's radical truth: the assumptions most of us carry about money are not truths. They are inherited lies — and until we examine them, they run our lives without our consent.

In this episode:

• What money actually is — beyond medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account
• What thousands of participants in Peter's money seminars have discovered about their unconscious relationship to money
• How the relationship between self, others, nature, and money is at the root of both personal suffering and systemic dysfunction
• What the thirty lies about money are — and how dissolving them liberates both individuals and organisations
• What a practical money constellation looks like in practice — and what it reveals that no financial analysis can
• Why impact investors and ESG practitioners need to examine their own money relationship before expecting to change others'

The key insight: Financial success and personal freedom are not the same thing. Peter discovered this in his mid-thirties — when he already had the money — and has spent the decades since helping thousands of others discover it for themselves. The transformation of our economic system begins not with new policies or new products, but with new consciousness about the meaning of what we already hold.

Special offer: Peter is available for live practical demonstrations of his MoneyWork system during this session for participants who wish to explore their own relationship with money in real time.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — What is money, really? Beyond the textbook definitions
• 0:X:XX — The 30 lies about money — and how they shape our lives invisibly
• 0:X:XX — What thousands of MoneyWork participants have discovered
• 0:X:XX — The relationship between self, others, nature, and money
• 0:X:XX — Live MoneyWork demonstration
• 0:X:XX — What conscious money means for impact investing and ESG

👤 About Peter KoenigPeter Koenig holds a BSc and MBA and has been based in Zurich, Switzerland since 1973. After a career in management training and organisational development, he became an independent consultant to businesses and social organisations in 1987. H Typepade has studied the phenomenology of money since the early 1980s, and in 1994 launched his first public Money Seminar, going on to initiate an international conference series on Money & Business Partnership. H work with sourcee is the author of 30 Lies About Money: Liberating Your Life, Liberating Your Money, and has been featured as one of nine visionaries in the Canadian documentary film Earth Keepers. H Peterkoenigsystemis research has engaged thousands of participants across decades, exploring how the human relationship with money affects personal vitality, organisational health, and the evolution of monetary systems.

For anyone working in impact investing, sustainable finance, personal finance, or the inner dimensions of economic transformation — 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

#PeterKoenig #MoneyWork #MeaningOfMoney #30LiesAboutMoney #ConsciousMoney #ImpactInvesting #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #MoneyRelationship #InnerWork #SustainableFinance #MoneyPsychology #SystemsChange #WealthConsciousness

Note: Since this recording, Ruben Vardanyan was arrested by Azerbaijani authorities in September 2023 and remains imprisoned. His family and the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative describe his detention as politically motivated. This description reflects his work at the time of recording.

What does it mean to give away 90% of your wealth — and build the systems that make giving meaningful?

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Ruben Vardanyan — Armenian-Russian business leader, social entrepreneur, and co-founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. As former CEO of Troika Dialog, Russia's first major investment bank, Ruben built a billion-dollar institution before redirecting the vast majority of that wealth into transformational philanthropy. With his wife Veronika, he has committed over $600 million to projects addressing education, humanitarian crises, and sustainable development in Armenia — not through charity, but through a commercial, blended-finance model designed to create lasting structural change. His radical truth: giving money away is not enough. The way you give matters as much as the amount.

In this episode:

• How Ruben and Veronika built a $600 million blended finance and philanthropic portfolio in Armenia
• Why blended finance is essential for solving social problems at scale in post-conflict and developing contexts
• What the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative is — and why a prize named after a survivor of the Armenian Genocide has become a global movement
• How venture philanthropy differs from traditional philanthropy — and why that distinction matters for impact
• What it takes to convince a business community shaped by Soviet-era economics to embrace long-term, values-driven investment
• What 30 years of building and giving has taught Ruben about money, meaning, and responsibility

The key insight: Ruben Vardanyan's grandfather survived the Armenian Genocide because a Turk and four American missionaries saved his life. That gift of life became the moral foundation of one of the most ambitious philanthropic programmes in the post-Soviet world. Gratitude, he argues, is the most powerful engine of generosity.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — From Troika Dialog to venture philanthropy: Ruben's journey
• 0:X:XX — Building a $600M blended finance portfolio in Armenia
• 0:X:XX — The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative: purpose and impact
• 0:X:XX — Venture philanthropy vs traditional giving
• 0:X:XX — Making philanthropy structural, not transactional
• 0:X:XX — Money, meaning, and responsibility: the lessons

👤 About Ruben VardanyanRuben Vardanyan and his family have made more than $1.5 billion in commercial and philanthropic investments in global education, healthcare, the SDGs, and humanitarian issues. His best-known projects include Troika Dialog, SKOLKOVO Business School, United World College Dilijan, the Wings of Tatev cable car, and the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. H Uwcdilijanis humanitarian work was inspired by his grandfather, whose life was saved during the Armenian Genocide. He and his family have committed to giving away 90% of his wealth.

Asia TimesFor anyone working in venture philanthropy, blended finance, or strategic giving — 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

#RubenVardanyan #AuroraHumanitarianInitiative #VenturePhilanthropy #BlendedFinance #Armenia #ImpactInvesting #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #SDGs #SocialEntrepreneur #UWCDilijan #Skolkovo #PhilanthropyInvesting #HumanitarianAid

Africa is the world's fastest-growing continent — in population, economic output, and the creation of entrepreneurial family wealth. But can that wealth be mobilised for impact? And do Africa's family business owners even know what impact investing is?

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Tsitsi Mutendi — third-generation family business owner, internationally recognised family business expert, and co-founder of African Family Firms (AFF). Born in Zimbabwe and building businesses across Africa for nearly two decades, Tsitsi has spent her career at the intersection of family wealth, governance, succession, and legacy. She didn't inherit financial wealth — she inherited the entrepreneurial spirit of her predecessors and built it herself. Now she is building the community infrastructure for Africa's family business owners to support each other, govern better, and invest with purpose. Her radical truth: conversations about African family business are usually about wealth. They should be about community — and about the legacies we are building for generations we will never meet.

In this episode:

• What African family firms actually look like — and how they differ from Western family office models
• Whether Africa's entrepreneurial families are interested in impact investing — and what stands in the way
• How African Family Firms creates a safe, non-solicitous space for owners to talk openly about real challenges
• What governance, succession, and family communication have to do with purpose-led wealth
• How the family office industry in Africa is evolving — and what it still needs to develop
• What Tsitsi has learned about wealth, legacy, and multigenerational thinking across the continent

The key insight: The adage "shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations" does not have to apply. But avoiding it requires intentional governance, open communication, and a clarity of purpose that goes beyond profits. Africa's family business owners are beginning to understand this — and Tsitsi Mutendi is helping them get there.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — Africa's rising family wealth: where it comes from and where it's going
• 0:X:XX — Are African family firms interested in impact investing?
• 0:X:XX — What African Family Firms does — and why non-solicitation matters
• 0:X:XX — Family governance and succession as the foundation of lasting impact
• 0:X:XX — The evolution of the African family office industry
• 0:X:XX — What building multigenerational wealth in Africa really takes

👤 About Tsitsi MutendiTsitsi Mutendi is a family business and family office advisor, founder of Nhaka Legacy Planning in Zimbabwe, and co-founder of African Family Firms — a non-profit pan-African family business association. An award-winning businesswoman with over 12 years of experience in publishing and education, she developed a passion for helping family businesses build multigenerational legacies. A Lionesses of Africa third-generation entrepreneur, she did not inherit financial wealth but inherited the entrepreneurial spirit to build her own businesses. T Thebusinesstransitionsherpahrough African Family Firms, she has been at the forefront of supporting family-owned businesses across Africa with education, resources, and networking on governance, succession, and wealth preservation.

Empower AfricaFor anyone working in family office, impact investing, African business, or multigenerational 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

#TsitsiMutendi #AfricanFamilyFirms #FamilyBusiness #ImpactInvesting #Africa #ESG #TBLI #TBLITalk #FamilyOffice #Succession #FamilyGovernance #Zimbabwe #AfricaRising #MultigenerationalWealth #LegacyPlanning

Companies worry about the cost of going sustainable. Tensie Whelan wants them to calculate the cost of staying the same.

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Tensie Whelan — founding director of the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, former President of the Rainforest Alliance, and the researcher who developed the ROSI™ framework: Return on Sustainability Investment. With 35 years of experience spanning Latin American journalism, the National Audubon Society, the New York League of Conservation Voters, and Rainforest Alliance — which she grew from $4.5 million to $50 million, recruiting 5,000 companies across 60 countries — Tensie has spent her career building the evidence base that sustainability is not a cost. It is a competitive advantage. Her radical truth: executives will invest in sustainability when they understand the business case. Until then, all the moral arguments in the world will not move a CFO.

In this episode:

• What the latest research from NYU Stern actually shows about sustainability and corporate financial performance
• What ROSI™ is — and how it helps companies and investors identify, quantify, and unlock sustainability-driven returns
• Why sustainability drives better performance through innovation, risk management, operational efficiency, employee retention, and supply chain resilience
• What the Sustainable Market Share Index reveals about consumer purchasing of sustainably marketed products
• Why ESG reports are not a replacement for real sustainability — and what real embedding actually looks like
• What investors need to understand about the financial value of sustainability strategies in private and public markets

The key insight: Incremental sustainability reporting is not the same as embedded sustainability strategy. Companies that treat sustainability as core to their business model — not a marketing add-on — consistently outperform those that don't. NYU Stern CSB has the data to prove it. The question is whether the corporate world is ready to act on it.

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — Why the business case for sustainability still needs to be made
• 0:X:XX — What NYU Stern's latest research actually shows
• 0:X:XX — ROSI™: measuring what finance teams miss
• 0:X:XX — From Rainforest Alliance to business school: Tensie's journey
• 0:X:XX — What the Sustainable Market Share Index reveals about consumers
• 0:X:XX — What real sustainability embedding looks like — and what it isn't

👤 About Tensie WhelanTensie Whelan is Founding Director of the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, bringing 35 years of experience working on sustainability issues to engage businesses and investors. As President of the Rainforest Alliance, she built the organisation from a $4.5 million to $50 million budget, recruiting 5,000 companies in more than 60 countries. NYU Stern Her previous roles include Executive Director of the New York League of Conservation Voters, Vice President of the National Audubon Society, and journalist in Latin America. NYU Stern At NYU Stern CSB, she developed the ROSI™ methodology — a cross-industry framework to help corporate leaders and investors identify, prioritise, and unlock sustainability-driven returns — and the Sustainable Market Share Index, an annual analysis of US purchasing data for sustainably marketed products. NYU Stern

For anyone working in corporate sustainability, ESG investing, or the business case for responsible business — 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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