 So welcome everybody So glad that you are joining us for this a conversation on the rise of gender capitalism I'm Jackie van der Brug. I'm with US Trust Bank of America, and I have to say I am thrilled We are having this conversation I am thrilled to be back here at Socap in some sense where this conversation was born about five years ago at least born for me and A couple of years ago as many of you know, we had a broader track around gender And this year there's a whole series of panels started yesterday by Jennifer John and Continuing after this panel and in another conversation. So I encourage you To join in in any and all of those actually To that extent how many people were there in the conversation yesterday just curious Okay, so we're half-half something like that So we'll pick up from that and hopefully those of you who weren't there aren't going to feel too far left behind We'll try and move pretty quickly The way we're going to structure this panel is in four quarters So we're going to talk first about the external market opportunity that we see Secondly the internal aspect of how this is occurring in organizations and what is changing and then Lastly about what does this mean personally for all of us as leaders? And Then the last quarter the most important will be a conversation with you all so hopefully we'll move through that rather quickly I Want to say two things though at a start which is first of all This conversation is increasingly present in our society and in the media, which I think is fabulous been Some level you have to be living under a rock to not see something around gender or women in finance The challenge that I feel is that oftentimes that conversation is about the gap it's about what's missing it's about what isn't happening and It stops there. It doesn't necessarily get to that process of saying How do we get beyond that to insights and implementation and so hopefully The four of us here today will give you some experience some stories from the front lines in terms of organizations that are actually Using a gender lens to change things Jen said this yesterday I want to re-emphasize we're using gender By choice we're talking about Gender as a socially constructed Aspect as something that changes over time is something that's different in different regions But also because it brings men into the conversation We are On a gender diverse panel and I'm thrilled about that. I will also say about my panelists That you will notice that patients Moran ball is not here, unfortunately and Kristen Darcy has joined us Be careful who you have breakfast with because I had breakfast with her and said hey wait a second you should jump in because the IFC can't be here and We don't have Jen price, but Justin is Stepping in and has all of the same experiences and stories and everything else. So we're off to the races The one other piece of context is As we talk about gender and and we specifically titled this gender capitalism somewhat as a shameless promotion for an article that is in this month's Stanford social innovation review So if you haven't seen it, we have copies here, please take them Please go over to the main Area and sign up for their mailing list for their e pieces. It is one of the best journals in our Generic space here but Gender capitalism is really looking to bridge this aspect to say where is gender relevant to finance and where is finance relevant to gender going back and forth and To get away from that artificial divide that I think has existed Which is to say investors have said well, I don't want to be too pink I don't want to be too gender focused that would be seen as soft and traditional women's organizations Have said oh, I don't know if I want to get too into that capitalism piece I might sell out and gender capitalism is really saying let's let's create a bridge because this is a powerful way to Create increased returns To create increased impact and quite frankly to make a world that works for all of us Okay, so with that My fabulous Panelists here Ross Baird from Village Capital Justin Conway from the Coward Foundation and Kristen Dicey as I said from the Inter-American Development Bank Let's level set around the market here and this external piece Why are each of you involved in this why did you choose to have gender sensitivity in your work? The the IFC and McKinsey have done a study if you haven't seen it They they pegged the global credit gap for women entrepreneurs between 260 and 320 billion dollars billion with a B and that is driving a market case Broadly speaking that you're seeing organizations like the IFC and IDB jump into but Christian from your perspective why is gender relevant and how is it relevant at the IFC at IDB? Sorry Yes, I Think they'll turn it on for you hang on Okay, sorry, so IDB has done studies that gender is crucial for Competitive innovation Of companies and also for poverty reduction That women globally control 80 percent of the spending power Globally and that is true for Latin America as well that they make the final decision on 91 percent of home purchases 65 percent of new car purchases 80 percent of healthcare and 60 percent of computers that women it in the global place are a critical part of competitiveness and also a critical part of Development and helping people move out of poverty for us that that was a critical reason and being involved in This area having the the focus Additionally, we've done work with corporate governance and looking at the the boards and the management team of companies And that companies that have a greater percentage of women as part of the board as part of the management team are more Competitive we did a study with Deloitte Where companies with a diverse leadership team with a significant percentage of women are more Innovative and also generate higher financial returns So for for us it really is the the business sense and the developmental impact So those are great statistics and it really does get to it It is partially about women entrepreneurs and access to capital But clearly not exclusively because you went much broader in terms of the value chain of a company How accepted is that as you talk to your partners and your clients some of whom are large banks? Oh Throughout Latin America. What's the response and and are they seeing the same market opportunity that you're seeing? some of it has been an iterative process and speaking with some of the various banks our Organization covers several different markets and entities. We work With banks and financial markets. We work with corporates and agribusiness and in various Areas of energy efficiency. We do large infrastructure projects And a lot of it has been bringing data to the table to help educate them both on corporate governance Is well on the actual business practice that that a huge portion of the consumers The users of the products and services are women and having women help design them on the board making decisions is important So it has been an iterative process in going through showing them the data and working with them Part of that has also been a self-reflecting at at IDB that we have been focusing on trying to increase women's involvement in Managerial roles and our recruiting and our hiring in educating all of our frontline people and investment officers that sometimes having a conversation Where a client may come to us saying we're looking to expand this factory Can you help finance it and in that discovering ways that we can create shared value and Working with them both to expand their business but to do it in a smarter way taking into account Gender perspective that's great. We'll pick up on the internal piece also because that's a conversation that I think a lot of us are having but Justin how about the Calvary Foundation? I just have to say my hat is always off to the Calvary Foundation for their leadership in this space and for being in some sense One of the first movers in the impact space to really create a product that had an explicit gender lens But one why and then you know, what did you learn about the market for that? Sure. Well first I want to say thanks to Jackie for her leadership really in this space I think all of us and in our organizations and certainly others here and more broadly in our industry really have learned a lot from you and in your leadership and Inspired others to really make this more a part of our understanding and decision-making so hats off So at Calvary Foundation our focus has really been around Helping people invest in that the places and causes that they care about really around poverty alleviation And we've certainly seen over the last 20 years about how Investing in women especially internationally from and microfinance and other sectors has been an important poverty intervention and so we started to think certainly from some of the the work that was coming out from folks like criterion and all about Ways that we could really expand upon that And take it not just in the sector of microfinance and some others that we've seen But try to do something especially domestically which is a real challenge for us people had started to ask us How can we invest with a gender lens and the way we were really showing people was how there are microfinance institutions? What are predominantly serving women and we thought about how can we make this more a part of that the conversation in other sectors? We work with especially domestically and so that was really our Impact challenge to ourselves to see whether we could create a portfolio that would Be at least 70% domestic in the US and serving women And we got to 80% and when we look at how we came up with how we thought about this and came up with our win-win initiative was really going out there and looking for Organizations and enterprises that met three criteria that they had products and services and programs Now our Beneficial programs and products for women that was one that they had internalized this themselves And so that women were involved in the decision-making they had representation from women at the management level at the board level as well and that they were also able to commit to Work with us and try to measure this and understand this more That this is an ongoing understanding and conversation that were all part of and so Would they be willing to? Continue to report on these metrics get better at them and figure out how we can all work together so that we can Understand increasing opportunities by investing this way So as you put this product together and you were able to create this aspect of to get to 80% What was the reaction from your customers? Were they interested? Yeah, so historically, I think one of the perceptions and there's data to back this up is that women are a more inclined to be Interested in impact investing and from our experience over 20 years. That certainly is the case We work with thousands of investors and 60% of them are women And so we thought that when we launched a women's initiative because we knew that there was demand for product in the field that We would get more women our women's initiative is called win-win women investing in women initiative We don't need any more acronyms in our industry. That's for sure, but that's a mouthful So when when I seem to work but in that a title women investing in women is the Assumption that women would be investing in women and what we actually found Was that the investors were actually pretty evenly split on men and women? So I hope some of our supporters who kind of really wanted to just make it a women's thing aren't in the room Here today, but I think it's really good news that both men and women see this as an opportunity We're helping channel capital to enterprises serving empowering women and girls So that was certainly one of the real learnings from this that they're both were involved And overall we saw just broader engagement from newer audiences whether they were investors who had never thought about impact investing before But somehow investing with the gender lens or in women seemed to bring them to the conversation We saw folks that we knew for a while whether it's financial advisors or some institutional investors Looking to us in other ways And and the gamut really ranged from individuals to mutual funds like coward and packs getting involved in Through us and in other ways and so it was exciting to see that and what I would say is that you know It's not just us folks are looking to go deeper looking for new products and strategies in the space to continue to move this forward And Ross so village capital did not start out with a gender strategy at all right It wasn't wow we see a market for women social entrepreneurs But somehow your process has emerged and some of your research so tell us about that Yeah, thanks, and I just want to echo Jackie what Justin said. I think that we're having a very intentional deliberate and Really productive and I think profitable conversation that you've really been at the forefront of leading for Five years and probably longer, but I met you five years ago. It's just I your your leadership is it's a joy to be working with you so Village capital the organization I run we gather entrepreneurs for Pick your favorite term incubator like programs where we provide business assistance to entrepreneurs. We have a Investment fund that invests in the graduates and the thing that we do differently is it's all peer selection So groups of entrepreneurs are essentially the investment committee for the fund this is We didn't set out to be a gender organization, but What we have found we have 450 alumni of our programs What we have found in the most recent? Emory University manages our data They do a download every six months and in the most recent study we found that controlling for similar industries geographies That set our women co-founded businesses are earning 20% more revenue than Their peers who are men co-founded businesses. They are also Reaching they're also only raising 80% as much Compared to their fundraising targets as men co-founded businesses and I think that is across Not just our companies, but companies who applied to our program and didn't get it. That's 1500 data points. So It's pretty I mean, it's pretty substantial evidence what it means is how many of you Either personally or professionally or both Have an investment in a venture capital or private equity fund Probably everybody in the room who has Retirement plan is in that bucket even if you don't actively go out and invest what that means is your money is Very very likely being deployed in a process that is systematically undervaluing Businesses that we have evidence are at least as profitable if not more and if I came to you and Brought women out of the country but said it brought women out of the conversation But said your fund managers are actively maybe unintentionally but actively choosing less profitable businesses You would say fire the bomb terrible Um But so the peer selection process we designed we didn't it wasn't a gender strategy It was a strategy to remove the implicit biases that investors have all the time when they make decisions You know I went to the same university as this person, you know our sons go to the same High school like stuff stuff that really doesn't matter But drives investment decision-making all the time and removing that democratizing the investment process Has been really really effective for women. So for example 25% of our participants in our accelerator programs are women we The average technology accelerator program has about 8% women across the board So we we try and actively over sample 40% of the companies that have gotten funding through this process or women co-founded And it's it's and talking to our women entrepreneurs who've gotten investment We hear some version of I felt like got a I felt like I got a much fairer shot in the peer review Then I ever feel like I get pitching any number of funds So I think calling out and identifying the biases that happen in day-to-day Investing that are working against businesses that are outperforming is is how we got here. That's great And I I think to just underline some of what we found fascinating Sarah Kaplan and I read this article in terms of Ross's processes It wasn't assuming that this the women needed fixing right that that we just need to have women pitch better It was saying let's look at the system Let's look at the process and see is there a place where the process maybe isn't making the best decision and In some sense with village capital is saying is wait There's a market opportunity here because the market is not correctly valuing the market doesn't have perfect information I'll also tip my hat to Pax Over there and and say Pax world has been a leader in the public markets in this space and has just launched a global Women's Equality Index with Elevate. They're asking the same questions in the public markets, and I work at US trust We have a women and girls equality strategy again investing in public companies that we believe are thoughtful about About how they engage women as consumers as Christian was saying as employees and as agents of global change and Personally, I think that the companies who are not doing that are Going to have trouble long term because one they're not going to win the war for talent Right if we look at the business case and say women are over 50% of the graduates undergraduate masters PhD now What's the war for talent look like if we look at design and women being in the consumer seat etc. Etc. So just to say we're talking here mostly about private investments but this is a conversation that is happening across the board and it's Not happening as a values-based way to lose money Right. This is happening in a way that investors are saying this is smart investing If I am not looking as Catherine Collins said on the panel yesterday if I as an investor I'm not asking a drug company about whether they have sex disaggregated data coming out of their clinical trials I'm risking a lawsuit from women if the drug Operates differently if I as an automobile company. I'm not testing women in the driver's seat Which by the way we didn't do until 2010 Maybe I'm risking some real problems So this is you know the the piece there and again the women and girls equality strategy at US trust the performance numbers last year 360 basis points above the S&P 1500 so again all of this is just to bookmark this part of the conversation the market opportunity Okay, so let's go great. There's this market opportunity out there and and how do we get there? so just and I'm going to start with you because The Calvert Foundation has been a leader in poverty alleviation a leader in finding organizations that are both Good investments and making solid change and yet you said well wait What if we added gender is it adding gender? How did how did that play out and what did it mean internally for your processes? sure What certainly was I'm quite a bit of evolution internally We're talking about that it really galvanized staff internally to think across the organization get teams together From from risk management and investment originations and marketing and sales and all of that In some new ways to kind of think about how this works from both a portfolio and risk management perspective as well as an interesting opportunity that investors would really like to engage in and I Think that that we really saw how and this is something that we could take from what we had seen as Having been done and demonstrated in certain sectors and try to bring this conversation to others Because really gender is something that goes across all of the different Impact sectors that we work in so in affordable housing and in small business and health care and Education and fair trade and sustainable agriculture things like that How can we really have this as part of the conversation and we did it? One it really is an experiment to kind of see where it took us But really with the belief that it would open up a number of different opportunities and and we didn't know exactly How we would do it especially with as I mentioned before our interest in trying to do it more on the domestic front Where there were less kind of pure play women investment options so to speak But we really found that the people were we're doing a lot More than than we understood so one it allowed us to kind of learn from them But also allowed us to have a conversation with everyone around This is a way to to open up a number of different opportunities And so we were really thrilled with the response that that we saw especially on the portfolio Development side domestically and that we were able to get over 80% of the the fund so far Deployed domestically, and I think that we're really just starting to learn from that right this is all part of an ongoing conversation And oh, we'll get better I think people will start to see other opportunities when they have this focus So Kristen on the on the internal side you mentioned the importance of a champion Can you talk about this process at IDP and and how a champion makes a difference? Sure the the Inter-American Development Bank has kind of three different vice presidencies one being the the private sector That we think is is key and crucial to development We also have a sectors presidency within that we have a group that just focuses on gender and diversity So within our institution we're privileged to have a group of individuals who their main focus is Gender and diversity they're located throughout our borrowing member countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and really our experts At the the country level and on the subject matter of gender and diversity our final is our vice presidency of countries who have specialists at the country level and gender and a country level and cultural level is very different even within certain countries Like Peru or Columbia when you look at some of the indigenous communities Gender is very different on that level as well So I think IDP was lucky in the the sense that we do have this large group that had a focus on gender and diversity We had an EVP somewhat a few years ago come come Into to power Julie Katzman who's really been a catalyst at driving women on the agenda for us externally and Internally and with that that there's been several initiatives that we've had First IDP has several different groups working on many different things in several different countries We we took together and said within the institution. How do we? Identify what are best practices? What are other people doing and how do we cross? Polynes something that may be happening on the public sector with something we can take to the private sector We also have had some Institutional changes and in looking at what is the balance of gender that we have internally IDP really tries to walk the walk as far as what We do on energy efficiency or climate change etc. And so we've really made an initiative for all of the staff member roles We usually have panel panel interviews and we try to be more conscious. What's the gender balance? Not that we're we're hitting quotas or anything else, but be Cognizant of what is the gender balance on any given panel? within the the bank and trying to look at opportunities for for women as mentors We have a women's network within IDP. That's been very helpful And we've taken that across to our clients as well that we we do have the advantage of having this group that does focus on gender But to work with different institutions and we cover several different sectors But for instance we created a women in banking line that a lot of banks don't realize the the opportunity of lending to women And there's an educational process that goes along with that in helping them work with it And it was amazing how a couple of the banks started this as pioneers And now it's something that all of the banks realize or a lot more of the banks in Latin America Is realize that this is a value proposition and there is training that goes along with that so a lot of times We'll pair technical assistance with some sort of funding to allow them to deploy funds in a smart way what's Underlying this if as I listened to you in the context of the panel yesterday and some of what? Willie foot from root capital shared is at some level Almost a warning label that I might put out right which is to say there's an amazing business case for starting to be gender aware in your products and services and to develop gender-inclusive businesses and Warning it will come back and transform your organization Right, it is not a conversation that can only be had about what you do with your clients And it's really wonderful to see Willie I think talked about it as an excruciating and exhilarating Journey of relooking at root capitals organization So Ross you've been on this journey Did it did this realization change your process or did it change anything about how you're? Your whole system works or where to go? Yeah, I mean I would say that For us The cycle in which we work with an entrepreneur is We have Programs we recruit for programs. We have when we started to see that At least on a on a company performance standpoint It seemed Peter from Emory is the guy who manages our data Peter It the data seems to suggest is that is that the right can I say that? The caveat of a researcher the data the data seems to suggest that women companies are out performing But we find okay. Well, we had you know eight percent of applicants are women So we say okay well if we want better companies then we want more women coming in the door so we start to look at our recruitment process and We find that the just the process of applying to a thing or pitching somebody is Women and men respond differently Men have nothing except an idea on paper and they say I'm ready a woman's been running a business for five years and say I'm not ready yet This sounds great, but I'm just not there and so our recruitment conversations with men are actually more like like One-way marketing conversations. They're like they're like okay. I get it Let me tell you about why you should accept me to your program and our recruit conversations with women are very much Especially if it's a great business Here is why we think you are ready for a program like this even though you don't think you are ready and so If you want a so yes seeing Results that got us very excited make made us think about every step of how we work as an organization including the the very intake and how we talk to people that we might think about Wanting to work with in an inclusive way So that aspect I think transitions us from this internal piece to a question of personal leadership and I I think there's a parallel session going on that Is fabulous right now in a conversation about multi-lingual leadership and to me this Provides an opportunity to talk about leaders who actually understand gender and finance as a Multi-lingual leader and in some sense. I think Ross what you're demonstrating is multi-lingual leadership, right? I'm able to Think about my whole process and understand how men and women relate in in their cultural context to it So I'm going to put you in just it on the spot initially and say as men who I see as gender inclusive or multi-lingual leaders What's it like and and do you have any advice or sort of reflection on that? Interesting question. I think for me. It's it just seems more natural Since just thinking about my my background and certainly career path when I was thinking about when I was getting ready to Think about this panel. It's like wow. I'd never thought about it before, but I've always worked for women-owned businesses or women-led organizations internationally and then since getting more involved and Sustainable and impact investing more than a dozen years ago And so it's just been been part of it and but one of the areas that I really do Work in more now is the kind of the more traditional financial services industry and trying to bridge some of the gaps There between that and impact investing and it's been really interesting and kind of shocking sometimes when you go Some of these conferences you can count the number of people sometimes on one hand or two that are people of color And maybe on one or two hands the number of women and I was just at one with one of your colleagues Jackie At Mara Lynch who ours in the back of the room and I was like this is a quite an interesting Conference she said this is nothing like it is in the bank We're just talking about this is kind of an old boys network and there wasn't one speaker at this conference of Had a couple hundred financial professionals not one speaker was a woman and so I think part of What my role is and some of that a responsibility is to you know Just get involved in that conversation and and and just share that observation And and how that maybe some ideas on on how That conference and other venues and decision-making is around that can be more inclusive So that's certainly one thing But I think more folks will really get involved once we continue to see that the data and the stories that continue to show that involving women in decision-making is More effective And and so it's coming. Hopefully we can continue to Help be a leader and make it come sooner because we all wish it had come a lot sooner than it has But it is part of the understanding and let's continue to move the needle Yeah, I would say I would say that I First of all everything he said second the most important thing I think that we've Learned and we've done a lot of things poorly in Village Capitals history the one thing that I think that we've I'm really proud of how we've been able to do is is attention to detail in process So for example the reason why we have this data is because we set up a process three years ago That's in that's rigorous that means we can send data to people and they take it seriously versus, you know XYZ anecdote and I think that That is something that women are particularly I think much better than men at in general and that is something that organizations in the Investment world are not particularly good at I think because they are they are men run and so I think that I I mean the smartest person I know in the world is my mom my mom is If and has and knows my mom my mom attention to detail the process is my mom's Thing and if that's like the one thing that I inherited to my mom that made me to be able to be a To work well with really incredible women leaders I've worked with a lot of incredible women leaders as we've as we've gone down this journey I mean we have we are if you are at the plenary tonight along with our partners Chilton Capital in USA And the Sorenson Center we will be announcing a new fund that is run by my partner Victoria Fram a woman fund manager, I think Woman makes a better fund manager for a fund like us because it requires to do what we do well requires Specific attention to detail to process and so I I pull that out as one specific example where It is something that a lot of men leaders don't Get and it makes it a really a really difficult environment for women to work in when there's not When when people don't care about the process of how you of how you get places I That's that's just one example of where I feel like we've we've we've been effective interesting so person can you pick up on Kristen, I'm sorry can you pick up on the Multilingual leadership piece just because you have an unusual opportunity with deep gender expertise in your organization in terms of What that has meant either for you personally or as you've seen In some sense the I don't want to necessarily say there've been epiphanies But maybe there have been in terms of how the loan officers have been trained to understand gender Yeah, so Working in Latin America working in banking there. There's been several times where I'm sitting in a room and I'm the only female I Think for for a lot of the women that do work in banking or in Latin America that that's the case I think part of it is bringing the awareness, you know, sometimes I'll use You know humor or something like wow Don't everyone stand in line for the women's restroom or you know, whatever whatever it may be that that sometimes I think that there isn't the awareness so I think that to the extent that you can bring that up We we try to in working with companies We try to do that via data and sometimes just awareness that that even in in speaking Sometimes examples a whole speech could be given where it's he did this, you know His whatever and and bringing the awareness to people of you know, sometimes say he or she or throw in a Female example, but as far as that the training that we had at IDB there are several Initiatives that we've taken and kind of broken out and tried to take across the various sectors that we work in Climate change is one of them gender and diversity is a another and for that we've given our officers training and speaking with various Companies and and how to be aware of some of these issues that whether it's you're working in an Agribusiness and you have a lot of female workers and how what is the importance of having Work-life balance can help you attract and maintain better talent and thinking about some things that maybe men don't think about, you know A lactation room for instance and we've done that kind of in the organization and outside the organization and Trying to help people that may be working on an infrastructure project try to think through are there elements of Gender that isn't doesn't have to be the main focus of the project It may be an expansion it may be something else But are there elements asked that the questions to see is there an opportunity for us to offer? Technical assistance to help educate the leadership team on that and areas of gender both opportunistically From a market perspective or internally from an organization perspective to improve the organization to help attract and maintain talent and to bring the awareness in having those conversations of What is the mix of the team that you're working on because there have been enough studies that show that there's better Innovation and competitiveness when you do have diverse teams and when you're creating that diverse inclusive environment So Maybe to wrap this piece. I hope you have heard as each of you probably are out there thinking about your own leadership and the opportunities that There is a real business case here, but you have to make it just going back to the beginning all of us have said in different ways Things shift when the business case is made There's an aspect where you do need yourself to step up as a leader and or to identify Other leaders with you right and around this room There's a set of folks doing that and I think again underlying this multi-lingual leadership We didn't talk about it all that much here, but I strongly believe that part of this is also the ecosystem aspect of things So I'm going to give a shout out to Oxfam and wise that's in the room because of their work and sort of saying it is about Funding it is about technical assistance, but it's also about the policy advocacy piece And so bringing all of that together We can go anywhere you want in the Q&A on any of this stuff So with that over to you all and let's continue the conversation. I think we need to give one of these My name is MJ doctors I work with Sama source and I'm heading up a new venture there And so have been delving into the world of venture capital and all sorts of various funding Possibilities and so one thing that I struggle with a little bit and be curious to get your perspective Is on this tension that I see between going okay? Well women are what 40% plus less likely to get funding from sort of the establishment Let's maybe go off and form our own club or let's go to sort of women led women only Investment sort of institutions versus well, let's actually recognize that we are excluded from the establishment And let's try and change that establishment from within and I see sort of pros and cons on both sides And would just be curious to get some of your thoughts on that It's that's a that's a great question and we've We've talked and published a lot of our numbers around women and every time an article like Jackie's which you should read comes out Somebody comes to us and says this is great. Can we do a? Women only village capital that's we probably got asked that question more often than any other and we First time it happened we go to our our women entrepreneurs our alumni and say how would you think differently? Would you apply if we did the same thing that you came to but it was women only and They're subset who say yes, but most of them say No, they say listen I am going to need to be competitive in a world that is biased against me at some point and It seems to be kind of delaying the inevitable if I were to go to a women only except What I what I really liked about this process is it Looked just like the day-to-day world except for this one bias that really screws me over was removed from it So, you know changing the larger system on our very small subset of the larger venture capital system was more important than You know setting up a parallel universe that our women entrepreneurs think is a half a bridge to nowhere Yeah, I'll just say as a piece of this because we get the question a lot as well. I think it's Can be a false dichotomy, right? So I like to say yes to both, right? I think that we need Gender specific Opportunities there are lessons that are learned from women focused incubators that then can get Spread across the entire industry. There are fabulous funding organizations Ostia in the room And others who because of their focus on women entrepreneurs have enabled other organizations to see what they would have otherwise missed And we need to change the system. So yes both Over here. Hi Jenny Harms. I'm with the Hitachi Foundation. I just wanted to add a comment to this conversation We work with Village Capital With a number of their cohorts in the United States and what's been really interesting to me particularly this year with the health care Cohort is there is a woman in there who is making a breast pump for women who are going to be able to To work and not have this cumbersome breast pump and the men in the room don't get it And so I think to your question It's the opportunity for her to educate the male entrepreneurs in the room and the male investors But it's also an opportunity for her to learn how she needs to communicate in different ways depending on her Her audience and her situation, but it's a really really interesting dynamic So I think men and women have to stay in the room together to keep moving forward sure Translate ability of this issue to other aspects of diversity. So do your funds do see market opportunities across race across sexual orientation? Ability class faith are these other areas that you're looking at or is gender more important? We at IDB we have a group that's called our gender and diversity group and we look at both of them and approach both of them very similarly Diversity, you know, either after descendants or working with indigenous people is something that that we need to think about and we take an approach where There's several different levels that we're working at at the same time One of them is that the ecosystem we start as early as looking at education and making sure that education is reaching people that there's different approaches to Tapping into an indigenous community and trying to bring them into mainstream There's different approaches to bringing in women women in STEM is something that that that we work on a lot Trying to make sure that their scholarship or student loan opportunities for groups that that may not have the same access Trying to make sure that they're incorporated for instance in in education It's very important when bringing people from indigenous communities Into if they go to to a university or a school that's out of their main area that they're they're able to be absorbed So I think everything from the ecosystem looking at the the policies on the public side to make sure that that both gender and Diversity including kind of indigenous people diverse populations after descendants, etc are included and having the conversation Both educating people are our investment officers that the people on the front line having conversations with companies to have that Conversation have you looked at your organization that both from a gender perspective and other diverse populations? It's important to have that representation And here's why and we walk through them and show them data and start them thinking about not only from a business perspective But from a human resources perspective Have you taken this into account and make funding available to be able to do that that we have for instance lines that we specifically give to banks to be able to Onland to women or diverse companies and try to take that through that the whole ecosystem from educating people to providing mentors to having people aware of the situation and to be able to have those conversations Yeah, and I would just add You know being in a very diverse organization a Calvert Foundation whether it's women led But also diversity in terms of language and having multilingual leadership in terms of having financial and social impact and and other Chops amongst our staff that it is really important internally for us as well and we've always wanted to For many years gathered our internal metrics and shared that with other like Organizations and our space because we think that's important to our success to one of the points that's been mentioned a couple of times We often have investors visiting us financial services firms to kind of understand us Underwriters things like that and one of the ways that we have a lot of really interesting and important conversations is showing them our lactation room Right as we're going around around the office. So it's it's something that we have really internalized But we are collecting a lot more overall diversity metrics in terms of populations of color and indigenous Populations because we do think overall not just on the gender side, but equal opportunity is really important Necessary for us to have better businesses better companies etc Yeah, I the only thing I would add is Similar to the way applying for things has an implicit bias against women Looking and if it is a topic that we're really interested in there's a panel that I'll be on at 245 with Frida Cape or Klein Who's done a ton of work in particularly Latin American and or lat? African American and Latino representation is what I meant to say in the tech startup world and things like Work for a very low salary and get all this equity is great if you're a 24 year old with no kids if you have student debt or Kids who can't eat equity It's not so great And so there are things that are common practices that everybody does that exclude women from investment pipelines exclude people with kids from startups like they and There will be a long conversation about that that would love to have you be a part of It's interesting just to add from the public markets standpoint because I think what you heard is a resounding yes right a resounding yes that there there is These things are similar in different ways so to speak but we like we have a women and girls equality strategy We have what we call a human rights and recognition strategy that looks at how companies are thoughtful at engaging across diversity in terms of sexual orientation and and race and Again, we think that that means that the companies are better long-term investments Hello, my name is John Latte. I also work for a Sama source. We have a lactation room by the way All of you sort of alluded to this but I was curious to get maybe a deeper dive on how you see this issue of gender Changing depending on what geography you're in, you know We give digital work to women overseas and also do ICT training here in the United States And we're finding it's it's a very different story to give a job to a woman in a village in India Where women are not traditional breadwinners and where some aren't even allowed to work Where we have to find partners who will you know gather up all the men in the village and get an agreement from them to allow You know the women there to actually go and earn a living It's very different from like trying to Help a woman say in the Bayview district of San Francisco support herself where she's expected to work But she's a single mother and is also trying to raise three kids and can't work during, you know Typical office hours so just like how gender I guess like changes depending on geography like a little comment on that So I think the answer is yes And one of the pieces that I will put out again to one of the leading organizations in this space the women's Women's World Banking who had one of the first women focused equity funds in microfinance is that their founder will say the reason women Women's World Banking is successful is because they realized that what it was going to be like and Haiti was not what it was going to Be like in the Ivory Coast and they let women in each geography create a appropriate construct and and set of operations for that particular culture So I think it's a hugely important piece We can obviously learn across cultures, but but we have to to respect the differences Yeah, and certainly we've seen that a covered foundation and an impact investing more broadly across the different sectors and Domestic and in many different types of cultures Internationally that there are a lot of other Elements that they really need to be factored in to make sure that the strategies are Appropriate and inclusive and there's really strong buy-in. It is not something where We can walk in with what we think of as an appropriate gender and inclusive strategy and say this is What we think that that we should see and what we expect it's really Looking at the conditions on the ground and where communities and organizations and businesses are Kind of seeing where that is and just having a conversation about You know how how it is today? What are some of the barriers? What are the challenges making sure women are at that table to and then seeing how we we can improve? Together, we're not coming in with a development strategy. That is not our approach We want to know what the the needs are there and see how we can support them and just You know continue to work and have the conversation together around gender to Yeah, and at the Inter-American Development Bank We do have gender and diversity specialists that that cover the various countries and even within a country It can be drastically different in the various indigenous communities So we're always incorporating that that knowledge and expertise that we have specialists that that are just focused on that living In the country as experts of that country and working on any given Project that if it's a company and they're they're you know national or that they they want to go You know from a regional to a more national level to take those type of things into account Of course is very important that it is very different from country to country and a lot of times even within countries And then we also have the the advantage that I believe I'd be has the most 50 different countries represented within the organization So we're we're able to have that conversation tapping into to someone on a team That's from you know several different countries talking about the problem or having that conversation even within the Organization So I'm realizing we probably should wrap here and let you all get to your next sessions But I did want to ask the panelists just as the conversation has evolved For a summary comment potentially a tweetable comment if you want Just in terms of how you see the the gender capitalism opportunity Both now and in the future. So any you don't want we don't have to go in any order, but How many characters do we get now used to be a hundred and forty or hundred and forty five Well, I think that there's I'm glad so many people are here and part of this conversation Thanks to Jackie and the other folks here Let's continue to work together a lot of resources from Jackie's book and Article and same for social innovation review and all that I hope you check out. I know us sif has a one pager really about For financial professionals really about investing with the gender lens that it comes out I think in a couple weeks so beyond the lookout for that but in terms of a closing a tweetable comment maybe In the vein of moving from the why which I think a lot of us in this industry understand why this is important and Our understanding will continue to deepen but move to the how a little self-serving but on the how but maybe something Along the lines of invest with a gender lens today at win-win. That's our women's Initiative and all types of investors whether it's twenty dollars online or through your brokerage account or whatever You're interested in contributing to this that there is an action step there on the investment front And there are others out there so continue to explore Thanks Yeah, I would I would sum it up and say ask yourself why specifically is gender capitalism important to you and What specific problem is standing in the way of the reason why it's important to you so for us? In my day job, I mean there there are all kinds of ideological social justice reasons why gender capitalism important But in the things that I get measured on every day if we are not Proactive about giving women an equal shot to men We are actively pursuing a less profitable investment strategy and that is a bad thing so what is standing in the way of? More women in our accelerator cohorts is something we think a lot about for example, so We don't just do gender capitalism to do it. We do it because if we don't do it We are intentionally making Bad decisions and so I would I would ask yourself that same question and Ask it from a pragmatic angle and you can start to think about the two or three things you can do when you leave this room Yeah, I think that the inclusion of women is essential for developmental impact and also critical for business competitiveness innovation and success IDB has some great examples. We for the private sector recently rolled out an app that you can find on the app store We also have a private sector blog and also a gender and diversity blog our most recent entry is STEM minus women equals a private sector problem Great and I guess I would say so for me gender capitalism is a proven market opportunity and it's an emerging practice So proven market market opportunity Just take a look at it and see where does it fit for your particular? Situation but the emerging practice piece is really an invitation for you to join the community to not feel like you have to figure It all out now, but just start start with something start with one piece Don't feel like it has to be a holistic and then There are so many different experts here and in this room So raise your hand if you have questions and thank you. Thank you. Oh last thing There is a group of practitioners in this space joining together in about two weeks or something called Convergence it's hosted by the Criterion Institute Which has been a leader in this space for a long time and if you want to know more about that See me or Suzanne Beagle or someone? Thanks