Agents of Impact | March 15, 2019

Follow the Talent: Agents of Impact Special Report for Mar. 15

Dennis Price
ImpactAlpha Editor

Dennis Price

Greetings, Agents of Impact!

Welcome to ImpactAlpha’s weekly “follow the talent” roundup of impact investing career moves, job openings, events and opportunities. Help the growing ImpactAlpha community follow your talent: Send job moves, mandates, event announcements and other news to [email protected].

While you’re here: Take a spin through ImpactAlpha and the GIIN’s series of roundups on mobilizing talent for impact investing. Hear from Bain Capital, Blue Haven Initiative, Bridges Fund Management, Equilibrium Capital, Flat World Partners, Good Capital Project, Intelligent Impact, Liquidnet, McCombs School of Business, Open Road Alliance, Spectrum Impact, SVX MX, The Legacy Funds, Wharton Social Impact Initiative and more.

– Dennis Price, editorial director

Agent of Impact

Michael Carter, founder of Strive for College and UStrive Inc. Admission to college is a zero-sum game, as the scams that came to light this week make clear. “It saddens me to think about all of the students who didn’t get into their dream school because another student took a spot under false pretenses,” says Michael Carter, who launched Strive for College to help primarily low-income students navigate college admissions and financial aid applications. A virtual network of mentors, UStrive, provides free one-on-one help. Carter saw the inequalities in education access when he switched from private to public high schools in San Jose, Calif. Most private-school students were planning to go to college. But promising public school students saw college as out of reach and the school provided too little guidance. (More than 660,000 graduating high school students didn’t complete financial aid applications last year, leaving unclaimed $2.6 billion in free college money.)

Strive for College says 90% of its “Strivers” attend four-year institutions with little or no debt. A partnership with American Express (sealed with $500,000) is expanding the network of mentors. With PlatformQ Education, Strive is helping colleges connect with underserved students. The test prep company Magoosh is helping Strivers “ace their tests.” Strive was among the winners of New Schools Venture Fund’s Future of Work challenge to help middle- and high school students succeed. The latest scandal, Carter says, is a reminder how important it is “to make college equally accessible to all.” Follow ImpactAlpha on Instagram.

Seize the Opportunity

Impact investing advisory firm Quantified Ventures is hiring a marketing director and a vice president for its environment team (See, “Atlanta raises $14 million environmental impact bond from public)… Sustainable investing startup Ethic is hiring a legal and compliance director, an investment operations lead, a client solutions associate and a software engineerUnreasonable is seeking a global partnerships associate… Omidyar Network is looking for an analyst in the Bay Area for its new innovation unit, Omidyar Labs.

Education-focused ECMC Foundation has an opening for an impact investing intern in L.A… Cambridge Associates is hiring an investment director for its mission-related investing research group in Boston… The Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance is recruiting a CEO for its microfinance initiative in Afghanistan… Research and advisory firm Boundless Impact Investing is looking for an alternative fuel industry expert… Agriculture development organization Digital Green is hiring a managing director for its Africa programs in Addis Ababa.

Root Capital seeks a global director of human resources in the Boston area… Dalberg’s media arm Dalberg Media is hiring an associate consultant in Copenhagen… Impact-knowledge hub Philanthropy University is hiring an instructional designer… UBS Wealth Management opens applications for its six-month sustainable investing internship… Net Impact is recruiting a chief executive officer in San Francisco… Impact Community Capital seeks a financial analyst and SOCAP is looking for communications associate, both also in San Francisco.

Follow the Talent

Omidyar Network is spinning off its early stage fintech investing group into a new venture fund, called Flourish. The impact investment firm previously spun off its health, wellness and work group… Alison Fort joins Toniic’s board… Lorraine Wilson, ex- of Merrill, is the new director of investment products at Just Capital… Jan Stahlberg, co-founder of Scandinavian private-equity giant EQT, has left to start an impact investment fund with a nine-digit commitment from Nordea bank… Dale Royal joins the Local Initiatives Support Corp. as executive director in Atlanta…

Market-research firm Refinitiv (formerly Thomson Reuters Financial & Risk) appoints Leon Saunders Calvert to head its newly created sustainable investing and fund ratings division… Dennis Woodside, most recently chief operating officer of Dropbox, joins foodtech startup Impossible Foods as president… Casey Clark, previously with Glenmede Trust Co., joins Rockefeller Capital Management as its first head of ESG investments.

Apply, Respond, Submit

The Emerson Collective-backed Elemental Excelerator accelerator program is accepting applications until April 12 for startups in energy, food and agriculture, water, mobility and the circular economy… Fossil Foundation, Pearson and Accenture partner with Unreasonable’s accelerator on the future of work.

That’s a wrap! Help the growing ImpactAlpha community follow your talent: Send your own job moves, new opportunities and event announcements to [email protected].