Agents of Impact | March 22, 2019

Follow the Talent: Agents of Impact Special Report for Mar. 22

Dennis Price
ImpactAlpha Editor

Dennis Price

TGIF, 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] (or simply reply to this email).

– Dennis Price, editorial director

Agent of Impact

Grupo Bimbo’s Tania Dib. As corporate treasurer for the Mexico City-based global bakery giant (Sara Lee, Oroweat and Entenmann’s are some of its many brands) Dib is responsible for the investments from the employee pension fund. Bimbo’s corporate commitment to sustainability made impact investing a natural extension, as does the match between long-term investments and long-term pension liabilities. Even so, it took seven years for Dib to assemble the pieces for Bimbo’s first impact investment. Bimbo is anchoring the Latin America Impact Fund, a fund of funds managed by Sonen Capital and Mexican private-equity manager Fondo de Fondos. “This type of investment is still not well developed and is new to the environment, it is difficult to bring it to the table,” Dib told ImpactAlpha. Bimbo has committed 10% of the fund’s total of between $75 and $150 million. “Impact will and should be relevant in the minds of portfolio managers and institutional investors globally. It must,” she says. Investing in more traditional assets or portfolios are considered to be less risky and more familiar. “I think this is a paradigm that we need to break. It took us seven years.” Follow ImpactAlpha on Instagram.

Seize the Opportunity

Credit Suisse is hiring a head of sustainable and impact products and services in Zürich… Aqua-Spark is looking for an investment manager and a fundraising and investor relations associate in Utrecht… Co-impact is recruiting a director of programs in New York… Innovation consultancy SecondMuse is looking for a program manager in New York… The Lumina Foundation is recruiting strategy officers for talent investments and competency-based learning in Indianapolis.

The Schmidt Family Foundation is hiring an investment associate in Menlo Park, Calif…. The New Hampshire Community Loan Fund is looking for a housing cooperative specialist, a credit administration loan manager and a commercial real estate lender in Concord… The Global Steering Group for Impact Investment is seeking directors of philanthropy and investment and engagement and communications, both in London.

Humanity United seeks a strategy, learning and impact manager in San Francisco… New Island Capital seeks a vice president for real assets in San Francisco… Neighborworks America seeks a director for its work on race, equity, diversity and inclusion.

Follow the Talent

Asset management firm Aviva Investors appoints Paul LaCoursiere as global head of ESG research… State Street partners with Harvard Business School’s George Serafeim to bolster research on ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing research… Maria Santos Valentin, ex- of Soros Economic Development Fund, joins Rockefeller Foundation as general counsel.

Ivan Frishberg becomes Amalgamated Bank’s first director of impact policy… Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio joins ‘conscious bank’ Aspiration as a board member and investor… Backstage Capital’s Christie Pitts takes on operations at Backstage Studio. Arlan Hamilton remains Backstage Capital’s managing partner.

Apply, Respond, Submit

Venture philanthropy New Profit launches Civic Lab to support entrepreneurs building civic trust and culture in the U.S… Applications are open for smart-city accelerator Urban X’s sixth cohort… Student scholarships are available for US SIF’s annual conference in Minneapolis from June 10-12… Ampion Ventures, a new venture fund to support African digital startups, is soliciting applications for funding… IDB Lab seeks proposals from Latin America and Caribbean fund managers to manage a new venture debt fund.

Where to Be

Phenix Capital is hosting its 5th annual Impact Summit Europe in The Hague, April 2-3… TBLI Group is hosting its 35th Europe conference in Zurich, June 12-13. ImpactAlpha subscribers get a 25% discount with the code Europe2019MediaPartner.

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].