Investing For Impact: Catalysing An Emerging Industry
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Session Description
Using profit-seeking investment to generate social and environmental good is moving from a periphery of activist investors to the core of mainstream financial institutions. Going far beyond the negative screens of ‘socially responsible investing’, this session will explore opportunities and trends among investors that actively seek to place capital in ways that can provide a scale of solution that purely philanthropic interventions cannot reach.
Time & Location
Time:
09:00 - 10:30, Thursday, March 26, 2009
BST
Speakers
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Speaker
Director, Social Finance
Toby Eccles has been developing a Social Investment Bank since October 2005, initially as a recommendation to government through the Commission on Unclaimed Assets and more recently at Social Finance. Before this he was at the foundation ARK where he built programmes around education in the UK and communities with high HIV levels in South Africa. Commercially Toby worked in corporate finance at UBS Warburg, and developing new business at Data Connection, a software company. He is a non-executive director of Antidote, a charity developing emotional intelligence in schools, and a board member of the Guinness Trust, a housing association.
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Speaker
President and CEO, Calvert Foundation
Shari Berenbach is President and CEO of US African Development Foundation, a public government corporation that awards economic development grants to marginalized and underserved populations in conflict and post-conflict areas of Africa. Her distinguished 30-year career spans from microfinance to international banking. At USAID from 2010-12, she directed the Microenterprise & Private Enterprise Promotion Office. A pioneer in the impact investing field, Ms. Berenbach served as President and CEO of Calvert Foundation, a non-profit financial intermediary that mobilizes capital from social investors. Ms. Berenbach holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School, an MA in Latin American Studies from UCLA, and an undergraduate Political Science degree from UC Berkeley. She serves on the Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the Finance Committee of the Needmor Fund, and the Board of Directors of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity.
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Speaker
Co-Founder, Intellecap
Pawan Mehra is co-founder of Intellecap, a multiplebottom-line investment advisory and consulting services firm, pioneering in capacity building of for-profit social enterprises in South Asia. Pawan was a venture investor in his early career and since then has been a serial entrepreneur. He serves on the boards of a number of Indo-US enterprises and advises companies in Asia and the US. He is also actively involved with Give Foundation which is connecting donors with projects in India. He has a Bachelors Degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering; an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; and has completed postgraduate courses from the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
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Speaker
Consultant, Monitor Institute
Jessica Freireich is a consultant at Monitor Institute, which seeks to help innovative leaders achieve sustainable solutions to social and environmental problems. Jessica is a lead author of the Institute’s recent report Investing for Social and Environmental Impact: A Design for Catalyzing an Emerging Industry. Jessica has more than a decade of experience addressing strategic issues in a range of corporate and nonprofit contexts. She has also worked with social entrepreneurs as a portfolio manager at New Profit Inc. Jessica recently managed strategic planning for Save the Children and worked with entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka after the tsunami. Jessica holds an M.B.A. with distinction from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Harvard College.
