The Criterion Institute Podcast

When investors evaluate opportunities, conversations usually focus on money: risk, return, liquidity, valuation, and performance. But underneath every financial decision sits another variable that is often treated as technical rather than political: time. In this episode, Joy Anderson explores how time appears throughout investing, from discount rates and exit horizons to repayment schedules, liquidity, and fund structures. These choices may seem neutral, but they determine who gets time to build, adapt, and grow, and who is forced to move at someone else's pace.

Drawing on Criterion's work inside investment structures and financial systems, Joy examines how different actors operate according to different clocks, how fund structures shape behavior long before investments are made, and why one of finance's most important functions is creating time itself. From extending organizational runway to supporting market formation and systems change, this episode reframes investing as the allocation of time as much as capital. Ultimately, Joy challenges listeners to think differently about investment decisions by asking not only about return and risk, but also whose timeline is driving the decision and what future becomes possible when people are given the time they need to build toward change.

Episode Highlights

00:00 - Introduction to time in finance

02:09 - The vocabulary of time in investment deals

04:04 - How discount rates and time horizons influence value

05:01 - Exit scenarios and liquidity considerations

05:51 - Different clocks for different actors in finance

09:12 - The impact of fund timelines and pressures

14:00 - Finance as a tool to create and extend time

19:10 - Measuring time-based outcomes in investments

20:09 - Systems change and the importance of pacing and sequencing

23:03 - Reframing investment questions around time and futures

Relevant Links

Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn

Joy Anderson's LinkedIn

Dive Deeper

A Roadmap for Private Investors: Investing to Address Gender-based Violence

This roadmap explores how investors can intentionally shape financial systems for social change and offers a useful lens for understanding how investment decisions influence long-term outcomes and future possibilities.

GBV Approaches to Investing: Catalytic Strategies

This resource examines patient, flexible, and appropriately structured capital, making it particularly relevant to the episode's discussion of financing time, readiness, and long-term change.

If you enjoyed this episode, consider listening to:

#70: Financing Patience: Movements, Markets and the Long Game

A deeper exploration of patient capital, movement funding, market formation, and why transformative change requires long-term financial commitments.

#57: Investable Hope: A Conversation with Susie Pan on Financing the Future

Joy and Susie Pan discuss the relationship between finance, hope, future outcomes, and investing toward long-term social change.

#84: Narratives, Local, and the Stories That Shape Finance

An exploration of how assumptions about the future influence financial decision-making and what becomes possible when we tell different stories about finance.

#65: Investing as if Hope Mattered: The Church, Finance, and the Imagination to Act

A reflection on finance, imagination, and the role long-term vision plays in shaping systems and investment choices.

Part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network

In this episode, Joy Anderson sits down with longtime collaborator Jackie VanderBrug to revisit the origins of gender lens investing and the work of building a field before most people believed it existed. Drawing on their years together at Criterion Institute, they reflect on the early efforts to identify, map, and connect investors, researchers, philanthropists, and practitioners who were already incorporating gender into financial decision-making but lacked a shared language or framework.

The conversation explores the importance of naming, the challenges of making gender visible within emerging impact investing conversations, and the tension between simplicity and rigor as the field developed. Joy and Jackie discuss the evolution of concepts such as "Women Effect," "Revaluing Gender," and "gender lens investing," as well as the role of leadership, philanthropy, community-building, and intellectual frameworks in making new possibilities visible. Ultimately, the episode is a reflection on how movements are built: through mapping, invitation, collaboration, persistence, and the willingness to claim possibility before there is permission to do so.

Episode Highlights

00:00 - Introduction to the podcast and guests

02:24 - Reflecting on the early days of gender lens investing

04:17 - The role of visibility and community in building the field

07:13 - Naming and framing the movement: Women Effect and gender lens

09:11 - Overcoming resistance and gaining acceptance

12:48 - The impact of mapping and community building

16:37 - The evolution of impact investment frameworks

19:54 - The importance of gender analysis over numbers

22:44 - Building the field without a central fund

25:39 - Legacy and ongoing influence of early efforts

28:55 - Reflections on collaboration and future impact

Relevant Links

Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn

Joy Anderson's LinkedIn

Jackie VanderBrug's LinkedIn

Dive Deeper

State of the Field of Gender Lens Investing

A foundational review of how gender lens investing evolved as a field, mapping the ideas, actors, products, and organizations that helped move gender from a niche concern to an established investment lens.

Framing (and Reframing) Gender

A framework for understanding how gender analysis can reveal opportunities, risks, and dynamics within financial systems, moving beyond simply counting women toward a deeper examination of power and value.

If you enjoyed this episode, consider listening to:

#32: Pioneering Collaboration: The Story Behind the 2024 Joan Bavaria Award

A reflection on the collaboration between Joy Anderson, Jackie VanderBrug, and Suzanne Biegel in building the field of gender lens investing.

#42: 10 Year On: Reflecting on the State of Gender Lens Investing

Joy revisits the evolution of the field, its frameworks, and the progress made over a decade.

#40: Gender Lens Investing is a Time of Backlash: Why It Matters Now More Than Ever

A contemporary reflection on why gender lens investing remains important amid shifting political and economic conditions.

#47: Spelling it out: Gender Lens Investing Deserves Words, Not Acronyms

A conversation about language, terminology, and how naming shapes understanding and action.

Part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network

For the past several months, Criterion Institute has been wrestling with a deceptively simple question: how do you finance a National Action Plan (NAP) to end gender-based violence? Most NAPs contain detailed commitments, timelines, settings, and responsibilities, yet many remain chronically underfunded. In this episode, Joy takes listeners inside Criterion's thinking process as the team tried to translate these plans into pathways for finance. Along the way, they discovered that many of the frameworks they relied on for years were excellent at describing landscapes and systems, but less useful when reading a plan line-by-line and asking where money could actually move.

The episode introduces a distinction that became foundational to the work: the difference between an investment case and a financing mechanism. Costing studies and investment cases play an important political role by helping governments understand the economic consequences of violence and the value of prevention. But those arguments alone do not explain how capital moves, who bears risk, what financial structures exist, or how prevention becomes investable. Joy reflects on the false starts, AI-generated dead ends, framework redesigns, and countless synthesis conversations that ultimately led the team toward a more practical framework for financing National Action Plans. The result is not a finished answer, but a clearer way of thinking about how finance, policy, prevention, and systems change intersect.

Episode Highlights

00:00 - Introduction to financing national action plans

01:55 - The challenge of understanding how money moves in plans

02:53 - Distinction between investment case and mechanism

07:06 - Frameworks as tools, not solutions

10:08 - Applying frameworks to real plans and the need for reflection

14:57 - The five categories of financing for national action plans

20:12 - The importance of pauses and reflection in problem-solving

21:12 - Conclusion: frameworks need naps and refinement

Relevant Links

Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn

Joy Anderson's LinkedIn

Dive Deeper

Framework for Financing the Prevention of Gender-Based Violence

This framework is referenced repeatedly throughout the episode as the starting point for understanding how finance can support prevention by integrating GBV as material risk, financing what works, and valuing the future created through prevention.

A Roadmap for Private Investors: Investing to Address Gender-Based Violence

Referenced indirectly in the discussion of how investors operationalize GBV considerations and move from analysis toward action.

Roadmap for Development Finance Institutions: Strategies to Address Gender-Based Violence

Relevant to the episode's discussion about how institutions can incorporate GBV considerations into financial decision-making and capital allocation.

If you enjoyed this episode, consider listening to:

#67: Financing the Reduction of GBV: From Insights to Infrastructure

Joy explores the intersection of finance and gender-based violence, emphasizing infrastructure, leverage points, and systems change. This episode provides important context for understanding why Criterion's work has increasingly focused on the infrastructure needed to support GBV prevention.

#39: Financial Tools for Social Change: Ending Gender-Based Violence

A foundational episode exploring how financial systems can be used to reduce violence and introducing several strategic approaches that connect directly to discussions in this episode about financing pathways and systems change.

#27: The Core Pillars of Our Strategic Plan: Financing the Reduction of Gender-Based Violence

Provides historical context for Criterion's GBV work and explains why the organization chose to build a deep portfolio of ideas and strategies at the intersection of finance and gender-based violence.

#75: When the Moment Arrives: Acting on Systems Opportunities

Listeners interested in the systems-change dimensions of this episode will find a useful companion conversation on leverage, timing, relationships, and strategic action.

#85: Changing Your Frame Not Your Mind: Ensuring Your Actions Follow What You See

A natural follow-on episode about reframing, changing analysis, and understanding how shifts in perspective ultimately change actions and outcomes within systems.

Part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network

A colleague recently asked Joy Anderson where she'd changed her mind—the kind of question you ask to find out whether someone is actually learning, or just defending old positions with better language. Her honest answer surprised her, and it probably won't be the one you're expecting. Because over 25 years, the changes that mattered most weren't reversals at all. They were quieter than that, harder to name, and they rearranged how she works, what she'll own, and where she draws the line.

Next, Joy walks through a handful of moments where nothing about the facts changed—same rooms, same partners, same work—and yet everything did. It's a reflection on the stories we tell ourselves about our place in the work, why they're so hard to let go of, and what becomes possible when we finally do. She closes by turning the question back on you: what are you looking at right now that might be ready to be seen differently?

Episode Highlights

00:00 - Introduction to the episode and core themes

02:35 - The question of changing one's mind and seeing differently

03:30 - Reframing support as infrastructure in social change work

07:21 - The shift from outsider to inside the work

09:16 - Personal reframing: recognizing limits as system design constraints

17:31 - The importance of seeing and acting on what you see

18:54 - Invitation to reflect on current frames and perceptions

Relevant Links

Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn

Joy Anderson's LinkedIn

Joanna Levitt Cea's LinkedIn

Dive Deeper

Fostering a Feminist Financial Imagination

https://www.criterioninstitute.org/resources/fostering-a-feminist-financial-imagination

This publication explores the role of imagination in creating alternative financial futures and aligns closely with Joy's discussion of reframing reality and expanding what becomes possible through new ways of seeing.

Framework for Financing the Prevention of Gender-Based Violence

https://www.criterioninstitute.org/resources/framework-for-financing-the-prevention-of-gender-based…

The framework emphasizes finance as a system of power rather than simply a source of funding, echoing the episode's distinction between support work and infrastructure-building.

Reflection: Making Gender-Based Violence Material to the World of Finance

https://www.criterioninstitute.org/resources/reflection-making-gender-based-violence-material-to-th…

A classic Criterion reframe that demonstrates how changing the frame around a problem can fundamentally alter how finance interprets risk and opportunity.

A Commitment to Address Gender-Based Violence

https://www.criterioninstitute.org/resources/gbv

This resource highlights the importance of imagining alternative futures and changing assumptions about what finance can do, themes woven throughout this episode.

#84: Narratives, Local, and the Stories That Shape Finance

https://www.criterioninstitute.org/podcasts/podcast-episode-84

A conversation exploring how narratives influence financial systems and the ways stories shape what becomes visible and possible.

#82: How Staying in Paradox Can Sustain Hope and Drive Systemic Change

https://www.criterioninstitute.org/podcasts/podcast-episode-82

Joy examines the tensions and paradoxes that emerge when trying to create lasting systems change, complementing this episode's exploration of competing frames and perspectives.

#80: What Are You Willing to See? Disruption, Fault Lines, and the Moments That Matter

https://www.criterioninstitute.org/podcasts/podcast-episode-80

A reflection on disruption as a tool for revealing underlying systems, making it a natural companion to this episode's focus on perception and awareness.

#79: From Invitation to Trust: Rethinking Relationships in Finance

https://www.criterioninstitute.org/podcasts/podcast-episode-79

An episode about invitation, relationship-building, and the practices that create conditions for transformation.

#45: Making Sense of Complexity: Frameworks That Work (and Those That Don't)

https://www.criterioninstitute.org/podcasts/podcast-episode-45

One of the closest thematic matches in the archive, focusing on how frameworks determine what we notice, understand, and act upon.

What stories shape what we believe is possible in finance? In this episode, Joy Anderson sits down with Joanna Levitt Cea, Founder and Principal of Valiente Capital Design and co-lead of the Beloved Economies Collaborative for Narrative Infrastructure, to explore the role of narratives in creating economic and systems change. Together, they unpack the difference between stories, communications strategies, and narratives themselves, examining how underlying cultural assumptions influence the ways we understand ownership, investment, opportunity, and power. The conversation explores why narrative change is not simply about finding the right message, but about collective action, organizing, and reshaping the stories that define what people believe is possible.

The episode then turns to one of the most common and often unquestioned words in innovative finance: local. Joy examines five distinct narratives embedded within the concept. Rather than treating local as a geographic descriptor, she argues that each narrative carries a different theory of change and implies different practices around governance, ownership, expertise, and value creation. Together, these reflections invite listeners to ask not whether finance is local, but what narrative of local is being invoked and whether the structures of finance actually make that narrative real.

00:00 Introduction to the power of narratives in finance

01:20 Narratives shape what people believe is possible

02:18 The importance of stories in social and environmental finance

03:26 Ownership economy and its narrative shifts

04:54 The role of narratives in building intergenerational wealth

07:59 The collaborative approach to narrative change

10:20 Stories as drivers of policy and norm shifts

12:17 Narrative as a team sport and collective action

34:04 The multiple narratives of local in finance

36:29 Different stories of local and their implications

42:52 The narrative of economic self-determination

44:46 Local knowledge as a narrative of expertise

46:34 The shift from communities being investment-ready to capital being context-ready

47:41 Conclusion: The importance of deep narrative change and systems transformation

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Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn

Joy Anderson's LinkedIn

Joanna Levitt Cea's LinkedIn

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This article examines how investment leaders are redesigning financial practices to address power dynamics embedded within investment structures. By highlighting innovations in governance, investor participation, accountability, and decision-making, it complements this episode's discussion of narratives by showing how underlying assumptions about authority, expertise, and ownership become embedded in financial systems and how those assumptions can be intentionally challenged and changed.

This resource examines how financial structures can be intentionally designed around local knowledge, governance, ownership, and accountability. It directly connects to the episode's exploration of local as democratic legitimacy, contextual intelligence, and economic self-determination.

This framework provides an example of how financial systems can be redesigned to address power dynamics rather than simply expanding access. It reinforces the episode's discussion of moving beyond surface-level solutions and examining the underlying structures that shape outcomes.

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Joy Anderson and Joanna Levitt Cea explore how fund design can become a tool for shifting power, why context should come before replication, and how finance can be redesigned around community knowledge and lived experience.

A complementary conversation about relationships, trust, and the underlying assumptions that shape how financial systems operate.

An exploration of financial infrastructure, system design, and why the structures that connect capital matter as much as the capital itself.

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What happens when finance starts with trust instead of control? In this conversation, Joy Anderson and Adeshina Adewumi explore how Trade Lenda has built financial infrastructure around the realities of informal markets across Nigeria. Rather than treating informality as a problem to be fixed, Trade Lenda recognizes existing systems of trust, accountability, and economic participation and designs financial products that work within them. The discussion traces the full supply chain, from farmers and aggregators to manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, and examines why supporting the entire value chain creates stronger, more resilient markets.

The conversation also explores how power operates in financial systems. Adeshina explains how Trade Lenda rethinks creditworthiness, works with community accountability structures, develops Sharia-compliant financing options, and provides capacity-building alongside capital. Together, Joy and Ade examine how trust can become infrastructure: creating financial systems that move capital faster, expand economic opportunity, and preserve the community relationships that make markets function in the first place. The result is a compelling example of how finance can support dignity, shared prosperity, and transformative systems change.

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Episode Highlights

00:28 - The importance of trust in finance and community systems.

01:28 - Understanding informal markets as systems to be supported.

04:10 - Trade Lenda's approach to financing entire supply chains.

05:06 - Why agriculture, retail, and essential services matter for economic growth.

07:43 - Rethinking collateral and credit access for underserved entrepreneurs.

11:01 - How speed and capital turnover drive successful trade finance.

14:22 - Diversifying within value chains to manage risk and strengthen markets.

17:42 - Why knowledge and business support can be as important as capital.

28:02 - Using community accountability and trust as financial infrastructure.

35:13 - Capital moves at the speed of trust.

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Relevant Links

Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn

Joy Anderson’s LinkedIn

Adeshina Adewumi’s LinkedIn

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Dive Deeper

Advanced practices in local capital design: Trade Lenda

This case study directly examines Trade Lenda's approach to designing financial systems around informal markets, community accountability, alternative underwriting, and localized financial infrastructure. It is essentially the written companion to many of the ideas discussed in the episode.

Framework for financing the prevention of gender-based violence

This framework provides one of Criterion's core approaches to understanding how financial structures influence social outcomes and how systems can be intentionally redesigned. Mentioned in related Criterion resource descriptions.‍

If you enjoyed this episode, consider listening to:

#79: From Invitation to Trust: Rethinking Relationships in Finance

This episode explores trust as a foundational practice for leadership, collaboration, and systems change, making it the closest thematic companion to the Trade Lenda discussion.

#78: Intermediation is Not Overhead

A reframing of financial infrastructure and intermediation that connects directly to this episode's discussion of building systems that allow capital to move more effectively through markets.

#62: Pipelines of Trust: Rethinking Local Capital Mobilization in Africa

A natural follow-on episode focused on trust, local capital, African investment ecosystems, and adapting financial models to local contexts.

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Part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network

In this episode, Joy Anderson responds to some listener questions, naming six paradoxes she encounters when working to shift financial systems toward gender justice and social change. Joy frames paradox as a discipline: holding two seemingly incompatible truths at once such as movement and field-building, urgency and patience, collaboration and competition and resisting the urge to resolve them prematurely.

Across themes ranging from pluralism in knowledge to the risks of public experimentation, Joy explores how finance simultaneously enables and constrains transformation. She emphasizes that these tensions are signals rather than problems, helping us see where systems are unstable and change is possible. The episode closes with practical reflections on working within paradox.

Episode Highlights

00:00 - Introduction to Paradox in Systems Change

05:01 - The Movement vs. Professional Field Paradox

10:44 - Long-Term Change vs. Immediate Harm Paradox

14:32 - Collaboration vs. Competition Paradox

18:16 - Public Learning vs. Risk Aversion Paradox

22:08 - Pluralism vs. Standardization Paradox

27:21 - Living with Paradox: Practices and Reflections

34:11 - Conclusion: Embracing Complexity in Change

Relevant Links

Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn

Joy Anderson’s LinkedIn

Dive Deeper

Framework for Financing the Prevention of Gender-Based Violence

Links to the episode’s focus on how financial systems shape—and can transform—the conditions underlying harm.

Fòs Feminista: Building Feminist Financial Infrastructure

Illustrates how movements build institutional structures—mirroring the movement vs. field paradox described in the episode.

Gender Lens Investing

A foundational resource on integrating gender and power into financial decision-making, relevant to the episode’s reflections on pluralism and standardized “proof.”

If you enjoyed this episode, consider listening to:

#80: What Are You Willing to See? Disruption, Fault Lines, and the Moments That Matter

Explores disruption as a moment that reveals underlying systems—closely aligned with the idea of paradox as a site of transformation.

#79: From Invitation to Trust: Rethinking Relationships in Finance

Builds on relational dynamics and collaboration—core tensions discussed in this episode.

#78: Intermediation is Not Overhead

Extends the conversation on field-building infrastructure and how systems change actually happens.

#77: Strength Is the Strategy: A Conversation on Movement‑Led Finance

Directly connects to the movement vs. field paradox by exploring how movements build financial tools and institutions.

Part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network

In this episode of the Criterion Institute Podcast, Joy reflects on a recent conversation with her brother, philosopher Joel Anderson, about how AI is changing the way we work. While AI can function like a team of highly capable research assistants by supporting analysis, drafting, and synthesis, Joy explores the unintended consequences of turning to machines instead of people. What appears efficient on the surface can quietly lead to a withdrawal from collaboration, reducing opportunities for shared thinking, disagreement, and collective insight.

Drawing on Criterion’s core values of grace, hospitality, and the power of invitation, Joy reframes how AI should be used in systems change work. These practices of inviting others into the work, sharing ownership of ideas, and creating space for multiple perspectives are essential to shifting power. The question is not whether AI is helpful, but whether it is being used to deepen collaboration or to avoid it. Joy challenges listeners to reflect on who they are inviting into their work, and whether AI is expanding or replacing those invitations.

Episode Highlights

00:28 — A conversation on AI and collaboration

02:30 — The metaphor of AI as research assistants

04:49 — Grace, hospitality, and invitation as operating principles

07:08 — When efficiency becomes isolation

09:35 — The risk of replacing people with tools

11:59 — Rethinking participation and co‑creation

14:06 — Questions to guide AI use in practice

Relevant Links

• Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn
• Joy Anderson’s LinkedIn

Dive Deeper

Framework for Financing the Prevention of Gender-Based Violence

Highlights how systems—including finance—shape participation, power, and decision-making

Innovative Finance Navigation Guide

Supports broader participation in financial systems and conversations

Advanced practices in gender lens investing: FrontEnd Ventures

Demonstrates how analysis changes when multiple perspectives are included

If you enjoyed this episode, consider listening to:

#79: From Invitation to Trust: Rethinking Relationships in Finance

#76: Bring Your Expertise: Why AI Needs More Voices

#30: You Are Welcome: Hospitality, Strangers, and Family Myths

#74: No Permission Required: Volunteerism as a Power Shift

#78: Intermediation is Not Overhead

Part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network

In this episode, Joy Anderson reframes one of the most common narratives in moments of crisis: instead of asking how to stabilize and return to normal, she asks what disruption makes visible. Building on earlier conversations about systems opportunities, she distinguishes between disruptive events and the deeper structural patterns they expose, and highlights how moments of volatility can make long-standing dynamics of power, risk, and inequity harder to ignore.

The episode opens with a conversation with Rachel Sinha, a systems change practitioner and field builder, as the two explore the tensions inherent in building a field, from questions of legitimacy and power to who gets resourced and recognized. From there, Joy connects these themes to Criterion’s work on gender-based violence, feminist finance, and local capital, showing how disruption can reveal hidden costs and overlooked actors within financial systems. The episode ultimately challenges listeners to treat disruption as evidence and invites them to see systems more clearly and act with greater readiness.

Episode Highlights

00:00 - Introduction to Systems Change and Disruption

02:49 - Building a Field of Systems Change Practice

06:05 - Power Dynamics in Systems Change

09:05 - Understanding Systems Opportunities

11:47 - Disruption as Revelation

15:09 - Examples of Systems Opportunities

18:00 - Responding to Disruption

20:51 - The Role of Communities in Systems Change

23:58 - Conclusion and Call to Action

Relevant Links

Criterion Institute Website and LinkedIn

Joy's LinkedIn

Rachel Sinha’s Linkedin

Dive Deeper

Framework for financing the prevention of gender-based violence

A systems-level framework that explains how financial structures, incentives, and norms influence the persistence of gender-based violence and how finance can be used to prevent it.

Fòs Feminista: Building Feminist Financial Infrastructure

A case study showing how a feminist intermediary designs and uses financial and non-financial assets to reshape capital flows and build long-term movement-led financial infrastructure.

Fostering a Feminist Financial Imagination: A Radical Conversation about Finance, Feminist Futures,…

A publication that explores how reimagining financial systems can unlock new strategies and possibilities for advancing gender equality and social justice.

Pacific Possibilities: Designing Better Financial Vehicles for the Pacific

A report that outlines how to design investment vehicles grounded in local economic and social realities, rather than forcing existing financial models onto communities.

Other episodes you might also like:

#75: When the Moment Arrives: Acting on Systems Opportunities

#78: Intermediation Is Not Overhead

#58: Check List or Trust List: Power, Performance, and the Politics of Procedure

#16: We Made This System Up, We Can Change It.

Part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network

In this episode, Joy Anderson reflects on invitation as a foundational practice for leadership, collaboration, and systems change. Moving beyond calendar invites, she reframes invitation as a form of power that determines whether participation is passive or meaningful. When people are explicitly invited into roles that matter, where their presence is needed and their contribution is clear, progress is made. In complex systems where hierarchy is unclear, invitation becomes the mechanism that supports coordination and shared purpose.

Joy then reframes the notion of “handholding,” a common phrase in investing that often implies lack of capability. What is really being described, says Joy, is about trust, proximity, and power. Advice in investing is rarely neutral, especially when tied to capital, and what is presented as support can become control without permission and alignment. Drawing from work with the Mastercard Foundation African Growth Fund, she outlines four conditions that make for better and more balanced investment relationships: permission, boundaries, protection of vulnerability, and moments to recalibrate. Together, these help us to rethink how relationships are built and how influence operates within financial systems.

Episode Highlights

00:00 Introduction to the episode and themes

01:49 Invitation as a form of power

04:14 Invitation in complex collaborations and consortiums

06:18 From presence to contribution: what invitation makes possible

08:40 Practices of invitation in leadership and systems change

10:03 Rant: unpacking the phrase “handholding”

12:30 Trust, vulnerability, and investment relationships

14:57 Permission, advice, and power in investing

17:03 Capacity, timing, and misalignment in support

19:02 Conditions for “handholding” as trust infrastructure

21:17 Reflection questions on relationships and influence

22:26 Ways to engage with Criterion Institute

Relevant Links

• Criterion Institute Website and LinkedIn
• Joy's LinkedIn

Dive Deeper

Disrupting Fields: Addressing Power Dynamics in the Fields of Climate Finance and Gender Lens Investing

This report examines how power operates in emerging financial fields and how actors navigate existing systems while trying to change them. It highlights the tension between advancing new ideas and working within entrenched power structures, making it highly relevant to this episode’s focus on invitation, influence, and participation.

Addressing Power Dynamics in Investment Processes

A deep dive into how investment processes reflect and respond to power dynamics, including how trust, transparency, and engagement shape relationships between investors and companies. The report emphasizes the role of intentional design in building more equitable investment relationships.

Process Metrics that Analyze Power Dynamics in Investing

This report introduces tools for identifying and measuring how power shows up in investment processes—moving beyond representation to examine whose knowledge is valued and how decisions are made. It directly connects to the episode’s discussion of influence, control, and whose perspective shapes outcomes.

Advanced Practice in Gender Lens Investing

A framework for identifying and shifting power, privilege, and bias within financial systems by focusing on how investments are made. It highlights how changing processes—not just outcomes—can transform relationships and redistribute power in finance.

Other episodes you might also like:

#74: No Permission Required: Volunteerism as a Power Shift

#68: Clarity is Relational: Leadership in Complex Systems

#52: Reimagining Resourcing for Social Transformation – Part Two

Part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network