Impact Leaders - Sustainable & Impact Investment and Performance with Purpose JP Dallmann

Guest Bio
Marcelo Rojas Decut is the Co-Founder & CEO of eCLUB a modern bank for the unbanked in Latin America. 

Marcelo has a professional career with over 18 years of senior experience in the financial sector - in retail and corporate banking - as a board member and commercial director in large global banks such as BBVA and Citi Bank focusing on LatAm, particularly Argentina, Paraguay & Uruguay. 

He is also an entrepreneur at heart and 10 years ago ventured into new areas including Agro business and the use of innovative technologies to improve the yield and performance of its investments.

Since 2017 he is a member of the executive board of CREA - the regional Consortium of Agricultural Innovation. Marcelo is a chartered accountant, with an Executive Post-graduate from the University of Navarra (IESE), a post-graduate degree in Applied Business Management at the California State University, as well as a Masters in Strategic Management from the Universidad de Misiones (UNAM)




eCLUB

eCLUB is a FinTech company focused on democratizing impact by providing access to financial services in Latin America. eCLUB’s mission is to solve the financial inclusion problem in Latin America. The social mission is to empower the 270 million unbanked people to help unlock Latin America ́s growth potential by giving them access to financial services for the first time. The vision is to become the regional leader. The first target country is Paraguay, given the current opportunities and partnerships available for the faster and more successful delivery of the initial growth plans and impact.

Summary
How do you help people improve their lives? Research shows that Impact Economics is key, which is driven by financial inclusion and empowerment, since the opportunities for people increase exponentially as their income and financial situation improves. But for this, people first need to be able to access what only a small percentage of the population can - equality so people have the same available to them, but this begins with access.  
During this insightful conversation you will have a window open for you … to show you the current situation in Latin America, what needs to be done, what can be done, and who is doing it, and the immense opportunity for Impact Investing.




Key Points


In the US almost 60% of transactions are done digitally, in Latin America almost 75% of transactions are done in cash.
The unbanked are living in an unequal society where people who have the least access to cash have to pay a higher price for financial services.
We can help to close the huge gap between those who have access to financial services and those who haven't.
eCLUB’s mission is to solve the financial inclusion problem in Latin America. The main focus is to help people have a better life. That is the end goal.
Consumers have very few alternatives, most of the banking sector is concentrated in very few banks. And you can see the same story in every country. The sector is dominated by 5 or 6 banks that concentrate 80% of deposits and 80% of the loans. 
Due to the lack of competition in the sector, the people have to pay some of the highest interest rates in the world, and some of the highest fees in the world. Yes, because they have no alternative. 
The worst is that this way of doing banking has created a big problem, where almost 50% of the middle class and lower-middle-class people don't have access to an account, over 70% of the people don't have access to credit.
Banking the unbanked means that simplicity is key in the user experience.
“We are not just providing financial services, we are also giving the unbanked tools to improve their financial knowledge to re functionalities that allow people to track their expenses, knowing what they are spending the money.”
In Latin America, there is a high level of entrepreneurship. 
For small businesses the main barrier to growth is a lack of access to finance and credit. This sector crea

Tameo Impact Fund Solutions

Tameo is a spin-off from Symbiotics, including its market research, impact reporting, deal valuation and matchmaking solutions. Based on 15 years of experience built at Symbiotics, our aim is to promote the growth of the impact investing industry by increasing transparency and supporting evidence-based decision-making via independent solutions.





Safeya Zeitoun, Head of Impact at Tameo

During her 5 years at Symbiotics, Safeya has focused on assessing the social and environmental impact achieved by Symbiotics' investments. She has also contributed to industry initiatives on social performance management. Before that, she was a researcher at the Access to Knowledge for Development Center at the American University in Cairo. She holds a master's degree in International Economics from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the American University in Cairo.





Ramkumar Narayanan, Head of Research & Investments at Tameo

Over 8 years, Ramkumar contributed to Symbiotics' research work in the areas of microfinance funds, markets, and social performance by developing reporting tools and co-authoring white papers and industry reports on these topics. Prior to his time at Symbiotics, he worked for over 3 years at the World Microfinance Forum Geneva, leading a working group aimed at raising awareness of the opportunities and challenges of private sector MF investments in China. Ramkumar holds a master’s degree in Public Management and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Geneva.




Key points:


Impact is a subset of sustainable investments. Impact pushes it further by looking at the measurements.
At Symbiotics, historically focused has been on Microfinance and research and reporting
Tameo was created to provide more independence, to support impact investors and impact fund managers to make evidence based decision and data driven decisions for their investments, increase accountability and transparency in the market.
Private Asset Impact Fund Report 2021 - for fund managers as benchmark
175 impact funds participated in the stud. 300 data points per fund. There was a flat growth in AUM for impact funds in 2020. Average fund size of USD 140-150 million with fixed income funds are much larger compared to private equity funds.
Microfinance - No clear statistics that show with confident that micro finance alleviates poverty, but there are very clear consistent positive impact from micro finance with tangible benefits e.g micro enterprises provides a stable source of income. They are able to capture business opportunities that otherwise would not be possible for them. They won’t be as strongly affected by shocks e.g if member of family dies or storm destroys your home. 
Micro finance creates Increased possibilities and opportunities. From survey, 90% of end borrowers say they believe quality of life has improved with access to micro finance.
Blended finance works, there are a lot more innovation happening and  there is huge interest in it.
Tameo is providing this market intelligence to the market as more investors still need more information.
Regmifa -  Regional MSME Investment Fund for Sub-Saharan Africa and Loans for growth fund
Investors need to have a change in mindset and be open to new investable opportunities





Time Stamp:
[5.29] What is impact investing?

[7:34] Symbiotics and Tameo, how Tameo got started

[12:35] Private Asset Impact Fund Report 2021, top trends in 2020

[19:16] Breakdown of investments types in the funds

[21:30] Safeya’s research of Micro loans

[28:10] How Tameo was funded as a startup

[31:00] Latest update from the space of blended finance

[33:59] Regmifa fund for sub saharan Africa and loans for growth fund

[36:35] Investors need more information to understand and be educated

[38:18] People are still reluctant to invest, changing the mindset of in

Guest Bio:
Audrey Selian currently serves as Director of the Artha Initiative associated with Rianta Capital Zurich and is a team member/advisor to the Halloran Philanthropies. She has been active in the impact investing sector since 2006, and is founder of ArthaPlatform.com, an online impact investment platform that is designed to tackle the economics of due diligence around high impact, small scale SMEs/SGBs. 
She has also been a wanna-be techie since 1997. She completed her PhD in technology policy and development and has been thinking about how to intertwine the two ever since. She is passionate about bringing good people together, and proving that investment in good business(es) is one of the keys to best serving the under-served on this planet. 
Audrey has a background in management consulting from PricewaterhouseCoopers, and her entrepreneurial experience includes several years spent in business development, marketing and sales at an NSF-funded software start-up called Wireless Grids Corporation. 




Artha Impact

The Artha Impact team has been working since 2007 as the impact investing arm of Rianta Capital, which is a dedicated advisory to the Singh Family Trust. Through this initiative, they have been running a series of programs designed to invest, catalyze and convene around the promise of supporting meaningful business interventions for impact in India. Today Artha Impact holds a robust portfolio of direct early/growth stage investments and a small handful of impact funds in the country.  Sectors of focus include - but have not been limited to - agriculture, healthcare and livelihoods.




Key Points:


There is an incredible network of like minded family offices
Artha Network platform 
help coordinate discovery and create more visibility.
“The information about who's doing what and where should not be left to chance, because the opportunity costs are just too high in the event that things go wrong, and things don't happen the right way.”



Partnership with Menterra, one of the oldest social enterprise incubator in India.
Biosense - last mile health diagnostic service
Collaborative learning and action is key to solving the last mile challenge
Telecoms & Beer are succeeding in the last mile - the narrative must change to grease the wheels, otherwise we continue to propagate the same exact mentality that is contributing to hundreds of parallel silos. Something that gets people to see a carrot that changes the behaviour where we’re all competing against each other to develop on SDG X.
Impact Measurement - we encourage folks that we work with to pick 2 or 3 things that are really tangible and possible to measure
Taxonomies - we are trying to keep it simple
Partnerships play a crucial role in due diligence - We had 40% of investors reported in the GIIN survey, express willingness to utilize other investor’s due diligence documentation, and that’s a sea change. 
Every player has a lot to contribute, technology is amplifying what each and every one of us can do.
“Federation and King of the Hill strategies, domination strategies aren’t going to work today. There is too much empowerment at the end notes that is propelled by technology.”
“None of us is as smart as all of us.”




Time Stamp:

[04:22] How do you define sustainable and impact investing?

[06:28] How did Artha started?

[09:38] How the Singh family articulated their values

[10:24] Who is Tom Singh 

[14:42] Impact for Breakfast Chapters, learning network and series

[16:07] Words matter, Chi points

[18:13] How Artha Network impact investment platform was created

[24:35] Artha investment funds

[27:40] Being the cornerstone investor of USD 80million Manterra fund 2

[29:35] Biosense health company

[31:57] Challenge of different startup investees 

[35:26] Collaborative action for last mile products 

[39:46] The narrative must change

[40:32] Artha Adventure Challenge

[43:36] Impact measurement methodology 

[47:54] Buil

Guest bio

Marie Puaux is Head of Impact Management at Bamboo Capital Partners. She is passionate about social innovation and helping organizations improve their impact. 

Prior to joining Bamboo, she worked in Corporate Social Responsibility within two multinational companies in France and in the U.S. She also worked in Sustainability Consulting, supporting companies in the design of strategies and projects related to social & environmental sustainability, and in Microfinance with an international NGO in France and an MFI in India.



Marie holds a Master of Science in Business Administration from ESSEC Business School, where she majored in Social Entrepreneurship. Her major thesis focused on companies’ ‘Base of the Pyramid’ strategies and their impact on informal economy in low- and middle-income countries. 




Bamboo Capital

Bamboo Capital Partners is an impact investing platform which provides innovative financing solutions to businesses in emerging markets serving the needs of low- and middle income populations, thus catalysing lasting impact. 

We bridge the gap between seed and growth stage funding through a full suite of finance options – from debt to equity – which we activate unilaterally or through strategic partnerships. Bamboo is a partner of Palladium, a global impact firm with operations in 90 countries.




Key Points 


Investing in best in class impact and more than just from an ESG standpoint.
Two components when assessing investmentee in funds 
Delivers positive impact
Prevents negative impact



Investment focus
Financial inclusion
Access to clean energy
Affordable health care to low income population
Care SheTrades Fund for women empowerment
ABC Fund for small holder farmers in Africa - Agribusiness Fund as part of International Fund for Agricultural Development
Investments of 250k to 3-4 million



The balance of investments that are high impact but do not to burden investee company on reporting
Key to managing impact measure - Define impact metrics and defining lists of indicators, have conversations with investee at the start of investment, capturing operational data, eg. having a methodology to estimate CO2 avoided. Measuring impact to end beneficiary using deep dive impact studies and questionnaires
Advice on designing impact funds - 
Define the impact ambition and impact thesis
Key barrier is that for investors there is a need for high liquidity, making ticket size smaller. E.g. having flexible note issuance programs
Develop blended finance mechanism to derisk private sector investment with faster range of public and philanthropic nature investments








Timestamps
[4:26] What is sustainable and impact investing to you?

[5:50] ESG approach vs impact investing

[9:24] Bamboo Capital and partnership with Palladium Global Impact

[11:30] History of Bamboo Capital and investment thesis

[14:11] Focus on emerging and frontier markets with strong on financial inclusion 

[16:10 ] New Impact Assists, partnering with Care and International Trade Center

[24:00] Marie Puaux’s role at Bamboo Capital

[25:43] Working with UN CDF teams on impact measure and reporting

[26:43] Working with NGOs for technical assistance

[28:57] Investment Management Framework

[29:43] Capturing data for measuring impact from company and end beneficiaries

[34:26] Impact Management Framework

[36:25] Aligning impact breakdown to SDGs

[37:54] How does Bamboo puts it all together

[41:00] First step to move into sustainable impact investing as investors

[44:08] Investing during the Covid times and the impact to SMEs during Covid

[47:10] Ambitious vision and target of Bamboo Capital 

[48:36] What is green washing and impact investing 

[53:10] Net Impact. Have you been missold impact investing?

[54:35] How did Marie Puaux ended up having a career in impact investing? 

[56:20] What makes an impact leader?

[57:20] Call-to-action for the impact industry





Useful links
Marie Puaux’s Linkedin 

Guest bio

James Arbib is a London-based investor in technology. He is the founder of Tellus Mater, an independent philanthropic foundation dedicated to exploring the impacts of disruptive technology, and its potential for solving some of the world’s most challenging problems.  In addition, Jamie oversees a London-based family office with a diversified portfolio, across all asset classes and a focus on the risks and opportunities of technology disruption. A graduate in History from Trinity College, Cambridge, he has a Masters in Sustainability Leadership also from Cambridge. He is a qualified chartered accountant and worked as an investment analyst covering utilities.



Summary


How do you solve the world’s biggest problems? Throw a lot of money at it and hope it goes away? Or does it kick the can and cause even bigger problems? James Arbib from RethinkX describes the work that tackles the most complex issues by breaking it down into the most basic components. The think tank uses the Seba Technology Disruption Framework, which has been used to understand and predict some of the biggest disruptions across several industries. What will be the next disruption to change the world? It might have come from RethinkX.



Key points



RethinkX is a think tank that analyses and predicts the uncharted waters of industry disruptions.
The 5 foundational sectors are all ripe for the next big disruption.
Great technological advances are lowering the costs to accessibility.
Climate change solutions ARE possible, but we need to commit to certain courses of intentional action.
How do we determine ownership for all the world’s greatest issues?
Mindset will always be the greatest supporter or inhibitor to great progress.
The impact of small cheques/donations 
The domino effect 



Timestamps


[5:22] The fine line between sustainable and impact investing

[8:53] RethinkX in a nutshell 

[11:21] Feedback loops 

[12:02:] Providing better information for decision-makers

[12:59] RethinkX’s book Rethinking Humanity


[17:14] How Carbon Tracker got its start

[21:56] The 5 foundational sectors

[23:56] Humanity 1.0, 2.0, 3.0

[31:12] Rethinking climate change

[37:14] Putting Band-aids on problems

[38:49] Livestock farming’s environmental impact

[39:57] Insulin: example of plunging costs with technological advancements

[41:02] Singular molecule and protein creation 

[41:59] Amazon deforestation

[42:27] Transportation system disruption

[42:45] Gasoline and self-driven cars 

[46:00] Bill gates directed us to Nuclear shipping 

[46:57] Target date for decarbonisation

[47:30] Flow vs stock of carbon and the 3 disruptions 

[48:22] Passive reforestation

[50:52] Economic terrorism

[54:49] Is climate change solution achievable?

[56:00] Social issues and communities - fixing the mess forward

[56:20] What is the point of disruptions?

[59:01] Ownership: who is responsible for finding solutions?

[1:00:33] Mindset: the real dangers of a narrow, linear mindset

[1:04:03] The paradigm of biology and physics combine 

[1:04:51] The 12 leverage points

[1:08:08] The tsunami of change coming 

[1:10:56] How do we land the message 

[1:12:53] Tik Tok is the way forward 

[1:17:33] The real enemy to open discussions

[1:20:19] The #1 challenge to real impact




Useful links

JP Dallmann on Forbes


Rethink X: rethinkx.com


James Arbib: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-arbib-6883973a


Carbon Tracker: carbontracker.org


Book recommendation: Rethinking Humanity




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2-Become a sponsor
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Guest bio

Dr. Reinhard Hübner is the Chief Executive Officer at SKION WATER Gmbh and investment manager at SKion. With a background in industrial operations, Dr. Hübner has over 17 years of professional experience, including with an international management consultancy. Since 2010, he has been responsible for the development and management of the investment portfolio in the water technology sector at SKion.



Summary


Water is the one resource we can’t live without, and for which there is no substitute. Investing in water technology companies is both an entrepreneurial opportunity and opportunity to protect a precious resource that can have the biggest impact in the world.



Key points



Due to the ubiquitous nature of water, we forget we should be investing in water management technologies for real impact.
The technology to clean water is not necessarily unattainable, it can actually be quite simple, but government regulation and centralisation of management prevents accessibility.
Adam Smith’s water-diamond paradox continues today.
Lack of money/funding is not the issue for water solutions.
Transparency and looking for investment opportunities. 
SKion discusses their investment criteria 
Skion explains the 2 principles of how they operate in the water industry  
Why private international investors are needed. 
Digitalization-what data is important? 
Explore the Investment horizon 
Challenges and costs involved in transporting water

Time stamps

[3:57] Dr. Reinhard Hübner’s background in industrial operations

[6:43] The founder, Susanne Klatten, and her philosophy regarding water

[7:40] Corporate and investment structure of SKion Water

[12:28] Transparency and looking for investment opportunities  

[13:00]  SKion Investment criteria

[14:35] Agripreneurs, and accessibility to end-users

[14:45] 2 Principles Skion implement in their business

[15:48] The different types of waters 

[17:51] Investing in water technologies in Latin America

[19:05] “Invisible” assets and 100 years of economics

[21:53] The distribution of water and its uses

[24:27] Out-of-date water infrastructure

[29:09] Identifying and measuring impact

[30:30] Methane is worse than CO2 

[31:30] Investment horizon 

[32:09] Technological perspective of water management

[36:07] The water-diamond paradox

[38:29] Resources for understanding supply chains

[41:08] The real waste in bottled water

[43:31] The different types of investing

[47:22] Successful private-public partnership models

[49:40] Privatized utilities and services in most countries

[51:32] Importance of phosphorus

[53:30] How Dr. Hübner ended up in water



Useful links


JP Dallmann on Forbes


Dr. Reinhard Hübner LinkedIn


Susanne Klatten: Bio


Andrew Walker: LinkedIn


Blue Gold Marketing website: https://www.bluegoldmarketing.com/ 

SKion website (English): https://www.skionwater.com/en/


SKion Website:  https://www.skion.de/en/


SKion Impact: https://www.skionwater.com/en/impact.html


Reinhard Hübner (SKion GmbH) about investing in water: YouTube 


SKion Awarded Water Company of the Year: Award 


Ecopreneur Website: WWW.ECOPRENEUR.CL


Book recommendation: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith


Blue text research Website: https://www.bluetechresearch.com/




Further resources  


Bluetech Research - Dynamics of Water Innovation


McKinsey Report - Charting Our Water Future





INVITATION - Best Water Event 

AQUATECH website:https://www.aquatechtrade.com


AQUATECH Innovation Forum: https://www.aquatechtrade.com/innovation-forum/





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Call-to-actions:

The podcast is one of the catalytic initiatives to help deliver on Our mission to “Raise awareness to help transition capital into Sustainable & Impact Investing faster and at scale”



1-Become a Patreon


if you would like to support it, you can become a patreon and also make one-off contributions. 



2-Become a sponsor
We’re looking for 3 founding sponsors to su