ImpactAlpha, Dec. 23 – Before Greta Thunberg was TIME’s Person of Year, the young Swedish activist was an ImpactAlpha Agent of Impact for jumpstarting global climate strikes that have put business and political leaders on notice.
Each week, ImpactAlpha highlights Agents of Impact who are making things happen, have something to say and whom other agents will want to know.
Among this year’s Agents: Nipsey Hussle, the late rapper and investor in youth, entrepreneurship and the arts in L.A.’s Crenshaw neighborhood. Hiro Mizuno, who is using his leverage as chief investment officer of the $1.6 trillion Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan to drive sustainability throughout global financial markets. And Bitwise’s Irma Olguin Jr., who is leveling the playing field for underdog towns like Fresno, Calif.
Get to know these Agents of Impact on ImpactAlpha. Follow us on Instagram to meet new Agents of Impact every week. And help us follow your impact by sending special agents our way.
Serena Williams
The 23-time Grand Slam champion and entrepreneur is using her capital and connections to highlight startup founders that “embrace diverse leadership, individual empowerment, creativity and opportunity.”
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Rodrigo Villar
Rodrigo Villar of New Ventures Mexico is building a market in Mexico and Latin America around the thesis that the path to competitive returns runs through social ventures.
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Daryn Dodson
Dodson launched Illumen Capital, an impact investing fund of funds, on the thesis that managers could better focus on value by overcoming racial and gender bias.
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Greta Thunberg
Before the Swedish youth activist was TIME’s Person of Year, she was an ImpactAlpha Agent of Impact for sparking global climate strikes that have put business and political leaders on notice for inaction on climate change.
Sonia Bashir Kabir
With SBK Tech Ventures, the Bangladeshi investor and entrepreneur is backing tech-enabled ventures solving financial, legal, agricultural and other challenges facing rural consumers in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and countries in Southeast Asia.
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Diane Isenberg
The founder and director of Ceniarth, her $400 million family office, staked out a provocative strategy that is proving appealing to other ultra-high net worth impact investors: Impact-First Capital Preservation.
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Lucas Turner-Owens
Turner-Owens is the manager of Boston Ujima Project’s planned $5 million fund, which makes low-interest loans and small equity investments in neighborhood businesses. Investment decisions will be guided by neighborhood residents themselves.
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Clara Barby
At Impact Management Project, Clara Barby has helped forge a consensus among impact investors for how to talk about, measure and manage impact.
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Jason Spindler
Before the arrival of billion-dollar impact funds and hundred-million-dollar deals, Jason Spindler and I-DEV International cranked through dozens of high-impact, five- and six-figure transactions. Spindler was killed early this year in a terrorist attack in Nairobi, Kenya.
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Nipsey Hussle
Born Ermias Asghedom, the rapper earned a Grammy nomination for songs about his rise as an independent MC. He earned community hero status for investments in youth, entrepreneurship and the arts in the Crenshaw neighborhood of Los Angeles where he grew up. Hussle was shot and killed this year outside his Marathon Clothing store in the strip mall where he used to sell mixtapes.
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Tania Dib
It took seven years for Dib to assemble the pieces for Bimbo’s first impact investment. The Mexico City-based global bakery giant is anchoring the Latin America Impact Fund.
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Hiro Mizuno
Mizuno is using his leverage as chief investment officer of the $1.6 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan to drive sustainable investing in Japan and throughout global financial markets.
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Irma Olguin Jr.
With Bitwise, Olguin and co-founder Jake Soberal have found a way to even the playing field between Silicon Valley and towns like Fresno and Bakersfield that have long been underdogs when it comes to tech’s promise of high growth and high pay.
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Vijay Advani
Mumbai-born Advani in January will step up to executive chairman of Nuveen, the $1 trillion asset-management arm of TIAA, the world’s largest farmland owner and an increasingly visible impact investor.
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John O’Shaughnessy
O’Shaughnessy, CEO of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary, walked away from his first SOCAP conference with a sense of shared values with impact investors in attendance. “This was our community, faith-based or not,” he told ImpactAlpha.
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Rodney Foxworth
Foxworth is rebranding the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, or BALLE, to Common Future to reflect both the challenge and opportunity in addressing the inequality and economic dislocation common to both cities – and many communities across the country.
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Josu Jon Imaz
An accounting tweak vaulted Spanish energy company Repsol, and CEO Josu Jon Imaz, to climate leadership – and turned up the heat on the laggards.
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Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes
At Aruwa Capital Management, Rhodes is raising a $20 million private equity fund to invest in growth-stage businesses across Africa. “When people look at the impact and the success that I know will follow, they will think about allocating capital to women-owned funds and gender-lens funds in the future.”
