Welcome to the hotseat where Joe McCarthy sits with Sir Ronald Cohen, co-founder of Apax Partners, Chair of the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment, and author of IMPACT.

Sir Ronald is widely regarded as the father of both European venture capital and impact investing. He arrived in London as an 11-year-old refugee from Egypt speaking almost no English, made his way to Oxford and Harvard, and went on to build one of the defining venture and private equity firms of its generation before stepping away to devote himself to what he calls the impact revolution.

His argument is simple and radical: governments are stretched, inequality is widening, and relying on taxation and philanthropy alone has failed. The answer is to redirect the trillions already moving through capital markets by measuring impact the way we measure profit. In this conversation he explains why 2026 is a watershed year for that idea, and how AI is changing what is possible.

In this conversation, Sir Ronald and Joe discuss the following topics:

• Why optimising for impact is a route to superior returns, not a trade-off
• The hidden risks of impact-blind investing: carbon taxes, consumer flight, and talent
• Why carbon tax is the single lever that moves the dial on emissions
• How impact-weighted accounting turns tons of carbon and water into monetary value
• The 1929-to-GAAP parallel and why transparency built modern markets
• What Harry Markowitz and the measurement of risk teach us about measuring impact
• Whether public market sustainable investing has any real additionality
• Measuring social impact: pay, representation, and the cost of unemployment to a community
• Where AI meets impact, from education at scale to the first AI-derived drug
• How families and family offices should build impact at the portfolio level
• Governments shifting from funding inputs to paying for outcomes
• His advice to a younger self: start young, think big, stick with it, and bring impact to it

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Connect with Sir Ronald Cohen:

LinkedIn: Sir Ronald Cohen

Website: sirronaldcohen.org

Books: IMPACT: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change (2nd expanded edition, 2025), The Second Bounce of the Ball, ON IMPACT

00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview

02:33 Sir Ronald's Sense of Purpose

05:18 Refugee Roots and Early Life

06:44 Oxford Union and Learning to Speak Without Notes

09:14 From McKinsey to Founding Apax Partners

10:38 Building European Venture Capital from Scratch

11:48 Deciding to Leave Apax at 60

13:02 The Government Call That Started the Impact Mission

15:36 The Social Impact Bond - From Idea to Peterborough

17:57 Challenges and Surprises in the Impact Journey

20:03 Why Impact Is Not a Trade-Off for Returns

22:54 Carbon Tax as an Investor Risk

24:52 Consumer Preferences - Cycle vs Long-Term Trend

28:12 Impact Weighted Accounting - Origins and How It Works

33:24 From ESG 1.0 to Rigorous Impact Measurement

35:27 Additionality in Public Markets

38:10 Leaders and Laggards - Sector-Level Impact Transparency

41:36 How AI Is Unlocking Impact Data at Scale

44:00 Monetising Social Impact - Diversity Deficits and Employment

46:58 Impact Lenses Across the Whole Portfolio

51:06 Advice for Families and Entrepreneurs Deploying Capital

55:53 Where to Go for Reliable Impact Information

58:23 Governments, Outcomes Funds and the Systemic Shift

01:03:13 Advice to a Younger Self - and the Second Bounce of the Ball

01:04:07 How Sir Ronald Stays Energised

01:05:29 Closing Reflections

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