The New Private Markets Podcast

There is increasingly widespread acknowledgement that physical climate risks are becoming material to private markets portfolios, but investors are still struggling to fully integrate these considerations into their decision making.

In this episode of The New Private Markets Podcast, we speak to Cambridge Associates partner emeritus Simon Hallett. He previously led the EMEA endowment and foundation practice, but since 2021 has served as head of climate strategy, and now advises the full range of the firm's clients on integrating climate into their portfolios.

Tune in to hear:

At last year's GIIN Impact forum, LeapFrog Investments founder Andy Kuper compared artificial intelligence with the domestication of fire, the invention of farming and the French Revolution in its capacity to grant people agency over their own lives.

Kuper is one of the most recognisable names in impact investing. He founded LeapFrog in 2007 to make investments that unite profit with purpose; companies the firm has invested in have reached 622 million people, of whom 460 million are emerging consumers. LeapFrog now works with large institutions such as Temasek, Prudential and AIA to deploy impact capital in emerging markets.

In this episode, we explore how the rapid integration of AI is transforming the markets in which LeapFrog operates. Consumers in developing markets, Kuper notes, are far more optimistic about AI than those in the West, and perhaps with good reason: companies in LeapFrog's portfolio are already leveraging AI to deliver better products to consumers.

Beyond AI, Kuper explains how strong governance and sustainability credentials in the firm's portcos generate a "LeapFrog premium" on exits, and he offers advice on how investors new to emerging markets impact can start to build exposure.

In light of geopolitical and macroeconomic challenges, how are investors approaching large-scale impact investing today?

Last month, New Private Markets hosted its first webcast. With the help of Brookfield's Kelly Goddard, TPG's Steve Ellis and Cambridge Associates' Tom Mitchell, we dissected the Impact 75 – our list of the largest managers of impact capital – and what it tells us about the current state of play for impact investing in private markets.

For anyone unable to join us in July, this episode offers an abridged version of the conversation. Listen to hear our guests address some key questions for the market, including:

In this episode:

Given the scorching temperatures much of Europe has been facing this summer, it's not surprising that physical climate risk is high on the agenda for many investors. But actually getting to grips with the topic remains an ongoing process.

In this episode, we speak to Nicolas Schneider, senior research engineer and macroeconomist at EDHEC Climate Institute. Earlier this year, EDHEC launched EDHEC-CLIRMAP (EDHEC-Climate-Induced Regional Macroimpacts Projector), an interactive tool that helps investors understand how specific regions will be affected economically under various warming scenarios. Find more information on it here.

Schneider visited PEI Group's London office during London Climate Action Week in June for a conversation NPM‘s Toby Mitchenall. In addition to discussing CLIRMAP in more detail, Schneider covers a range of issues important for investors, including:

In this bonus episode, we get taken inside the ACP OeEB Climate Impact Fund, a climate-focused fund of funds targeting private equity and infrastructure strategies in emerging markets.

Hannes Manndorff is managing director at Austrian development finance institution Oesterreichische Entwicklungsbank (OeEB), which is currently deploying (and raising additional third-party capital for) its emerging markets impact strategy.

In a conversation recorded on the sidelines of the Impact Investor Global Summit earlier this year, Manndorff talks us through the strategy, including the target returns, investment pace, co-investment appetite and geographical remit of the fund. He also tells us what OeEB looks for in a GP and what red flags will cause it to back away from a commitment.

Our upcoming live webcast: On July 29th, we will be hosting a live conversation with Brookfield Asset Management, TPG and Cambridge Associates to discuss the findings of our Impact 75. Register to attend.

Bonus! In this short bonus episode of The New Private Markets Podcast, we bring you a conversation with Nadia Nikolova, the chief executive officer of ResponsAbility Investments.

Nikolova was formerly head of direct lending at Allianz Global Investors and, in September last year, became CEO of ResponsAbility, which is the emerging markets impact-focused subsidiary of M&G Investments.

This is another conversation from the sidelines of the Impact Investor Global Summit, which took place in London in May this year. At the event, Nikolova made an on-stage plea to allocators to emulate the Dutch model, and indicate to the market that they are willing to invest 10 percent of their assets into impact. "We don't have a capital problem; we have a capital allocation problem," she said. "Indicate you are willing to allocate, and then the products will be there."

Nikolov also describes how institutional investors are increasingly interested in emerging markets debt exposure. "Many...have realised they are structurally over-allocated to the US, and structurally under-allocated to emerging markets," she said.

Join us live! We are hosting a live webcast on July 29 to discuss the Impact 75. Join Toby Mitchenall, plus special guests, to discuss the newly launched list of the largest managers of private markets impact capital in the world and to answer your questions live. Click the link to register.

Since its launch in 2023 Altérra has established itself as one of the world's most influential investors in sustainable private markets. It has established fund relationships with Brookfield, BlackRock, TPG, KKR and CIP, and a direct co-investment programme that spans infrastructure and private equity. It has partnered with Spanish bank BBVA and is on the lookout for additional, complementary LP partners to join its co-investment programme. It has also broken ground in terms of blended finance structures on a large scale.

In this episode,we welcome back His Excellency Majid Al Suwaidi, the CEO of Altérra, for an in-depth conversation. During a London Climate Action Week that took place amid a record-breaking heatwave, Al Suwaidi joined New Private Markets' Toby Mitchenall at PEI Group's London office, to discuss:

With all the discussion about promising VC-backed climate technology facing a "valley of death", what is actually needed to take these companies to scale? Building plants requires a lot of equity, a bit of senior debt, "but ultimately you need many more layers of the cap table", says Temple Fennell, co-founder and managing partner of Clean Energy Ventures. "You need insurance, you need wrappers of all types, you need EPC folks."

Fennell spoke to The New Private Markets Podcast on the sidelines of the Impact Investor Global Summit in London in May 2026. He is a veteran investor in climate technology, whose experience in sustainable investment was shaped by being part of the the Keller family office, which among other things converted its 3,500-acre farm to regenerative practices.

On the agenda:

When it comes to decarbonisation, investors have been spreading their capital too thinly across companies and technologies, says Stan Miranda, founder of the True North Institute and co-founder of All Aboard.

"We will not make the right investments if we don't face the reality of what's happening at the atmospheric level," says Miranda, "And for some reason or other investors in this space tend to back hope more than reality; and, as many people have said, hope is not a strategy here."

Miranda was among the speakers at the Impact Investor Global Summit in May this year in London, where this episode was recorded.

Miranda explains the rationale behind the All Aboard coalition, a group of climate tech investors working collaboratively in a bid to find and back the "winners" among climate tech companies.

"There's a philosophy in the climate investment world called 'all of the above', and the rationale behind it is that we don't know which technology is going to work, whether it's nuclear fusion or geothermal or clean hydrogen or various versions of carbon capture, so we need to invest in all of them. And that's the enemy of success here," says Miranda.

"We really need to talk to each other about what is really working commercially, what is not dependent upon policy support, and concentrate capital in those technologies. It won't be all of them, so it should be very focused and very collaborative, not 'all of the above'."

The European Investment Fund is one of the most important allocators to the continent's climate funds. More than half of the €6.3 billion it invested in sustainability and green transformation last year was deployed into private markets, according to its 2025 annual report. It was the second-most frequent allocator to impact funds in 2025 and Q1 2026, New Private Markets analysis shows.

In this episode, Matteo Squilloni, head of climate transition equity investments at EIF, discusses:

Squilloni was a recent speaker at the Impact Investor Global Summit in London, where he participated in a discussion on the global outlook for climate investing. Find more information on next year's event here.