 First of all, Natalie Molina Nino, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Known Holdings, but also wrote a book called LeapFrog, The New Revolution for Women Entrepreneurs, which apparently by the book authority was described as one of the best CEO books of all time. So, as a fellow author, I'm kind of jealous of you already, but fantastic, congratulations. Then I bring up Santiago Alvarez, who is a co-founder and managing partner at Alive Ventures, based in Bogota, and last, by no means least, Eliza Roddy, who was recently joined the Sorenson Institute to oversee the impact investing work there, but was previously running the US investment portfolio of Acumen Fund, which I think was one of the first funds that ever got me really to understand the role of impact investing that's done as an impact first, but a long-term investment strategy in breaking all the rules of capitalism as it then seemed to be when they started. Cooper mentioned, as we start off, the social progress index, which I helped co-found, and I just wanted to make a little plug for something we've just done for anyone that's interested in community and economic development, which is social progress index measures using 12 different components that are outcomes for a place ranging from things like, do you have basic healthcare and water and through to access to higher education and the right to marry who you want or to practice the religion you want and so forth. Thanks to MasterCard's Center for Inclusive Growth, we have now just rolled out the social progress index to every zip code in the United States, which we believe can allow you to compare your little community down to that level with any other community in the country and if you're focused on the US and see how your community performs on those outcome measures, which I think when you look at places with similar income per head, it could open up a quite revolutionary conversation about why is your community doing better or worse than very similar communities across the country, so I do encourage you to have a look at that data, because I think moving to a much more data driven framework around performance of communities for their people is one thing that needs to happen. I wish I'd known we were having this conversation because I would have tried to hang the panel here at this conference to talk about it in more detail, but what we are doing with this panel is bringing together three members of our curation group that are part of an effort at SoCAP to bring more minds together to help make sure the program is exactly addressing the key questions that need to be addressed right now by this community, and the three panellists have all been part of that curation, so one thing we are going to be doing in this session is really talking about the thinking behind the choice of panels that is going to unfold over the next day or two on this track, and I guess also a discussion of which panels you wish you'd be able to pull off, but weren't able to, but also which ones you really are excited about to give you a sense of maybe how to plan your program over the next day or two, but also I want to at the same time get some insights as to how the three of you see the world right now, what you are wrestling with in your own work, and the sort of questions you are hoping are going to be addressed over the next day or two in these panels along this track, so I am going to start straight away with Natalie. Just give us first of all a bit more about where you are coming from, your work, why this topic of community and economic development matters to you. Sure, actually initially I think as the tracks were coming together because of my background and also the purpose of my company, we invest in all sorts of things, but we have a special emphasis and expertise and access into BIPOC-led, BIPOC-led funds, BIPOC-led enterprises. The I think natural direction was putting me into the DEI or something conversation around diversity, and I really wanted to focus on community and economic development because at the end of the day, almost related to your index, we know that everyone's life, economic life, happiness, all the other measures is raised when a community is leveled up. And so where I'm coming from is through that lens, and so if you see a lot of people both because of the policy of SoCAP and because of my access, if you see a lot of Indigenous people on our track speaking, if you see Indigenous-led revenue-based finance, Indigenous-led VC, if you see actually there was an impromptu cancellation because somebody got COVID for the reverse shark tank one that we're having tomorrow and we replaced them with the first Indigenous person to own an investment bank on Wall Street. So these are the things where sometimes excuses get made. It was like, it's the last minute, sorry, we have a panel of only men or we have a panel of only, you know, we didn't have this group represented. I think that one of the things that, if the question is where I'm coming from, is those accidents don't happen if I'm here. So Liza, same question to you. Yeah, I think I come from a background that's been, you know, for the last sort of 20 years of this movement of impact investing been trying to demonstrate the ability to use traditional tools of capitalism for impact. And I think as someone who's been involved in that from both the legal side and the investment side, I think we've shown that that is possible and something I'm grappling with and I think a lot of people in this room are grappling with are thinking about, okay, we've done that. What are the shortcomings of using some of those traditional tools, particularly in sort of the venture capital context, which is where I'm coming from. With a very heavy impact lens, I was focused on building a fund tackling challenges of poverty in the US, but using very traditional venture capital tools. And I think at this point in my life and in the life of this movement, I think there's a lot of curiosity and exploration very much needed around how do we, how do we get a little bit more creative about the tools we're using and where wealth accrues when businesses that we invest in are successful. How do we make sure that we think about sort of every step of that process and if a business is successful, the employees of those businesses should be successful. The community members around that business should share some of that wealth-building opportunity. And so I think that's where I am coming from right now is really beginning to stretch and think creatively about how to use different kinds of tools in this space to really enhance the ripple effect that occurs with investment. In Santiago. Yes. Matthew, I'm born and raised in Colombia. I lived there my entire life with the exception a few years abroad. But I've been over the last 15 years sort of deeply focused on trying to find ways to address the inequality that we live in the region. Latin America is an incredible place full of opportunities. If you compare the natural resources, even the quality of institutions, the population, everything, it's just really poised for success. And still is a region facing enormous challenges. And one of the biggest concerns that are things that bother me is the inequality gap that we have, which is the biggest of across the globe. And therefore, I've been trying to work and spend my time in finding business model solutions that are trying to address that from a scalability and sustainable perspective. But also, I guess in the early days, there was just the belief that it was just kind of... If you take it a cautious or conscious sort of investment approach, that would be in general kind of a silver bullet to provide well-being to others. And actually, 10, 15 years first forward, I think the general concept prevails, but there is so much more than that to really be able to have positive impact in a community and to be able to really address inequality. And I think what I was excited about this track, when we entered the discussion, is that it is really about doing double click in terms of different approaches to try to solve a specific need or a specific challenge. The venture model is not silver bullet to investing in early stage. There are other alternatives, but it's not a silver bullet either when you think about illiquidity in the region. So really have that thoughtful approach and consideration and analysis to understand what has worked, what hasn't worked and how we can do it better going forward. It's really what this track is about. Great. I think the first theme that, as you guys met beforehand to consider what panels to have here, the first theme that you really coalesced around was power dynamics as a huge area in community and economic development. And as I've been thinking about that, it feels to me that this is the year where power dynamics at almost every level of the world are in play in ways that are highly unpredictable. And if you look at the people I would see as my community in having been working on impact issues for 15, 20 years or more, I think this has been a year where suddenly there's a pincer movement coming from the one side which is people who politically are very fearful of what they might, the power there might lose if the impact movement succeeds. And on the other side, many of the people that people have been trying to advance and empower as part of the impact agenda are taking that message seriously and saying well actually if you're serious about this give us a lot more power over our own futures and that would be the best impact you could have. And so there's a lot of trying to navigate both of those themes and that's the case both at the very community level but also if you look at the global community where we're seeing really fundamental questions being asked. I was at an event in Kenya two weeks ago where basically the African leaders were saying well you guys have had 200 years of industrialisation and you messed up the climate and now you're telling us we can't have our economic growth why should we do anything that you want to help you out of the mess you created and obviously I think that's a very troubling line although completely justified but it doesn't help us solve climate change but I want to ask each of you as you thought about this power dynamics question where have we come down in terms of what's on the agenda in the next couple of days let's start with you, Santiago. Yes, so Mathias I think that's a very complex topic that initially we even hesitated to how to address but ultimately I think the conclusion is that despite sort of being challenging let's go front and centre and so one of the the thematics or discussions that people will find in the different panels around this track are around how you shift the power from investor traditionally the one owning or deploying the capital to other ways of engaging and how you can transform or rearrange structures of power with different investment instruments with different lenses as well in terms of investing considering a general lens approach an environmental lens approach when you start including filters or lenses into the system as well you start changing the dynamics because you start taking into consideration into the investment decision process different aspects of a discussion so that's part of what it's been incorporated as well and then there are also a couple of deep dice in the specific models in Chicago in other areas that have gone even farther in terms of redistributing equity and therefore power to be able to try to balance the equation so I think that's some of the things that's exciting sort of about the discussions that you will find in the next few days Natalie what about you where do you come down on this agreed on the complex side of it and maybe even some of the tenuous first steps but I feel strongly in everything that I do and I think that with this our conversation went towards what does it look like practically what does power dynamic shifting look like practically and where can we see examples where can we bring those examples to the table to witness and to discuss and hash out and for me it really came down to ownership as can we look at power dynamics through the shifting of ownership right we hear so much about the lack of VC for women and people of color we hear so much about the wage gap but we really don't hear about the fact that over 98% of the entire world's capital and assets are not controlled by the global majority so 70% of the world own and control less than 2% of the world's money and assets that is not a number that we're banding around a lot and for me that number and the immobility of it and the fact that it hasn't changed for generations that is the power dynamic I think we have been a little bit distracted by the conversation around representation not to suggest that representation doesn't matter but if you are the president of a company you can be fired if you are the president of the United States you can be impeached there are all these positions of significant representation and power that are really temporary and fickle and the one position you can't be fired from is the owner of something and I think people of color in particular the global majority have to center themselves as owners and we as asset allocators and as people who are influential in the space have to center that as the goal rather than just figureheads and I think that when you look at the track and you look at the conversations that we've teat up there's a lot of that happening and there are sessions on indigenous people and there's sessions on black lives and the minority community whereas in the US we call it new majority and also women absolutely always majority Eliza I think in that vein I think an awesome panel on this track is the reverse pitch competition which Natalie is particularly involved with this is a kind of dragonsten exactly a reverse track tank and I think it's a exactly I think that's the wrong TV show but I hear you something like that I think investors in order to really live these values need to sort of sit in the shoes a bit and feel that sensation of actually giving power to in a way that they're not accustomed to the other thing I'll highlight is speaks to a panel that I'm working with tomorrow on blended finance but I'm seeing a lot of projects in this space that are trying to effectively shift power to communities in the design of investment structures of community projects et cetera and what's really interesting I think is there is an incredible education component of that for the teams and the communities that are taking that on which just talking to a project recently that was discussing how they literally have to send a lot of legal dollars and time educating federal agencies how to interact with their community through a process that exists for big clean tech energy projects but they don't know how to interact with a tribal led corporation of this structure and this type and so I think just some really interesting practical elements that we can dive into around the theory and the philosophy and the intentions are great but there's a lot of field building and education of power holders in order to effectively create opportunity for power transfer I wanted to build on that and ask each of you in your own work is there a particular case that you're dealing with now where you feel you can do something to really accelerate the power shift why don't we continue that with me I think the way I see it most directly in my work I am doing early stage investing I think of it most often just in how I interact with entrepreneurs the entrepreneurs that I am supporting and cultivating in their journey how do I establish a true partnership I think like others up here very focused on investing and supporting entrepreneurs who are underrepresented in the space of entrepreneurship and venture capital and and really presenting myself as a collaborator and a partner in their journey is sort of how I live the power sharing on a daily basis and then projects like the one I referenced is how I'm seeing it at more of a systems level and a sort of project example basis and really learning from those teams about the work that they have to do to see progress here Santiago We launched live back in 2016 and it took it sort of about two years to get off the ground even it was a big challenge in terms of fundraising and our sort of ultimate goal in respect sort of impact it was sort of to try to support local entrepreneurs that were trying to address in a quality gap and provide good services to people living in poverty but having said that when we got started very rapidly we realized that if we didn't take a very cautious and sort of gender lens investment approach it would be very difficult for us to really achieve our ultimate goal in terms of empowering and supporting poverty reduction because of the sort of intrinsic dynamics of the Latin American culture and so 2018 with the support of organizations internally we started questioning sort of what is the gender inequality in the region within our team and ultimately we ended up incorporating a gender lens approach across our investment process and not only for diligence but also for supporting the portfolio companies and providing with the technical assistance facility that we have we were able to partner with a specialist in the field value for women so that all our portfolio companies benefit and I'm telling all this long story because that's really what we're seeing five years fast forward is that having made that conscious decision of putting a gender lens front and center of our processes and then being explicit about it is creating a change in the terms of the power dynamics of the entrepreneurs in which we invest the companies in which we invest value change in which we invest just because being explicit and being intentional in terms of supporting a more equitable sort of society I mean we're starting sort of to see some of those results clearly early days still but that's something that I think we will continue addressing front and center well yeah projects where this is most manifested I mean known is a black Cherokee Latinx and South Asian owned firm we will never have a chief diversity officer and we will never have a DEI program we just are and I think that some of that has to do with walking the walk and giving people an alternative because what we see is that there are people whether they be families whether they be people running large endowments or client Microsoft people have the intention they just need to be shown the way they're not necessarily sure how and they're being told by a lot of the sort of entrenched people in the space that you can't go with your endowment and do 100% impact without being irresponsible as a fiduciary and what we're finding is the opposite is true what we're finding is that the people that are approaching things from a 100% impact lens through a gender lens are actually winning on the bottom line as well and so the idea of reframing it as a charitable act to invest in a way that is good for the planet and the people on it when the bottom line actually tells you that you're really future proofing your portfolio you're really investing in a way that is not obsolete or not going to put you in a place where you are going to become obsolete and so for us it's about proving out the theories it's about those practical applications as you mentioned not just investing in those practical applications but being an example our supply chain from our lawyers, from our compliance people our caterers our photographer the hotels we try to stay in like the people who came before us who built the infrastructure of the economy of this country the people we employ look like us too One more question around power dynamics if I think about impact if you went back 10-15 years people would say in impact investing you know we're an alternative to relying on government we can do this through private sector action and to me the big change certainly since the start of Covid is that people are really saying well actually you can't ignore politics about impact people need to be very cognizant and connected and engaged in the politics is that on the agenda this track or have we not been able to really do that I would say with the panel that I'm helping out with tomorrow on blended finance it's a big piece of the puzzle and I think in more traditional economic development and economic finance circles blended finance has been a topic of discussion for a little bit longer but the real idea there is how do we how do we leverage some of the big dollars in government you know for two reasons first of all how do we sort of do some piloting to make it less risky and scary for those sorts of dollars to come into the space and secondly how do we leverage some of those dollars to provide some security in the capital stacks so that we can then bring different types of investors alongside so I think it's definitely a theme in that conversation around blended finance structures is I hope you can't with the agenda for the World Bank to behave very differently to what they've done in the past with the new leadership they do have new leadership but I was impressed at some of what I heard at a recent conference I would say that the one thing that I would want to centre in anything that we're talking about when we talk about something like blended finance and I do think that you'll see it in some of the conversations this week is that it actually isn't all that different from what has already happened google wouldn't exist twitter wouldn't none of the companies that we rely on for everyday life and that ultimately power the economy especially the new economy would have existed without the government investment in the technologies that they built on top of venture capital community doesn't like to admit that correct a second big theme that you've identified is place based initiatives and I think those are probably fairly self contained conversations but maybe one of you can just give us a quick flavour of what we've got on the agenda on place based work. Well my business partner Jim Castleberry is participating in a talk about a MacArthur project based in Chicago which is going to be compelling and I think that what maybe for me the most important takeaway with these place based sort of focus in is just that it isn't only about MacArthur's project in Chicago it isn't only about Chicago it's about going really really deep so that we can then go wide with the understanding that you not had this conversation you can't McDonald's your way into solutions to problems you can't come with the same exact template in every little community and expect it to work and so part of how we do that and we build place based programs globally that work is by going really deep into one and seeing what worked what didn't what makes this place special and how can we learn from this and then accommodate for the uniqueness of other places. Sandy Alger you want to add anything to that? I think that I mean what is interesting sort of about the discussions similar to what Natalie is saying is that it's the important sort of of doing that double click and understand sort of the particularities sort of to be able to you know once you go abroad or other places really sort of think multi dimensionally and how you can adapt sort of to implement for example some of them approaches that a partner organization of ours is doing in Colombia is really sort of how you are able to work with co-ops but really providing equity to those co-ops so that they get sort of the possibilities of running their own businesses and you know understanding sort of the particularities of that what has worked what hasn't worked is really sort of what we're trying or what we're looking for sort of to those discussions you know today I think here in the space of SOCAP will are concentrated sort of in or a couple of examples in the US but also looking forward sort of how that can be replicated sort of and extrapolated to other places I'm mindful that we are getting close to our time but the third theme for this track is really the innovative finance and the extent to which the tools of which we can drive community and economic development you know from an impact perspective are proliferating and I guess you want this track to really explore what these new tools are or how each what the new thinking is on how these tools can be used Natalie do you want to talk a bit more about that? Anyone who knows me knows I can go off on how tired I am of BC but we invest in BC it is one asset class of money but my challenge is that it tends to take up 99.9% of the oxygen and I think that part of what you'll see and it's not just in the reverse pitch panel that we're having is there is a lack of education and even awareness right there is I'm starting a company therefore I must get BC where there is my 7 year old nephew who what do you want to be when you grow up in BC because he's been watching too much Shark Tank I want there to be and I think that the intention with part of this was this sense of an awareness and education of the other forms of capital that exist that are viable that are becoming more viable every day and then by meeting some of the players and having them tell you about their funds about their mechanisms for investing about how they see the world I am disappointed with even just the idea that for example we have a name Unicorn for a company that arbitrarily gets valued at a billion dollars by a few BCs but we don't have a name for when a company gets to a billion dollars in revenue we don't celebrate them there isn't an article in the newspaper that says whoa this company is now a pick animal you want to pick we don't even have a terminology for what it looks like to build real businesses that are not just arbitrarily defined by one niche because ultimately BC is a niche so to me that was very much the goal is let's talk about what other forms of capital there are let's get familiar with them let's get comfortable with them let's put faces to names so that we can actually pick up the phone and talk to some of the players Eliza I think fully line of things is really well said as I said at the beginning I come from a more traditional background of doing deals in the traditional vein and trying to prove that as a viable strategy with an impact lens and I think there's just a lot of opportunity right now to think to be more creative and a lot of it comes down to vision and strategy from funders in the room what would be some examples from your experience say again what would be some examples from your experience of different types of how you could be more creative yeah I mean I think looking at different sort of revenue based structures for investment securities as opposed to just doing the traditional equity convertible debt you can look at straight debt for certain companies if they have the right underlying economic profile you know as Natalie said every company is or should be attracting venture capital there there's a very type a very small type of company for whom that fits and I think as investors in this space looking at revenue based financing look at employee ownership look at different types of operating debt capital I think there's a lot that's out there that's still a little bit scary for investors and I think there's plenty of room for further exploration as well I think what is exciting about sort of the discussion is that I mean I like Natalie's coming in terms you know I mean the BC there's no more error sort of because it kind of grabs everything but then in the Latin America context where you saw a very liquid market I don't know how familiar you are with it but then a couple of years back sort of there started sort of a discussion that revenue based financing or instrument they were the silver bullet because there was a solution to provide financing no dilutive self-liquidating per the definition and so it was kind of the way forward but actually it works only for a very few percentage of the companies that they have stable cash flows that they don't require future rounds of financing because their business model doesn't need it and so I guess the point I'm trying to make is how the importance of really sort of understanding there are different options and that the one of the biggest mistakes of the ecosystem is that the business models try to align with the source of funding when it should be the other completely the other way around is the source of funding needs to be adapt needs to adapt and be flexible to provide the right structure to the business and to the underlying asset and cash flow that the companies have and so I think what is exciting is right now we are also much more aware of that there is a range of possibilities and that the importance sort of will be careful in terms of making the right match sort of to... What do you think is the biggest obstacle to that shift happening? I think one of the biggest is sort of the ability of capital as Nadal mentioned you know that the vast majority of this capital is high risk capital or consider because of the lack of understanding sort of of the different segments of marketing which we operate and therefore there is an expectation of high returns and therefore it traditionally falls into the VC bucket you know this is the C but we need to break sort of that barrier we need to break the barrier that is not everything has to go to sort of to the VC model which is a very specific model with a very specific sort of characteristics in terms of how a company should grow and you know later financing runs and so on and how you know we need to break that model to address or so that there is availability of the other pools of capital to fund other instruments sort of the ones that Eliza was mentioning in terms of RBFs for those that can work or even debt you know for those that they would only survive sort of to debt so just that have that possibility of funding I think is the biggest obstacle sort of to what we call We are almost out of time and I am going to ask each of the panelists to give us two one sentence answers one is you know which question what is the question that you as you go to these events over the next couple of days on this track are you most looking most desirous of finding an answer to or having your thinking really move forward the other is there one panel that you would recommend above any other that the audience here should go along to and as you think about the answers I think this has been a very full conversation I do apologise that beyond the initial moment of joy where we all shared with each other at the start this has been a conversation from the stage but we had so much material we wanted to go through to give you a flavour of the thinking behind what's coming up the sessions I think will all be active along the track as it goes along but I'm going to start with you Santiago what are your answers to those two questions so to your second question I think probably the room will be over flooded but I would go with Natalie's sort of reverse shark tank I think that would be it's going to be a fun a fun discussion to your first question in terms of what questions to ask that's a tough one but I really think it's depending where you're coming from if you're an entrepreneur it really depends sort of try to answer what are the different types of funding that you are if you are an investor it's more in terms of what kind of capital you have and can provide and try to sort of find those specific entrepreneurs but it really depends on what side of the table you are Eliza in terms of I'll start with the same order I also recommend the reverse shark tank but I am excited about the conversation on blended finance structures that's happening tomorrow it's highlighting the work of a great organization called Pursuit in New York City which is doing really transformational workforce development training and has brought some really interesting partners around the table to finance that so I'll give a pitch for that one the question I think that's on my mind is really hearing from getting to the point that Santiago made a few minutes ago on funders and LPs how they are willing to meaningfully advance this power transfer in this space I think understanding the objectives and the agenda of capital allocators who care about these issues will allow those of us practitioners in the room to build and shape projects and products that will capitalize on what's available hopefully doing that all in partnership but that's a big question on my mind is where is the appetite and the key goals for funders right now I'll give the last word to you Natalie I would have to agree everyone to go see the reverse shark tank one and just cross your fingers that people aren't nice if you've got the VC pitching against the debt pitching against the revenue for finance and everybody's really nice then it's boring so let's hope everybody comes in with that killer instinct and we'll fight for competing which one's the better form of finance but I would say that the question that I want to explore both myself and that I would invite others to is we need to unpack risk how we have historically defined risk what and who we've decided is risky I think that that is right I think that the models that have been constructed until now have largely been informed by some form of easy sort of like what's easy what's proximate what looks like me, what is familiar to me and I think that we have a huge opportunity both to create multi-generational wealth for people and communities that haven't seen that and also to be great fiduciaries for those of us that are responsible for some of money by reimagining what risk looks like and maybe reexamining what biases, not just biases but what practices are leading to some old forms of risk that just have to be retired.