 Today, we're talking about power, privilege, proximity, and proof, and the extent to which they remain systemic barriers to greater gender parity in the economy. And then the unique strategies our panelists are using to overcome them. The panel is particularly timely, I believe, on the heels of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Claudia Golden won the prize this year for documenting shrinking gaps in the economy. She described the changing role of women over the last 50 years as one of the grandest advances in society and the economy. But I think most of the panelists, and probably many of you here, believe that that progress is not happening fast enough. So today's panelists are experienced, deep practitioners, and thought leaders, not just in the field of gender lens investing, but in impact investing and private market investing all around. So first, I'd like to welcome Hamdia Ismaila, just in from Accra Ghana. Hamdia is the founder and chief executive officer of Savannah Impact Advisor. At Savannah, Hamdia manages the Venture Capital Trust Fund, a government-backed fund of funds as well as the Chigaba Progress Fund, which we'll speak about in a minute, a separate fund of funds aimed at unlocking local pension fund capital for West African investments. Hamdia is an active angel investor herself, and it had led the establishment of impact investing Ghana, and Ghana's National Advisory Board for Impact Investing. So welcome Hamdia. Jackie Zainer, founder and chief executive officer of She-Money, a new company focused on advancing women's financial wellness and agency. Jackie is a former partner and managing director at Goldman Sachs, and the co-founder of Women Moving Millions, one of the largest philanthropic communities in the world of women funding women. By way of Park City Yuta, welcome Jackie. And Patricia Sainz, managing and founding partner at Bogota, Colombia-based Ewa Capital, an early-stage venture fund that has its own unique gender lens. Patricia has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and investor, and has helped place more than 60 million foreign investments in Colombia. She is a board member and former president of the Board of Colcapita, a Colombian Association of VC Funds, and I had the pleasure of meeting Patricia last week before we knew she was on the panel in Medellín in Colombia at the Glee Forum, promo hair's gender lens investing conference. So welcome Patricia. I'd like to start with Jackie, partly because you made what I thought was a provocative point in our earlier discussions, which is that proof, or the business case for gender lens investing and increasing women's access to capital for gender parity in the economy, made no longer be a barrier to more gender equitable markets. In other words, the case has already been made that this is better business, and yet we're still not seeing progress as quickly as we should be. So talk a little about the state of proof, so to speak. Great. Well thank you. Is this working? Yes. So great to be with you. Thank you for being here, not out in the sunshine with us. I'm very honored to be my first time at Socap, so it's really fun to be here. I have a reputation of a few things, like being really fun on the dance floor is definitely up there on the list, and I'm going to launch my own protest. There's no dance party at Socap. So I know, right? We need to vote for that. Not yet. We'll add that in. But I became obsessed with research very early on in my journey. I think one of the reasons was that Goldman Sachs produced some of the earliest research out of Japan called Women Hold Up Half the Sky, and sort of making the case in the late 90s that supporting women, economically supporting women, was good for the economy. And I was so proud at that time that Goldman and some other places, not having studied gender studies in college, was sort of connecting the worlds of business and finance, which is what I did. I was in capital markets. I was a trader at Goldman with the need to support women. So since that time, I'm somewhat of an obsessive person that I would collect research reports because I couldn't find anywhere where they were collected and aggregated. And over the years, and I'm not joking, and Madison here can testify to it, I've sort of privately collected, aggregated, and distributed literally hundreds of reports in 23 different categories to support the case for gender lens investing, giving, and action. And what I've noticed over the 25 years now, and I'm not talking in the academic spaces where gender research has always sort of been around, but this intersection of all sorts of government entities, private enterprises, obviously all the banks produce massive amounts of research, CDFIs, you name it, institutions, world economic forum. And for 25 years, we have been making the case, which begs the question, why are we even making the case that women are good for the world? Like that has to happen, but yes, we're still there. So in looking at this research, what I noticed is a lot of this research sort of sat on academic shelves or even business shelves and wasn't sort of necessarily translated into practice and whatever I could do to kind of champion for that, I would do. But what's interesting now, I think the case has been made. I think my prior panel that I attended was sort of on the case of the state of DEI. I think people would say that at this point, at least in this place, and I recognize the privilege of being here in the United States, being a white woman here in the United States, would say that maybe the business case has been made, but there's a difference between needing to give the proof and what I would say using the data to drive action and using measurement tools. So it's not to say that there isn't more research that needs to be done, but I look at all the time, all the effort, all the money that has been spent to make the case for gender equality and it kind of wants me, it makes me want to throw up in my mouth. Because I think about where that energy could go if we sort of consolidate en masse around the fact that the case has been made and then really work to translate the evidence and I'm hoping LLMs and AI, we have an AI entrepreneur in the front row, can really be helpful to consolidate that data and drive us more towards action. It's interesting you mentioned the case for diversity also having been made. I feel like it's in the impact industry more broadly, this is the big frustration is like there's been a lot of effort in making the case and it hasn't moved the dial significantly. So what is the role of proof then? How do you use data if we're struggling to build the market using proof? How do you use it in your own investments in your own? Well, you don't have to convince me that women are worth investing in. I mean I have that from personal experience as an active investor both in funds and in direct companies and I think this whole conference and certainly I always want to repeat what the brilliance of prior sessions, but it just makes sense so that we want to invest in folks that have and I love what the prior session said that are closest to the problems have the solutions. So what is the role of proof? It's difficult for me to articulate because I don't need to be, I don't need it. We might need data to drive actions but I have this method like flip it and test it and then ask yourself this and I'll explain what it is. If we need evidence that women are worth investing in, give me the evidence that's hundreds and hundreds of reports that show that men are worth investing in. So I think there's sort of that challenge the assumption that's leading to the question and to me a case closed. Again, we need data, we need measurement, but the idea of proof I think we're past that. And so moving past proof, what are some of the other barriers that you are seeing in your work? Like what is explaining a lack of a bigger movement towards investments in women? Oh gosh, okay, well that's a lot into the other piece. So I mean, again, I'm mindful of sort of time and moving on. But I think power and proximity and privilege are all the other piece and I love alliteration which I hope we'll dig into are the barriers. There was a term I heard in the last session called capital supremacy. This idea that those who have money have power and that money and power come is distributed according to the beliefs and values of those who have it. So my work in the world now, especially with she money is to and was true with women moving millions which is a global community of over 350 women each have given a million or more philanthropically to women and girls causes is to help them have agency and feel the power and use money as an expression of their values and their power. I'm all for having men as allies. I'm all for widening the circle and realizing we're not in this gender binary anyways. But I believe with my whole heart and being that the agents of change are us, right? Are the women in the room that are not only going to use their investment capital but their spending power and their philanthropy. Because we understand the power of money and we're going to use it differently and I think there's a lot of evidence cuz I'm a research junkie. Especially one report that I'll call out, I think it's called Pathways to Inclusive Investment by BNY Mellon. That has one of my favorite reports over the years and I think it was last year that said especially with respect to investing. If we close the investment gap, meaning if women globally invested at the same rate as men, we would unleash trillions of dollars that are way more likely to be used with a values alignment towards the environment, towards social justice. So if you need the evidence, it's there. And then it's a question of what's holding us back individually and collecting, and collectively from using that investment power, but also the other forms of financial power. Great, thank you. And we'll come back and bring the full group back together. But wanted to bring in Hamdia, we've been discussing proof and proof points. Last month, you and Savannah Impact Advisory were appointed the fund manager of the $75 million Chigawa Fund of Funds, which is aiming to unlock local pension fund capital for investments in the West African economy and venture funds. That's a big deal. That's a big proof point. Can you share a bit about this effort and what it means for the region? Thank you. Thank you, Dennis. And good afternoon, and thanks so much for inviting me here. It's really good to be here and to see all of you in the room. So it's taken us a while. It took us about two years. And listening to what you were saying, we definitely have a lot of proof. But it's just that I think you alluded to it about power. Because those who actually have the money are not looking at the research data to be able to make decisions. So we need to have more women there to make those decisions. So we started two years ago, and it was as a result of the fact that we have deregulated pensions. And over the last 12 years, pension assets has quadrupled. And the pension money is still 95% plus government securities. So we were wondering, how could we bring some of this capital into productive success of the economy, support more women, to be able to transform? And we had conversations with the pension funds, and they said we want to do it, but we don't understand how to do it. And we actually don't think that women can do it. So it was a lot of challenge. We had a lot of conversations with them. And eventually they came out to understand that, look, we need to be able to put some of the money into the productive sectors so that we can transform and we can actually build our economies according to the way we want to see it. And it was also as a result of the fact that we have our government actually borrow a lot of money and they are also able to pay a lot more on interest. So if you are an asset owner, it makes sense to put money in government securities and go to sleep. Because the thinking is that it is risk-free and that you don't have to work hard. But when we are able to also talk to government and get government to begin to understand that when you do that, you're actually pushing private sector out of the way, government also begins to think. So we had to work between the regulator and the asset owners and also policy makers to understand what we are trying to do and how we want to drive capital at scale. And the motivation is that we need to have women as asset allocators. If we don't get women in asset allocation positions, we're not going to move the dial. Because as you said, the proof is there. So why isn't it happening? Because women are not the ones allocated. And so the whole essence of getting Chigabah to come into being is to ensure that we are able to allocate the money and then actually further proof, to actually give further proof that it is possible to support women and to make a change. So it's really a big deal for us. And we are looking forward to ensuring that we're able to build around it and really perfect some of the proof that has already been seen, but then now make it really visible for everybody to see that it's possible. You spoke to the importance of women as capital allocators. My colleague, Jessica, has done a lot of reporting on the importance of local fund managers in Africa in particular. For both the impacts that you're talking about, but also the financial performance, can you speak to the role of proximity in this type of investing? Thank you. So it is very, very important because some of them, look over 80% of businesses in Africa are small and green businesses. And I was reading one OECD report that says that Africa has more women entrepreneurs than any part of the world. So, but the business are small, so the ticket sizes are small. And as a fund manager, it doesn't make sense to me if anyone sitting in London or sitting in the US coming to do a 500K investment in Accra. It took me 23 hours to get here. So really monitoring such investment is, I believe there is a word in a door in it. So you need somebody closer to really nurture these businesses, put in money and grow them. When they are grown and they are bigger, you can absorb more capital. And then you can actually do a 5 million case sitting in New York and still be able to monitor and not really have any reason to justify to investors. So proximity is very key and we really need to ensure that we support local capital providers and I like what you are doing in Bogota. So that we build these businesses, women businesses are small, but you need to put in the money and really build them up for other investors to come later. And so the closer you are to them, the better you are able to move the needle. And I am for the fact that we should be able to support women fund managers. We need to get a lot of women into investment so that we can support other women with small ticket sizes, add more value, create, expand the business and then you are able to get others to come on board when they are ready to scale. I want to go back to the fund of funds and if you could dig in and share a bit more about the structure of it. My understanding is a blended finance fund. In what way does a structure like that help you overcome some of the barriers we're talking? In what ways do the partners that come together or the types of capital that come together help overcome some of these barriers? Yeah, so there is a blended structure because we looked, our main target is to get the pension funds and three things that border the pension funds, liquidity, risk, and returns. So what we thought of doing with a structure is to have two classes of shares with philanthropic layer where they would stay in a bit longer and then allow the pension funds to come in and out with a locking period of about 10 years which allows them, when there's a liquidity event then we can get the pension funds out whilst we have a base where it's more patient. So we're looking at foundations, we're looking at more philanthropic money to have a base. So we have two classes of shares. We didn't want to make it too complicated because the more you're making more complicated the more difficult it is for people to understand and the more it takes the boxes of risk because the risk perception of the pension funds it's amazing. And if you're a woman managing the fund in fact your risk is quadrupled. And so we needed to create a vehicle that made sense for the pensions to deal with the issues they raised because as I said we had had series of conversations with them. So there were a lot of discussion about should we get philanthropic money as guarantee as first loss but it depends upon what the philanthropic investor wants to do. We just want somebody who is staying in the long haul to allow the pensions to go and come to exit any time there's a liquidity situation. So the philanthropic capital helped overcome the increased risk perception of woman managing the fund. Yes. Perception. You've been very involved in building impact and the impact investing industry in Ghana. And I wonder the focus on impact has it helped or hurt or been neutral in addressing gender barriers? Like if you're leading with job creation or climate solution is that help get deals done? Does it help raise funds? What's the connection between impact and gender? It doesn't, unfortunately. It doesn't. So this fund, Chigaba is a gender lens fund. We have refused to call it gender lens because if you do, the pension funds will run away. Because the whole thinking is that the moment you put the gender lens on it, it's like, oh, you're going to waste our money. So we are not calling it that. But this is what we've done. We've built intentionally built systems in it. And what we want to do is that we want to over time report so that they would now begin to understand that this is how it was done. This was the intentions. And when we are very intentional, these are the outcomes. So in the next two, three years, we'll begin to publish, then they would see. But what we've done is that, for example, we are a team of five and we are three women and two guys, the whole board are women. The IC is independent, three IC, two women, one man. So we are intentionally building it in. But if you really want to achieve impact in Africa, you need to invest in women. So let me just give you one example. We invested in a soybean processing plant. He was using as well as he owns the company with his wife and they processed soybean for the animal feed and they needed to get a bigger equipment. So we invested, what, 450,000. But then soybean as a crop is called women's crop in Ghana because apparently it's difficult to harvest because it's very down, so it's women who do it. We did a backward integration investment and we supported 4,500 women to plant soybean to feed the factory. We increased women revenue for about 60% because now they have access to market. So we were able to get them to increase acreages and also improve their gaps like the good agriculture practices and increase yield for the company. So when we talk about impact, it's just not, when you read it, you don't get it. It's when you feel it on the ground and I see it all the time when I do this investment. And that is, I think what keeps me going because it's very evident and we need to begin to see this evidence right on the field. Great, thank you. Patricia, you and Ewa are one of the first women founded and women led venture funds in Colombia. You could probably say all of Latin America. As we're laying out proof points, you're well on your way towards raising your second gender lands venture fund. Can you tell us a bit about AOS trajectory? Sure, so happy to be here and I have all my friends here supporting me so I'm more than happy and nervous. So, well, it's the first fund and the only fund led by women in Colombia. So and in Latin America, we are around five. Like it's like founded and led by women and the numbers doesn't change worldwide. So it's like something that is happening and we have to change. And one of the things that I always believe is like in terms of, I'm telling you a little bit about what we did in Ewa. We did our first fund and of course it was absolutely like venture capital fund in 2015. And then when I started in 2019 thinking like, what can we do different? I realized that fund managers are more like male and then we started to think about like, okay, do the 360, this is that I was thinking like, okay, what can we do to involve more women in the whole round? So it's like one thing is like, we need more female investors. So where are the investors in the fund? And I went to find like, you know, like I was knocking on the doors and everything. And today I can tell you like in the fund, 15% of the capital is invested by women and 40% of the investors are women. So it's like, but it was something like they always invest in real estate. They always invest in what would you were saying, bonds in things like are like absolutely rich at best. So that was something that you have to change the mind and that's why we need more capital and educate. Education is something that we have to work on. And what do we do in the terms of EWA, in terms of the investment thesis, we are like a gender lens, 40% of the portfolio we invested where are female founders or where are women in the leadership positions or women as end customers. But I think what is unique and that comes there for peace is that we create a gender assessment and we realize that probably it's like they male or they men are not aware of the gender gap. And that's something that happens. I mean, they are not bad people. They are just not aware about the situation and that's something that we have to open their eyes. So it's like we started to talk to them and they are like normally white, well-educated, it started abroad. So they are like, and when I talk to them about this, they are like, no, but you know, I'm a father, I have a daughter, I'm a nice person and you're like, yes, of course, I understand that part. But I mean, in terms of your company, what can you do a little bit more? So we created this assessment that it's like three pillars and it comes for, if you think about it, it's like one is like an inclusive culture and it's like make them aware about the gender salary gap, you know, in terms of privilege. We like to hire and to invest in people that are like you. It's basically, and that's why we need more female founders or more female investors because you normally feel more better when you are with someone that it's like, I don't know, the same color, same education, same gender, same everything. So because it's like comfortable. So, and you don't raise weird or different questions, not weird but different questions. So that's the part of privilege that we try to raise with Ewa. Like, how are you involving in your team diversity? How do you hire more people that bring and give like the tools to female in your team to have a career development? No, how can we do that? So that because normally what you find in the startups and in all the stem is that first in the third level you are 50-50 but when you go higher then you finish up like having less and less females on the top. So that's what we try to open the eyes and to work with them between the organization. And the other thing is also in terms of empowerment because we always think like we as a woman we have been educated and told you know like you have to be with your family. You know, I always think and I always said that men never said something about sacrificing. They don't have that word in their mind. And we are always thinking about sacrificing. So that's the things that we're doing. So I think like in terms of privilege that is like the terms of education for women in their as career development. So we also work with them to get them involved in leadership because normally the people in education they think about finance and you know things like are like more like what you learn in the university but we're lacking is in terms of more like, you know leadership, believe in yourself, how do you empower them? What is what they really need to know? I was just thinking of something you told me earlier. So we're in Silicon Valley or close to Silicon Valley here. We hear about the PayPal mafia as former employees of PayPal go on to start other companies. Talk to us how you're trying to create such a culture among women in Latin America. Well, we're creating it and I'm so proud to say that I just invested in one company that they did that and it's because if you have more women working in a startup and they start to see how they can develop their career you know and they really see how a startup works. Then at the end of the day that's a seedbed to become entrepreneurs and very good entrepreneurs because they have their experience. I mean they know how to swim. It's not like the first time that you're gonna jump in a swimming pool. So for example in Mecan, which is the company that I just invested the two female founders, they work previously in Rapi then they work in New Bank then the other one working Cava that these three are unicorns in Latin America. So 18 months ago they started their own company and based on the experience and brought the best CTO and all that. So we see that this is happening and it's like a way to do it you know and is a way to be involved because in early stage, the as you were saying, the participation of a fund, a closed fund is very important because it's just not capital. It's like really smart capital and you have to be with them and what do they need in terms of network, in terms of support, it's not just money. It's by far a lot of more things that you need to survive. The, you also have an interesting take on proximity. We've talked about the importance of proximity but you see proximity sometimes in Latin America as creating biases in the investment process but now you're also trying to flip that on instead of making an advantage. Yeah, I think like proximity we can see it like in the way that you were saying that it's absolutely positive but there is another way to see proximity in a negative way and is what I was saying. Like one time someone asked me, what do you think if you were a man would have been easier for you to raise the fund and I was thinking, oh, yes, definitely yes because fund investors, all that, they're men. So and again, you feel more comfortable and you will be able to talk about things like more related to yourself. So that's the first thing. And the second thing is like when you're a female fund manager when you look at the female entrepreneur you get also the same thing, like probably proximity that someone told me last week in the Glee they were saying like, yes, Patricia but what if it's a solo founder and she gets pregnant? That is going to be such a problem for me because, and that was a serious question. And I was like, okay, and what if it's a solo man and he dies, that's the same problem. So when you're a solo and a solo, well you need to be the team and that's, I mean, you will have that problem but they are like, oh my God, yeah, okay. And they are more expensive and he was serious. So I always think like, there is the bias. He was thinking like, she will get pregnant. And I was telling him like, I have two kids and I'm here. So, and I'm not sick or something like that. So what's the problem? And the other thing is when you hired your team and you go and see like all the startups and who are the team? Who are the board members? My best friend, he went with me to school. He plays golf with me. We spend the weekend together. So what kind of diversity and good quality of questions are going to be in the board of directors? No. And in terms of the team, the same thing. But because we feel so comfortable to be, you know, surrender, but people that are just exactly like you. And that it would comes like diversity into that it's very good for the companies, that it's very good for the outcome, for their returns and all that stuff. So that's the part of negative proximity. If you think about that, you really like to be just next to people that are just like you. Thank you. No, I love that. All three of you have talked about the importance of women as capital allocators. Jackie, can you talk a bit more about the, you know, women's growing financial power and agency like you're doing a cheap money and what you see when women become allocators? Well, thank you. I think when women do become allocators, I think for all the reasons that you said, they're more likely to invest in women entrepreneurs that have life experiences. They understand the product need. And I think the question is why aren't more women and in particular high net worth women? Because I think we see it a lot more prevalently in with high net worth men who do a lot of early stage in angel and fund investing. And I think obviously this is where there is a lot of research to say that there is a big investment gap in general and across all wealth levels, you know, women tend to be more risk measured and obviously investing in women entrepreneurs and funds can be perceived as more risky. But I, and I think that with high net worth women and I didn't start out that way, I had a liquidity event with Goldman because I was a pre IPO partner, but I came from modest upbringings. I didn't have money to invest. And when I entered this community, but I, as soon as I did get money, I did invest in women. And I think I did that because I had comfortable. I studied finance. I worked at Goldman. I understood the numbers. And I thought there was an incredible wealth creating opportunity. And in fact, there is like one of the things that was early and very lucky for me is one of my second direct, second direct investment was in a company called LearnVest which is Alexa Von Tobel who now has two funds. She went on to sell her company within I think six years from a dropout of school at a Harvard to start LearnVest, a financial platform to mainly target women on their journey towards financial wellness. She sold it seven years later and is now I think raised the very, the biggest first time fund ever for a manager called Inspired Capital. But I got it. I got that and I, because I had familiarity with money and finance and it was natural for me when I had the resources to invest in women, what I found from the women moving millions community, so these are women who have at least written a million dollar check philanthropically so you could do the math and say, they're high net worth, ultra high net worth. When it came to investing, even doing simple things like ETFs, even ETFs with a gender lens, they would be like, I don't make those decisions. My husband makes those decisions. I'm not comfortable making decisions around money. I'm like, you just wrote a million dollar check to a non-profit. That is a decision around money. And that is why I kept pulling the lens back because honestly it made me wild. I would see women with billions of dollars literally sitting on top of foundation assets that were billion dollars, personal assets that said no to investing. And obviously I'm here. I've been involved with the gender lens investing community since it started with Joy Anderson and Jackie Vanderbogen, Susan Beagle, the rest her soul was a dear friend and just fearless advocate. And it really made me wild. And so that's why in the work that we're doing now, I kept pulling the lens back about the why. Why aren't women, especially ones that have a lot of resources, which are the ones most likely to do angel investing? And it's so much bigger than that, but angel investing, funds investing. Why weren't they doing it? And I think it comes, there's a long answer to that question, but I think it gets back to when we're talking about agency and the culture in which we are all raised currently is still, let's add another P to the equation, a patriarchal structure. And that is a structure where women are not, generally speaking, the decision makers around capital. So I think that in order to unleash the capital that can come from women, and especially high net worth women that are writing, hopefully big checks philanthropically and otherwise, it is around creating a greater sense of financial agency and wellness and healing what is often time individual and collective trauma around money. And I'll just say one more thing about that, which is if there's one takeaway that you take from my talk, look up this organization called the Trauma of Money. And I discovered them this past year, I'm taking their 18 week certification program and it is blowing my mind in terms of really unpacking sort of this idea of relationship and agency because whether it's women or folks that have been marginalized and especially in the US, African-Americans and folks that have a history of being capital, not giving and allocating capital. There is a lot of collective healing that has to happen around in general and around money that I think is key to unlocking the type of capital that is really needed to transform this idea of capital supremacy and how capital flows. I love that about you're speaking about increasing women's financial agency. Hamda, at the fund of fund level you're in a position to back multiple women-led funds. Patricia, you talk about planting seeds and investments in female entrepreneurs. In your own way, you each are talking about exponential impact on women in the roles that you're in. And I wonder, Hamda, if you could speak to that first and how you think about that in your own motivation and career. Yes, thank you. And thank you for mentioning. I mean, I love the work Joy Anderson is doing around gender and power dynamics for example, you need to get women to one allocate, sit in the position that they can make decisions. But I like what you said because out of frustration I set up what I call a lady angel network. So we do angel investment. And I decided I'm just going to speak to my friends who are professional career women like myself to do it. And the entire work I have to do it because I have to like look at the deal that comes in. I have to review it for them. I have to sit with them to explain it to them. These are people who are accountant, chartered accountant, you know, bankers. It's just that I think sometimes when it comes to relationship with money as women and making that decision, it becomes difficult. Because we have even agreed to do certain investments and they will go and come back and say, oh, I had a discussion with my husband and he thought that this is too early stage for me to do. That's angel investment you do very early stage. You know, so there's a lot that we need to do and to unpack it. I wanted to do a fund of funds because I think that we wanted to sit in a position where we can allocate and support more women managers to be able to raise. There are a lot of women managers right now coming up, especially in Africa. You see a lot of accelerators going on. I mean, two ex has an accelerator for women. We have, we just launched the Morami one, also supporting women first time fund managers to prepare them. The thinking is that who is going to invest? You know, and it's difficult to raise money. So if we have a few fund of funds running to co-invest together in funds, we can put this woman immediately at a first close to start investing. And that is how they can build that track record because as you said, it's easy for a man to raise money because you go and play golf with the rich guys and the decisions are made on a golf course. Women basically mostly may not be able to have that opportunity to go and do that. So it's more boys club but we don't have a lot of women's club and we need to have that if we need to be able to make these allocation decisions. So for me, I think one thing that we need to work a lot more on is the power issues. And you talk about privilege as well. Yes, because we went to school together and it's easy for us to do things together, right? And they begin to look at if they want to make a decision, they begin to look at oh, who is sitting where? Who can we get to do this? And it's all because of proximity and also because of the privilege they enjoy together, right? I just talk about boys club. It is a boys club meeting that will make decisions and the women are not there. So how can we get to women? And I like what you're doing about women moving billions because you need to have women to begin to think about investment in a different way to be able to really move the needle. And that is what we are seeking to do with Chigabah so that at least we can get women. I've seen women trying to raise their first funds and it's taking them seven years to do so. So how are you gonna build track record? Because everybody says you don't have track record and for seven years, we are trying to convince people that you can do it. So if we are able to back them even with warehouse capital, for them to start investing and building that track record, then we can move the needle. And I believe that when women sit in a position of power to allocate, they'll allocate to more women and we will see a lot of change. Patricia, I wanna hear your response to an exponential impact on women. But I also wanna just ask, are there any questions in the audience? I can run the mic out. All right, Joy Anderson. Thank you. Hi, huge fans of all of you. We're huge fans of you, Joy Anderson. Thank you. So, Handia, it's, and I wanna build on something that you said that was so important, which is the bias that's baked into saying the word gender and then the discounts that happen and then the, wow, that's too risky and that we're spun out of control. And then marrying that with, Jackie, I just love any time that you can go out and say, sorry, I was about to curse really badly, but screw the business. Like, fuck the business case. Like, can't we say it at this point? Like, I am so tired of making a business case for something that is obvious and we have to prove it over and over again and we've proven it, but we're still doing it. So, how do we tie together? You're doing this wicked, clever thing, Handia, in terms of how you're building out the fund and aware of all those words of privilege and power and how you're navigating that in the reality in which you're in of what pension funds need to hear. How do we find, how do we make sure that we're telling a story of the true narrative underneath it? Because at some point, all the research reports don't always tell the story we need them to tell. They're still making the top line of the business case. Anyway, maybe Hamdi, it's to you of like, we're 10 years forward and we're sitting in Accra again and saying, here's this fund was successful. What's the proof that we need, that the gender bias that discounted the fund's return was wrong? Because it's not risk, it's dumb, you know what I mean? We love you, Joey, I understand. I had no idea you were in this room. So what do we actually want to do is that right now we have built a system, we have built a measurement system and we are, we're going to track from day one. We want to do 50% female fund managers and we want to warehouse them from day one to start an investmentable track record because I think we are overtraining the women to do investment. And they are not able to raise the capital to do the investmentable track record. So we want to do that. And we also want to track the portfolio companies they're investing and how that fits into the metrics. So in the next two, three years we will have data, pure information. The companies are there, the employees are there, the products are there and these are the returns that is coming. So that when we sit to talk, it is very obvious because you see, when you read some of the reports they are very good but they look too far away for you to be able to understand really what it is. You think maybe, I mean people who want to make, who want to find reasons not to do something always find reasons because I think like you said and like Jackie said, we have built so much evidence that we don't need anybody to ask more questions about performance of women. But it is, I mean in the room you get all these questions. I didn't know that you also hear the question of her pregnancy. I hear it all the time, it's like, oh she's so young by next time she's gonna go on maternity leave. And in Ghana we have three months maternity leave. It hurts them so much that even sometimes employment they want to see, right? And it is not something that they will say it publicly but when you sit in the room with them they say it. So I think we need to just say this company want this company to this company trade these are the companies, these are the returns that is coming in. We are not making it, go and look at the companies. That's for me what I'm looking to do so that the proof is just very visible for them to see. I hope I answered your question because Joy I can't answer. Because you ask questions that you have the answers already. Can I just add one thing about this? Here's what I worry about. I worry that there's so much pressure on women fund managers and the entrepreneurs and we have a lot to outperform, right? Isn't freedom like the right to fail at equal rates that these male entrepreneurs fail? And that does scare me. I mean if we need proof and I wanna do well on my investments and we have to still recognize that even once they get their first checks they are up against a system that's rigged against them in general. And it doesn't mean that there aren't gonna be amazing success stories but we have to change the fundamental system in which we're operating at this level. And that's why it's micro and macro. It's power and proximity. And I think about that a lot because I just think there's so much pressure on I invested in a lot of first time fund managers. I made this a strategy to do so. Walkstar fund, 22 fund, Hannah Gray. I'm looking at you for all the other ones, like 10 of them. And I want them all to succeed and I sit on these calls with all their updates and hear these companies and they're phenomenal companies and then they go to Ray Series B. And the bias just gets even worse in some ways as you go up the Capitol because there's more at stake and more money. So it's just to say we need the proof but there's this balance between needing it and realizing my worst, I have horrifically performing funds and most of them are run by these male fund managers that are billionaires but no one ever even looks at their performance sometimes and they just go on and keep raising money and raising money and raising money and their funds absolutely suck wind. So they're not held accountable to the same degree that women are held accountable and I just think we need to really check our assumptions and not put so much pressure and I'm not saying you're doing it or I'm doing it but we can't say it all. We're gonna see that all these funds have extraordinary returns. It would be great if they did and they probably will because of what it took to get those first checks but I just wanna give a lot of love and support and that's why mobilizing purchasing power, mobilizing community, mobilizing everything, the networks that are gonna help that company become successful is at some point maybe not as important but you need the checks, Tori, I know I'm looking at you girlfriend. We need so much more and it can't just be, it's gotta be so much bigger than the check especially for women and people of color that are entering the world into systems that are not built to support them on their journey of entrepreneurship and founderism. Thank you and we need to wrap but I wanna give Patricia the last word. Last word. Wow. Or anybody. We thought we were gonna be here until seven. If you have a last word, please share it. Now I think like from my point of view we really need to work on education. I mean, because we need more investors. We cannot rely only in, for example in Latin America we all go for the same DFIs and they are not going to deploy all the money just for us. So we need more players and we need to unbize those players. And I think like most of the wealth managers and all that they are in a very comfortable zone in the zone of the bonds of what you were saying, the 95% and especially now with the high interest rate so they don't have to do anything. They just wake up and do nothing. So I think it's very important to talk about the impact. It's not just returns. It's not philanthropic. It's not saying like investing in women is like, oh, do good. No, we do good and we get good returns. So it's more like about education in terms of that. And in terms of the companies, we also as women have to, I believe in the power of role models. You know, the more you see women have been successful having these successful stories, showing that in all parts is like it makes the path easier because if you see that people has been successful, then you can also be successful. So we need more role models.