ImpactAlpha Podcasts

Uber is reeling due to a series of damning reports about it's corporate culture of misogyny. One potential solution that makes impact investors ears perk up: diversify the board. But, a new study from Katherine Klein of the Wharton School suggests that "the relationship between board gender diversity and company performance is either non-exist (effectively zero) or weakly positive." How do the findings effect the conversation around gender lens investing?

On this special edition of Returns on Investment, we're featuring a panel discussion from The Liquidnet for Good 10 Year Anniversary Forum. The conversation focuses on the future of impact investing, and is moderated. by Georgia Keohane, the Executive Director of the Pershing Square Foundation. It features insights from Liz Luckett, the president of TSEF, Brian Trelsted, a partner at Bridges Fund Management, and Daniel Pianko, the Co-Founder and Managing Director of University Ventures.

On this special edition of Returns on Investment, we're featuring a panel discussion from The Liquidnet for Good 10 Year Anniversary Forum. The conversation focuses on the future of philanthropy and includes Fay Twersky of the Hewlett Foundation, Dennis Whittle of Feedback Labs, and Blue Meridian's Chuck Harris. The moderator is business and philanthropy journalist Mark Gunther.

Each year The GIIN releases their Impact Investor survey. Our panel sees some reasons for optimism in the report. But, is impact growing at a fast enough clip to tackle the challenges it's staked for itself?

Back in 2015, U.N. leaders adopted a set of 17 targets describing what the world should look like in 2030. The goals are highly ambitious, calling for solutions to climate change and poverty, as well as huge conservation targets and a revamping of the global agricultural system. A lot has happened on the geopolitical stage in the past years, but the SDGs, as they're called (to Imogen's chagrin), are still on the table. Has progress been made? Find out on this episode of Returns on Investment.

TPG Capital is moving into the impact world in a big way with a new 2 billion dollar fund. Bono, the famous face of the new fund, turned heads with some controversial comments at The Skoll World Forum. Are the impact investors of the past big hippies who aren't real investors? Is TPG about to change the game?

Ford Foundation president, Darren Walker, broke through a barrier of sorts recently with the announcement the foundation would commit $1 billion from its roughly $14 billion endowment to so-called mission-related investments. In the latest Returns on Investment podcast, our roundtable takes on the question of just how significant Ford’s announcement really was. Will it help unlock many more billions for high-impact investments? Will it change how foundations think about deploying their capital? Can it help change the structure of the financial markets themselves?

Risk. Is it a board game focused on world domination, a fundamental consideration when allocating capital, or both? We focus on the latter this week, and explore how the impact community approaches issues surrounding risk and opportunity.

The pace of growth in the impact sector is up, but the amount of capital managed by impact investors is a drop in the bucket of the overall capital markets. What will it take to get the level of investment up to the scale of addressing the great challenges of the 21st century?

New data shows that global investment in renewable energies fell between 2015 and 2016. Is the world dropping the ball on the sustainability transition, or is there more to these numbers?