ImpactAlpha Podcasts

The billionaires with their family offices command on outsized share of attention from impact fund managers. But, the real dollars, as in trillions, are in the huge pension and sovereign wealth funds around the world. Today on ROI, David Bank speaks with Dave Chen, the head of Equilibrium Capital, about the burgeoning shift towards sustainability and EGS within the world of institutional investors.

A raft of new social-impact and environmental financing vehicle are emerging from labs, incubators and startup funds. By finding inventive ways to monetize social inclusion and environmental regeneration, the new models are "internalizing the positive externalities." Too wonky? Just say "impact alpha." Returns on Investment's resident blue-sky optimist, David Bank, lays bets that the best new ideas will scale up to attract real dollars. Our curmudgeon, Imogen Rose-Smith, is skeptical that many of the impact investment pilots will graduate from the kiddie table and join the adults in the real world of finance. As always, our host Brian Walsh keeps it lively. __________________________________ Support for this Returns on Investment podcast ​comes from Wunder Capital, an easy way to invest in solar energy projects across the US. With Wunder, you help finance renewable energy and earn up to 7.5% a year. Visit WunderCapital.com/roi​. I nvest in solar projects. Do well and do good.

It has been said that "for impact investing, every day is international women's day." As the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements continue to demonstrate their staying power, is it time that impact and finance at large take a closer look at gender equality within firms as well as in their investments? Brian Walsh, Imogen Rose-Smith and David Bank discuss in the latest ROI.

The whole panel is together in Oakland to discuss whether or not California is charting the way forward for the inclusive economy of the future. The golden state does seem to be ahead on issues such as immigration, climate change, and shared prosperity - but is there a flip side to the coin? Listen in as Imogen Rose Smith, David Bank, and Brian Walsh discuss The California Model.

At a recent hosted at the New York offices of the fintech company Liquidnet, in collaboration with the Tristate Area Africa Funders Network, ImpactAlpha’s own David Bank moderated a panel on “Demystifying Impact Investing” featuring Georgia Levenson Keohane of the Pershing Square Foundation, Liz Luckett of TSEF and Brian Trelstad of Bridges Fund Management..

Larry Fink, the CEO of the world largest asset manager, pushed "social purpose" higher on the corporate agenda with his annual letter, warning that every company "must show how it makes a positive contribution to society.” Social activists cheered; activist investors more accustomed to pressuring CEOs for stock buybacks and dividends, groaned. As onetime corporate raider Sam Zell put it, “I didn’t know Larry Fink had been made God.” Our roundtable of Imogen Rose-Smith, Brian Walsh and David Bank pull apart not only Fink's arguments, but the critics' and the cheerleaders' as well.

Natural spaces have long provided financial value to humans, though historically this has been through the process of extracting resources. Now, as scientists better understand the key role that ecosystems play in supporting life on earth, some banks and investors are looking to incentivize the preservation of wild spaces and species. Today on ROI, the panel discusses conservation finance.

Steve Case tells The New York Times that his $150 million Rise of the Rest Fund is "not an impact fund." Our Returns on Investment roundtable takes on the contretemps that played out on the pages of ImpactAlpha. Good jobs, overlooked geographies, bottom-up innovation – that sounds like impact. Do funds have to measure (and report)? Who decides? Imogen Rose-Smith, David Bank and Brian Walsh take Rise of the Rest apart (and put it back together again).

In 2007 the term Impact Investing was coined at a Rockefeller Foundation convening in Bellagio. The "framers" put the name to a burgeoning yet broad set of investment strategies being practiced on the margins of traditional finance. On this episode of ROI the panel discusses how the impact community has grown and changed in the past ten years, and where it's headed.

Imogen Rose-Smith plays cautious realist to David Bank's blue-sky futurist in this heated (but always friendly!) Returns on Investment roundtable. At issue is the role of the world’s biggest asset owners – so-called Universal Owners – in the rotation of capital toward sustainability and inclusion.