 Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We're so happy to be here launching the prototype of the IRIS Plus racial equity theme on the Navigating Impact Project today with our partners, CAPEQ, PolicyLink, FSG, and Just Capital. This is a big moment for organizations and for the industry, and we're happy to be sharing it with you. I'd like to give a special thanks to a number of individuals who have helped lead this work, Mahlet and Tai at TJ. You'll be hearing from them later today. And also for my colleagues at the GIN, Lisa, Kellan, and Kelly. This is incredibly important work. It's also hard work, and so I have a great deal of gratitude for them for all the effort that they've put into getting us to this point. The Global Impact Investing Network, known as the GIN for short, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to scaling the size and effectiveness of impact investing. We're committed to elevating a vision for a transformed financial system that leads to a more just and sustainable future for all. At the heart of that sense is driving change through and within investing organizations, which includes recognizing that capitalism as it operates today is actively harmful to people of color, particularly black and indigenous individuals, families, and communities. We, like many organizations in this space, are on our own journey to reflect learning role, and we've been incredibly honored to work so deeply with Polisulink and CapEQ, both leaders in this conversation, to create metrics and guidance for investors who are also on this journey. We're deeply grateful, not just to our partners, but to the many organizations and individuals who have been doing this work for decades. Many of you have weighed in on this work already and have been incredibly generous with your thoughts and perspectives, and I expect that many of you will see your work reflected and linked directly within this theme. This work comes at an important time when investors and companies are paying more attention to these issues. My hope is that together, we can translate that attention and that intention into tangible results. We're grateful to you all and welcome others to join in this next phase of learning, testing, and putting into action. Thank you all for joining, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts on this theme as we continue to learn and deepen it with the industry in the months to come. At the end of this session, we'll share some opportunities for you to help us continue to improve upon this work. We couldn't be more excited about the direction of this theme and our partnership with PolicyLink and CAPEQ, and we're thrilled to have them joining us today. I'll pass the mic to Mahalit, Managing Director of Corporate Racial Equity at PolicyLink. Over to you. Thank you, Amit. Hello, everybody. Before we dive in, I wanted to just take a quick moment to share the background on how we all came together. For those of you that do not know PolicyLink, we're a National Research and Action Institute based in Oakland, California, devoted to advancing racial and economic equity in America for over two decades. Our guiding ethos is equity. That means the just and fair inclusion into a society in which all of us can participate, prosper, and reach our full potential. Together with the GIN, CAPEQ, FSG, and Just Capital, our organizations are united by the vision of achieving racial and economic equity in America and globally. We know that that's going to require civil society and government working together, but also business leaders and investors working in concert with us to improve the lives of the most economically insecure among us. In America, that's the 100 million people living in or near poverty, which includes half of all people of color. This year, we've come together as the Corporate Racial Equity Alliance, and we're working together to support the evolution of anti-racist, equitable companies and investors that can effectively contribute to building a just, equitable, and healthy society for all of us. In addition to the launch today of the prototype virus plus racial equity theme, PolicyLink, FSG, and Just Capital are also working towards developing corporate performance standards for racial equity. That set the bar for what good looks like within the four walls of the company, within communities where businesses operate, and at the broader societal level. Our goal is to point the way towards equity for business leaders and establish consistency for how they approach, measure, disclose, and speak publicly about their equity journeys. All of this is in harmony with the aim of the virus plus racial equity theme that you're going to be learning so much more about today, and that we're so excited to be partners in here. And the foundation of this effort that you're learning about today is the CEO blueprint for racial equity, a publication by PolicyLink, FSG, and Just Capital, and you'll see that infused within the work on this theme as well as you learn more. With that background in mind, I want to close by just expressing my deep appreciation and gratitude for the GIN and CAPEQ in this work. It has been such a privilege for us to partner with your organizations on this incredibly important project and our broader efforts in the Alliance. And a very special thank you to Tai Boyea Robinson and the CAPEQ team for leading this, leading us in this, and now I'll turn it over to you, Tai, for our facilitated discussion. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mahalit. I can't echo your thanks enough, and I really want to thank everyone who has participated in co-creating these goals, especially the organizations who have toiled for decades in service of racial justice. We honor you and we are eternally grateful for your leadership. So I'd like to start by providing context about our approach to the racial equity strategic goals. First, I'd like to acknowledge that integrating racial equity into investment strategies requires persistence and deep commitment, both organizationally and personally. Racial inequities are a result of a long-standing systemic decisions with consequences born over centuries, and undoing them will happen neither quickly nor easily. And within the context of capital markets, people of color are dramatically underrepresented, both as decision makers and as beneficiaries of capital. This resulting unequal and unjust allocation and distribution of capital has meant that dominant majority groups, mostly white, have benefited far more from the tools of capitalism than have groups that have been historically and currently marginalized due to race and or ethnicity. So the Iris Plus racial equity theme and its three strategic goals, shifting power by addressing racial bias and ensuring equitable representation and decision making, shifting the perception of risk through equitable deal sourcing due diligence and terms, and increasing inclusive capital to create equitable outcomes for communities of color, which is frankly justice. Differ from other Iris Plus themes and that all three goals are complementary and mutually reinforcing on the path to achieving racial equity in capital markets. You know, these strategic goals apply to all investors, not just those focused on ESG or impact investing strategies, because not addressing systemic bias has compounding effects that continue to exclude groups due to race and or ethnicity. This Iris Plus theme is a call to action and a guide to help investors intentionally integrate racial equity awareness and action and their investment strategies, portfolio decisions and evaluation of their return on investment. Achieving racial equity will require both diligent intentional processes and consistent rigorous evaluation of outcomes. And it's important to note that racial equity is both an emergent process and an outcome in and of itself, investors cannot have one without the other. What that means in context is applying the process oriented changes outlined here will promote greater equity and investors organizational operations, which in turn will contribute to the development of more equitable outcomes in communities that have been historically marginalized due to race and or ethnicity. The resources and recommendations included in these strategic goals are informed by the work of many actors, some of whom have worked on issues of racial equity over decades. So organizations using this theme should consider any part of these goals as a place to begin with the understanding that each should strive to integrate and achieve all elements of each goal. And because race and ethnicity are social constructs that are highly specific to your geography and to your history. These strategic goals are not intended to suggest exact approaches. They're not cookie cutter approaches. Rather, we use the specific examples woven throughout the theme to highlight approaches for investors to take when they're addressing systemic harm and marginalization because of race and ethnicity. Now I want to note that we've gotten feedback that a lot of the theme primarily uses US specific examples, even though Iris Plus is used globally. Don't think this means in any way that we believe that race and ethnicity are not key concerns elsewhere. Instead, once again, think about these specific examples to highlight investment solutions that can and must deeply engage with histories in specific context. Each investing organization must do your own work to understand what's needed in your geography, your region. And to that end, investors are strongly encouraged to reflect and adopt approaches that make sense within your context, within your investments, but most importantly with conversation and in community with those who are most affected. Also, I want to note for the same reason the language used in the racial equity theme at times might not fit your context. But instead, we want to make sure that you're using the terms that work best for you. In some communities it might be social justice and others it might be racial justice and others it might be ethnic equity. But what is paramount is to make sure that we are achieving and building an equitable society together. So we hope as we continue with this conversation, you come with grace and with flexibility because it is going to be required from all of us if we want to work towards a more equitable and just society. And we look to you to partner directly with each other to help build and translate metrics and goals that meet the needs of your context. So now that I've given you a little bit of a background on how we've approached the racial equity theme, I want to talk to you about how we're going to spend our time together today. We're going to have a different type of conversation. I know we're talking about metrics, but we're not going to spend the whole time reading a whole bunch of metrics to you. Instead, we want to acknowledge that there is experience and expertise right here, right now in this virtual room. And we all have a role to play in thinking about the impact of our investments from a racial lens. So we're going to have three quick action discussions grounded in the goals of the racial equity theme. For each of these three sections, the first two minutes will be a kickoff by one of our conversation catalysts. Now the role of the conversation catalyst is to share tangible steps that their organization has taken to advance the goal. It's in two minutes or less, so they're going to be succinct. But the second is to jump in boldly and apologetically with examples during the group discussion to push our thinking on what it will take to embed these changes into the broader system, acknowledging their lived experience. We encourage you to chime in via chat because we want this to be as interactive as possible. So for each of these three breakout questions or sessions, I'm going to share a little bit about a deeper context on what the strategic goal is. We're going to ask you a series of discussion questions and we're going to encourage you to stop, reflect, write questions for yourself and be ready to engage. We won't have time to dig into everyone's comments and questions, but if you have any outstanding follow up, feel free to connect with Lisa who'll provide her contact information before the end of this session so we can make sure that we do everything we can to follow up with you. So with that, let's get started. We're going to go to the next slide which shares the first strategic goal, which is about power. When you step back and you think about why we're focusing on power. Let's think about the data. Less than 1.3% of the US is $69.1 trillion in global assets and this is just the US are managed by women and people of color and just 1% of total assets are managed by black people. Why? Why are people of color not represented in positions of power and capital markets? This is going to be tough to swallow for some folks, but we're going to use active language in this. It is because of a global history of violence and denial of human rights. Western predominantly white colonialists stole indigenous people's lands. African bodies were broken and forced to till land with no pay. And their human, their personhood was used as collateral for capital to fuel economy. Immigrants were and are to this day paid less money for more work and the harshest of conditions without legal protection or support and then sometimes without people caring. Now I know this is a tough thing for you to swallow, but chances are if you are managing an asset class, the history of your returns have been built on the backs of people of color. And this is a global phenomenon. It is not unique to the United States. So our question as investors is how do we undo centuries of compounding injustice? It starts with acknowledging the individual and institutional biases embedded in the very systems we operate today. It starts with that. And so as we show you the iris plus strategic goal about shifting power. And Lissa will click that for you. You'll notice. It starts with some concrete places to start, which you'll see highlighted on the screen. You'll notice things around interrogating your own bias, making sure that there's not at their racial equity focuses within your internal organization. But what we want to do and why this conversation is different is we want to make these metrics come to life. So I'd like to invite Catherine Burnett to the stage as our first conversation catalyst to share how her organization is advancing this goal. Thanks, Ty. That's really hard to follow, but I am really pleased to be here. I was honored to play a very small participatory role in your development of the new iris plus racial equity theme. And I appreciate being invited to share a little bit about the Phillips Foundation's journey towards redistributing power. Now I will say we have only scratched the surface and we still have a ton to learn. But as a foundation with roots and two former slave holding states, we recognize that not only have we benefited from the inequitable distribution of power, but we have a responsibility to redress that imbalance. So I'll just touch on three approaches that we've used to embed an equity lens into our investment process, both to change ourselves and to change external systems. First, we changed our investment practice to encourage equitable investing. Our investment criteria originally prevented us from considering first time fund managers. Of course, many of those were managers of color, female managers and others who have been undervalued in a traditional power structure. But the data shows that implicit bias leads to a misperception of risk. So to correct for that, we had to change our criteria and we began to preference underrepresented managers. One of our most recent investments was in a first time fund manager who was launching the first BIPOC led investment fund focused on diverse founders in North Texas. And secondly, we began to actively seek investments that would not only change the diversity of our portfolio, but also help shift the power balance among asset allocators. So we invested in a fund manager of color who engages dominant fund managers in bias reduction training, which not only diversifies those teams, but also results in the diversification of their underlying portfolios. And that helps to lead systemic change. And then thirdly, we recognize that we needed to leverage our power, both financial and social, to remove obstacles that prevent equitable investment in communities of color. So we partnered with like-minded investors to launch the Community Investment Guarantee Pool, which is a new facility that's already unlocking more than $100 million for racially equitable community development and affordable housing, small business and climate solutions. We now have the most diverse and profitable investment portfolio in the foundation's history and we're continuing to work to shift the racial power imbalance. We have a long way to go and we're really eager to learn from each of you. Thank you so much, Catherine. So this is the part where you guys get to get involved. So if we go to the next slide, this is the discussion portion. We don't want to spend this whole time talking at you about this work. We want you to have a time to engage. So these are the three questions. Remember, remember we asked you to stop and reflect and write yourself notes? But think about this. What surprised you about what Catherine shared? How might you be advancing some of these lessons learned within your own organization? And what do you think it would take to embed the changes that Catherine shared and the changes that you saw briefly on the screen from what the goals were into the broader system? So I'm going to give you guys a little bit of time. But please send your notes in the chat because this is the point we want to hear from you and we want to give you an opportunity to engage with Catherine directly and see if she has any comments or other things that she would ask. So I'll give you a couple of minutes and we'll go from there. And then, Lissa, just so we don't have to keep bringing up this slide, if you wouldn't mind copying those questions in the chat so people have them to refer to. And we'll turn off the slides so we can see Catherine's lovely face. Now, Catherine, while we're waiting for people to chat, I would just love to hear from you what led to that journey that your foundation went on in order to really interrogate the role that Catherine shared. And you had to play to drive an equitable outcome. Sure. So I think what it really started with was we have a team of a really ethically driven individuals, which I believe most people in the world are. They maybe just don't understand what's ethical and what isn't ethical. But I think a real catalyst was we are under a millennial leadership. And so there was a strong belief that things hadn't necessarily gone that well for the last 400 years. And we were in a position to help make the sort of change we wanted to see in the world. So I think it was really starting with a fresh mind and hiring really ethical people. Thanks, Catherine. There's a question in the chat about how long did it take for your board to get involved in this and on board with it? Sure. So the board's really small. It is there are three family members who make up the board and therefore we really work very cohesively together. The staff and the board. So I'm not some of it came from the staff. Some came from family members who are on staff and some came from the board. But it was luckily it wasn't a matter of having to get them on board because we all shared common values. That's amazing. There's a question here about and in your portfolio is the most diverse and the most profitable right now. Are there ways do you think that you can prove that point more generally or share more details and where that data comes from? Sure. I mean, you know, on one level, of course, the stock market has been extraordinarily strong. So there is that and we haven't corrected for that. But we are more diverse and frankly, the family believes and that's nugget contributing to the conversation. The family and the trustees really care passionately about being change change agents and and they see responsibility as asset holders to change the way that things have been done. And and in that respect, it's there's a real sense of responsibility to align 100% of all of their assets. And so that's financial assets, social capital, human resources to align all of them for the sort of impact that they want to see in the world. And so that's why we really look at every single decision that we make, whether it's, you know, who do we hire is our auditor to what where do we buy our copier paper. We bring a racial equity lens to every single decision. So I know that didn't really answer your question, but I hope it provides additional context. It does, you know, you were part of this discussion Catherine when we were co creating these goals, and one of the people who are participating shared a really gut wrenching story about their work has always embedded racial equity. But for a very long time, people said in word would talk about impact and impact investing with the exclusion of racial equity and it wasn't at the center. Was that something that your organization had at the center from the beginning, or is it something that you evolved into and if so what drove that. Thank you, Ty, that's a really important distinction so I appreciate you teasing that out. No, in the beginning we, you know, we still we still and we still do of course have have the cultural conditioning blinders. So we really focused on social equity, and we framed it as social equity. It was only when, and really just in this community in this impact investing community. We all started interrogating ourselves and each other and started engaging in racial equity training is about three or four years ago. You know, about four years ago, and started realizing we can. That's not, that's not right. We can't just lump it all into social equity, it is very specifically race based. So it was at that time that the staff in particular started doing a lot of training and rethinking, and then bringing resources to the trustees to help help guide their decision making processes and that's when we really started having a very strong sort of having a very specific racial equity lens. And what has been something that has been most inspiring about this journey for you. I could there's so many things I could talk about but I think what I have to what I have to say is it's what's been one of the most rewarding parts of this journey is for the last three years. I've been speaking weekly with this extraordinary young entrepreneur who I referenced in my remarks, who is launching the very first BIPOC led investment fund that focuses on women and people of color in northern Texas and Texas Dallas in particular is one of the out of the, I think 247th largest cities in the country it's the most inequitable. And so that was a really good place to start, but I think what's been so gratifying is that is the journey that he and I have been on together of building trust and having really hard conversations where I had to say you know I I noticed you just got quiet on the other end of the line. What did I say. Did I use a word that that was inappropriate or that triggered that didn't express the meaning that I was intending to express I mean we don't really vulnerable and in all of this remotely, because I'm based in North Carolina and he's based in Texas. And it was really learning how do, how do I as a as a person of privilege and with access to power how do I show up to remove obstacles and open doors and then get out of the way and really let him shine and there were some. And that's where I get chills thinking about it's a little embarrassing but there are some times where in the beginning I remember I was sort of inserting myself into a into a meeting and the meeting organizers sort of privately said you know, he's got it, he's got this, and he needs, he needs you to not take up so much space in the room. And, and I think that's really important for all of us in positions where we're helping to allocate capital to understand we have a huge learning curve and I am only just scratching the surface as I said I have a long way to go to undo hundreds and and thousands of years of cultural brainwashing. Thank you. And this is going to be my last question for you, but I would just love for you to share for people who might have been where you were a year or two years ago what words of advice do you have as people work to shift power within their organizations institutions and systems. I would say just trust. And I know that can be hard, because it's unclear what we haven't experienced what a fair system could look like, but just trust that we can get there and that it really will be better for everyone. And there's some things that it's, you know, actually it'll be all be better off if we give up some of this unfair privilege because there's just way too much evidence about how it poisons everyone in different ways. So I would say trust and just start doing it start trying. Thank you Catherine. Thanks for your vulnerability and for your example. And I really appreciate you participating. It's a pleasure. Thank you. So Catherine just shared examples about power and I want to ask us to pull up the slide around risk, because that's the next of the strategic goal. So as you shift into this next section to interrogate risk and what that means, I want us to pause and really boil down what is risk. When you boil it down to its most basic concept risk is really just a reflection of your belief on who is and is not worthy of investment. It is masked in a set of policies, processes, scores and practices that on the surface seem objective. Yet, restricted definitions of what is risky have marginalized certain racial and ethnic groups throughout history, keeping them for participating in society's growth and prosperity. And practice. This looks like requiring land as collateral from people whose land was stolen. It looks like assessing people's credit worthiness based on an individual subjective belief in what their character is and the strength of their character. It looks like investing in people from the white dominant culture, based on potential and in communities of color, based on proof. Once again, as Lisa pulls up the screen with the iris plus metrics and goals. There are a list of specific goals and metrics here to encourage investors to revisit their processes, which on the surface may seem incredibly innocuous. It is to bias and build actively anti racist practices. You are investors, and so you understand the effects of compounding interest compounding gain, and that passively without intervention. It's going to continue to steer the ship in a certain direction. That's why it's not enough to be merely not racist. These processes policies that often seem very easy to handle are actually some of the most insidious compounding efforts of injustice. So as we're thinking about what risk looks like in practice, I'd love to invite Nick to join me on the stage to share his lived experience with navigating the perceptions of risk. Hi, Ty. Thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, in terms of navigating risk, that is something that we certainly continue to do every day by way of background. I started my investment career on Wall Street, really focusing on risk as I worked in leverage finance. So it's really depth focus. Who do you loan money to? That's really the core of how we think here at Jackmell. I had a chance to move to a private equity firm out in Utah where we supported founder run companies that are on a much smaller scale and really helped drive the growth. Super risky, but we're able to caveat that and think of that by just really doing really really good diligence and making sure that we're back in the right team, the team that could pivot as they be in the right kind of industries and really just help drive value both for our shareholders, our employee base, and really the owners of the companies. So that was pretty successful. After doing that for a few years, decided that it was time to really take my own risk. How do I go out on my own? So in 2015, left a nice cushy job where we could go skiing every day. Most of the year in Park City moved back to Brooklyn and decided to launch my own firm, Jackmell, which is incredibly the highest risk I've ever taken. It's been a hard fought battle. A few of the folks on the panel have been super helpful, including Ty from the very beginning. I think we've been successful in mitigating risk. We acquired our first business. We're able to grow that business and prove the pieces that we can take on companies and really drive value and exhibit that in March, which was exciting. It allowed you to feel a little less risky than you had a little bit of power to play with and sleep on. We've done it a second time with another business that's been growing very well, too, that we've also mitigated risk to a number of different areas as far as working with the right teams and upgrading or uplifting talent within, et cetera. And in terms of risk, we've recently crossed over into a new horizon where the goal folks in my industry are, how do you prove you know what you're doing? How do you build a team of people who will join you, believe in you, know what you're doing? And then more importantly, how do you actually get investors to really believe in your thesis as your firm, not on a deal basis, but on your firm and what you're building? I'm very excited that we have, we've recently launched our fund, which is a hundred million dollar credit equity fund, and super excited that GCM Grosvenor is coming in as our anchor. They manage $65 billion and, you know, if the team was on the call, they would say that they're very, very mindful of risk. After a detailed diligence process, you know, we're, they're finalizing some of the legal confirmatory details now, but they're coming in and they're here to support us and they really believe we are a good risk to take. So I'm very excited about where we are. We're building our firm. We're building it the right way with our partners. We're building and thinking about the impact that private equity can have on really helping families manage risk. If you think about some of the statistics out there of the 160 million people employed in the US, the government employs 24 million, but private equity employs 11 million. And what does this mean? That means of the 3,900 private equity firms out there. That means every private equity firm, like the one we're building out, employs 3,100 unique families where their job is really certainly to drive value, drive sharehold return, but to really help families manage their risk. Help families think about, you know, can you afford to go to, to buy this outfit? Can you afford to go on this vacation? Can you afford to eat? And I think as an investor, and this is kind of more of my personal background on this, I think that is the risk that we're doing. That's the real risk here is how to really help families who you are supporting thrive and flourish and do better. Ty, I'm not sure if I've gone over my two minutes. I don't have a timer. It's okay. Well, so Nick, I think one of the things that has always inspired me about the work that you do is that you know this, what it's like from your own personal and family experience on making sure that people and families lives are better. And that's central to your thesis and ways that it is into others. And I know you're super exciting over the moon for your recent investment. But have you felt like you've gotten a fair shake at having first capital and first money being a fund manager of color? And if not, how did you get to this point? Yeah, absolutely. That's an interesting question. I don't really know what fair shake means. And I say that because it's always been hard. People of color, it's a hard life to live. You mentioned a lot of things about historically wise this way. We can read all the books in the world by wise this way, but basic facts is hard. But it's the life you live and it's the life we have to pull through. And as an immigrant, I think it's even hard, whether it's language, education, etc. And so, would it be easier if I had a different background, look a different way? Perhaps. I mean, candidly, most likely, yes. Right. The stat you mentioned that, you know, less than 1% of AUM in America is managed by firms that are white male. So mathematically, I think it'd be easier. I'm not exactly sure. But I'm a finance guy. Numbers sound like it'd be easier. So it's been challenging. It's been really challenging. It's been a lot of betting on yourself. I, you know, it's been a lot of self funding and self believe, believe that you have the background, you have the education and the support network to really go out and get it. You know, there's been a couple of groups that's been amazingly helpful. A very quick shout out to Living Cities. You know, that I know Tai and today, you both have intimate relations there. They were incredible. It stepped up for me when we needed it, which was when we were launching and, you know, to help us have the working capital to the cost associated. The legal cost for launching a firm, a fund is a quarter million dollars. I didn't believe it. I've got the bills to prove it. Right. And so having the right teams in process and around you support you just makes it a little easier, but it's still really tough. And I'll say that if it wasn't for the fact that and I won't call it luck, right, because we were really, really hard to get here to invest in our first business and sell it. If it wasn't for the fact that I sold that business, I could not afford to do this. The hard facts, right? And so how many folks can actually say they can go buy a business, sell it, et cetera, very few and far between. So I think it's incredibly challenging for someone to lost their own fund. It's even harder given who we are as people. And so, yeah, very challenging. I think it'd be a little bit easier if the background is a little different. And do you feel like it's getting easier now? Was the investment from Living Cities something that helped basically put you in a position where you could attract this big investment from Grover? Yes. I think the team there has been amazingly helpful, you know, can give all the things to Demetriak, all the things like that. It's just been really, really helpful to help maneuver into a situation that Living Cities has never really done before. So very helpful in that regard. You know, the more you do them, the more you learn, you know, there are some as if I was advising other folks getting into this, I would certainly say that there are some hidden costs associated that, you know, no harm, no foul. But, you know, if the requirements are to be audited, if the requirements are, you know, to have X, Y, and Z type of insurance, et cetera. Those are incremental costs that as an established firm, it's already embedded into what you're doing. As a new firm, those are costs, right? And those are real costs, right? The auditors don't really care. If you're a startup, diverse manager, audit fees are audit fees. And so, you know, I think there could be a word tie that you like to share with me a lot is wraparound solutions. There could be a lot more wraparound solutions to really support diverse managers for starting up. The hurdle to even hang up your shingle is incredibly high, meaning the background that backing up to have, the insurance you have to have, et cetera. It's so high that I think we as an entire ecosystem could do much better for providing wraparound solutions for emerging managers. So I'm going to end with you the same way I ended with Catherine. What are you proud of and excited and inspired by and what word of encouragement you would have for the next fund manager who's looking at your success to jump in for their next step? Yeah, absolutely. The thing I'm most proud of is the impact you can have on people through ownership of companies. I've been doing a little bit of research on the staff that 11 million employees in America are working at companies that are owned by private equity. Right. And I think about it through one of my mentors on you think about this years ago. Those are 11 million unique families that are supported by work that private equity does. Certainly with with, you know, DNI and ESG, and everyone popping up an office of impact within PE funds, I think the focus is really going more and more to that. I challenged my peer groups. My peer groups are way bigger than me. So I'll just add myself to their list. But I challenge my peer groups to really think about what that means and how you can do so. I can certainly share a quick example of what we've done. You know, we've taken, we've piloted a program with one of our one of our four companies in a small rural town of Clarkville, Virginia, which has 3000 families living there, which are 3000. I just lost the word I'm Haitian right English is not my first language. And that population has decreased because what happens in rural America around the US is that folks are moving more to big cities and as a result, a lot of factors shut down. So Clarkville, Virginia is is not what it used to be called it 1520 years ago. We bought a business and we happen to be the largest employer in the town. That is a kind of fact pattern that as a as an MBA graduate that's what you read in case studies. And so what do we do with that we decided to not only make a promise publicly to double the number of employees we have supporting that town within the next 24 months. We also found a way to really just add a real value to our employee base through partnership with Cap E Q and the local government and local community college. We launched on the job college class program where employees have gained over 2500 credit hours over the last three years. And the employees have received the certificate which is allowing them to continue to grow and develop nearly nearly 25% of our employees have been promoted from that. And what's most exciting about all this is we found a way to do it for free. You know, I think when we're doing that we someone mentioned the FASA word which I recall from from high school, it was so hard to college to get my mom and dad to give me information for the FASA. So we were always late. And so the thought of having to use FASA and having to have employees pay for we just decided to shoot that down from day one. So we customized the program we found local wraparound solutions for on the job training dollars that were able to recycle and use that to pay for the courses. You know, for all of my peers out there, I'll say that we actually made a profit on that money that we're holding a reserve because the amount of on the job training dollars that we received was nearly five times. If not seven times actually the amount it costs to provide 2500 free college hours to our employee base. So given that we found this additional capital what we decided to do was to make sure that the employees would remain on the clock while we're providing the classes. So we think that was a win-win. We think that example can be replicated and happy to share more about that for the 3900 unique private equity firms in the US. I could talk to you about this forever because you know I'm super excited but thank you so much for joining us and for your example and your pioneering spirit. Thank you for having me. So the last of the strategic goals is justice. And that is actually what it's all about. In the end when you step back and you think about what does it take? What is the result of systemic divestment in communities of color over centuries? The result is inequity. And these inequities span education, health, employment. They span cities, regions, countries and continents. And if we're honest with ourselves, capital investments have often served as the rocket fuel accelerating and exacerbating inequitable systems globally. So while it's important for us to interrogate and intentionally address internal and explicit bias within ourselves and our institutions and our processes, the ultimate goal is to channel capital to serve as an accelerant to racial justice and an equitable society. So as this pulls up the examples from the IRS Plus system, you'll know in this it identifies a set of outcomes and metrics that goes beyond do no harm. The justice strategic goal urges investors to confront the dissonance within their portfolios to divest from industries that have intentionally extracted health and wealth from communities of color for centuries. And recommends an intentionality and proactivity and the long term impacts that result from the investment. I can think of no better person to talk about what racial justice and equity looks like than Janaye Queen Nazaire. So I hope Janaye joins me to the screen so she can inspire and share with you what does racial justice look like as a result of investing equitably. Thank you, Ty. Can you hear me all right? All right, excellent. Hello, everyone. Glad to be here. I have always been passionate about improving the lives and opportunities for people, because I believe in the best of humanity and justice is necessary to achieve that. I believe in our abundance. I do not subscribe to scarcity models, which was a virtue of what I like to call European imperialism and a root cause to the pain our humanity has experienced for centuries. Ty, you laid it out for us in the beginning. It was such a powerful reminder to like check check back. And so as you all experience me in the world, you will see or hear me prioritize achieving wealth and well being for black people because it's good for everyone. Scott Nakagawa says that anti blackness is the fulcrum that makes racism work and that the liberation of all people is tied to the liberation of black people. Check your history. Ty gave you a little flavor and black people's fight for freedom and how it has benefited people from all cultures and communities. This protocol of oppression is based on dehumanizing black people, black bodies, black labor and intellectual property and more. And it has permeated the way we live, work and play here in the United States and beyond these borders. So I, one of my favorite authors is Eddie Glaude and I joined him in his proclamation that we have the power to begin again. And so to begin again, we have to begin with justice. The existing systems of justice were constructed and are perpetuated by humans. You heard early on, we have power, the capacity to act. So if we constructed these systems, we can deconstruct them, we can recreate and maintain a new system of justice that is equitable, inclusive, humane and good for us all. In this particular context, when we're talking about investing, justice is about being unapologetic when investing in black, indigenous and brown people. Justice is about being okay, disrupting traditional ways of doing business to try something that is considered a bit out of the norm. In fact, justice is about interrogating what is normal, how has it been defined and by whom. Ask yourself, what do you believe and why do you believe it? Where does it come from? What's that influence? Justice is not seeing every investment in black, indigenous and brown people as concessionary or risky. I hear it all the time. And so what I would challenge us to think through is when we redefine normal, I guarantee the risk return profile will shift. Yes, it is true. Additional investment, restructured deals, evolved ways of underwriting, technical assistance, wraparound supports, and sometimes a little bit of grace will be required to close the gap that currently exists. It's called equity, which in this world we are quite familiar with, same principles except that we must acknowledge and replenish all that has been lost from the inequality intentionally built into our system. Dana Peterson has in her city reported $16 trillion loss in our GDP because of inequality. Had we fixed it, we would have reclaimed that we're leaving money on the table. And it's not, and as I wrap up here, I want to say that it's not enough to tweak around the edges. For example, post George Floyd, there was an increase in the flow of capital to black GPs. There's $3.2 billion raised and that turned into or translated into about $900 million and new capital for black founders. However, the average check size was less than $1 million, which means that for most black GPs, they have at least 20 LPs and sometimes up to 100, which is ridiculous. And this is problematic for several reasons that I don't have time to go through, but you understand. So, again, we can't tweak around the edges and drop a few extra bucks. We must recreate a new protocol in the way we do business and this protocol needs to be just equitable inclusive and simply humane. There will be a return on investment and you can imagine the leaps and bounds to be made and how we live, work and play. So we got to have a little bit of justice here. A lot bit of justice. I credit you for so much of my racial equity journey and being bold and unapologetic. It was a lot due to your example. One of the things I love about you is that your ability to paint and create the world, what justice looks like. So I know you care about health. I know you care about wealth. Yes. Paint the picture of what that looks like for us when we have equitable investments. Gosh, so like you all know, and if you don't, there's the demographics are shifting. And even with the demographic shifting the way that we're moving through and about the world, I mean, just to imagine like if you've ever gone to another country or to another place or to another community, and the richness that you get from just having moments in those places. We can actually have that every day across the world. Right. But we've been sort of, you know, boxing ourselves off. We have to think openly. We have to think globally. We have to think about sort of this notion that Keith Swahili principle because of because of you I am and I am because of you because you are. If we if we shift our mindsets to the fact that over and over again we've proven abundance in America and in the world. We can have whatever it is that we imagine, like I want my children to go to beautiful schools and have rich experiences. I want my mother who's in the hospital right now to actually have quality care and not go from zero to like 100 and in a chronic illness. I want to be able to support my community and create spaces and places and opportunities for people to dream and then realize those dreams. You know, okay, I will say one last thing and I'll let you ask me again because you don't get on a roll. A gentleman once said to me. What what are the inventions that we are without because we destroyed black bodies, black minds, because we disrupt it. Well, and that's not just for black people I do again. I really focus on this protocol of oppression and disrupting that and it is largely based on what you spoke to. But like, what have we lost because of the disruption disruption and the in humanity that we have allowed for so long. What if we lost and see too often we're putting our energy into the loss rather than the game, even when the game stands to be greater than that which we will or have lost. So, yeah, I could dream all day on this. Well, why don't you close us with one example of an investment that would lead to abundance that's crossing your desk these days. Let's see. Well, I'll say that I don't know if you all know there's a woman Lorraine Pendleton just a powerful, the powerful sister and she is, I think now a partner portfolio portfolio as a woman, a set of investments led by the women people who identify as women LGBTQ. And they, oh God now I got to get the number. What I know is that they had, they created a fund and it was my first fund to invest in as an angel investor. And we've already received I think over 30% return within 18 months, which is ridiculous because people said you know what let's go ahead and let's open up and be creative about the way we do things let's invite everyone and let's be inclusive and look at all of their various options and so like the returns that they're getting are fantastic. And it's because they said, we can make this happen. We will be inclusive we will be. We will work on purpose and so those are some things that have come across my desk I think you heard from Nick. That was not that was a labor of love, and it really required people to think differently and also look at processes specific, you know, specific points in an underwriting process and a structure process to change those. We have the power to change them we created them. Let's undo it and try something. And so those are just some examples of what's possible. Well, Janae, thank you for being a pioneer for possibility. Thank you. I appreciate you for joining. Well, we don't have enough time for this with the great news is this is an appetizer so as Lisa pulls up the slide I would love for you guys to put in the chat what's an action you'll take to apply a racial equity lens to your investment because this is going to take hard work, but we're ready for it. We're grateful for your participation and I'm going to turn it over to Amit to close us out on next steps. Well, thank you so much, Ty, and I really appreciate that you have great presentation of the purpose and the meaning behind each of these strategies. Power, risk, and justice. Thank you to a conversation catalyst he'll bring this to life I think incredibly compelling and powerful ways. And I do hope this has piqued your interest and gotten you to start to explore how you can actually operationalize this in your work. I want to give a special thanks to our partners to tie to TJ Jarman to Mahaletz and over the over 180 of you who helped us get to this point. The favorite part of my job is I get to work with great people, you know in our network and also my organization and I wanted to just acknowledge several who contributed this work for the gym, specifically Lisa Glasgow, Grace Earl, Kellendorio, and Kelly McCarthy. For you very briefly on next steps, we are looking to forward learning much more and testing these metrics more deeply in the coming months. We'd like to do that with many of you on the line and many of your friends and colleagues. So you have the experience in the space or you'd like to use this guns for your work. You have an opportunity to feed into this. We're opening up a public comment period in a few weeks to invite feedback. If you'd like to be in the loop once that goes live, please let us know at iris.thegen.org slash collaborate. My colleague will drop a link in the chat right now. And just to close this out, I think it's so important for us to really think, you know, focus on how we can convert all these great attentions around achieving racial equity into real results for people for communities for our society. I think this is an incredibly important time where there's so many folks paying attention to these issues, but we need to make sure that this we seize this opportunity for transformative change. You know, if we want a more just, equitable and sustainable economy, we have to change the way that we invest. And I hope that you can all join us and all of our partners in helping to drive that change. Thank you and take care.