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In this week’s Open:
- Sharpening diligence for responsible AI investing
- Private equity’s long game may be paying off in better jobs
- Iungo Capital’s winding road for how to lend in Africa
- SOCAP’s “Best Dressed” take on shared prosperity
Let’s jump in. – Dennis Price
Must-reads on ImpactAlpha
- Investing with AI, investing in AI: A dual lens for due diligence and impact. Investors must be aware of regulatory and legal risks when they diligence investments in artificial intelligence. That type of risk, however, is distinct from the risks investors face as they invest with AI to drive impact. “Untangling the two is not semantics; it is the difference between managing risk and shaping markets,” writes Project Liberty Institute’s Paul Fehlinger in a guest post on ImpactAlpha. Check it out.
- Higher quality jobs could be an impact silver lining as PE firms hold companies longer. Private equity firms are becoming “holdcos.” As PE firms increasingly hold on to the companies they acquire for longer, some are starting to leave behind the old private equity playbook of quick profits through layoffs and restructuring, reports ImpactAlpha’s David Bank. Read more.
- With 100 investments, Iungo Capital is proving out the viability of small business lending in Africa (video). Iungo Capital has since 2016 made 100 investments in small and growing businesses in Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda; its average ticket size is less than $500,000, reports ImpactAlpha’s Lucy Ngige. That should prove that lending to such businesses can be commercially viable, says Iungo’s Roeland Donckers. Learn more.
Sponsored: JPMorganChase
👷🏾 Embracing employee ownership amid the silver tsunami
As a generation of small business owners retires, 12 million companies will change hands over the next decade. Yet only 30% of family businesses successfully transition to the next generation. Employee ownership offers a pathway to keep a business going while preserving good local jobs and building wealth for the next generation. JPMorganChase can help business owners eyeing retirement understand their options and guide them through transition planning, valuation and tax and estate planning. “By supporting innovative transition options like employee ownership, we can help business owners create stronger companies, establish their legacies, empower employees and drive economic growth in their communities and beyond,” writes Regina Carls of JPMorganChase. “Succession planning is not just a business imperative – it’s a community imperative.”
- Keep reading, “Embracing employee ownership amid the silver tsunami,” by Regina Carls of JPMorganChase.
Agents of Impact
💃 SOCAP’s ‘Best Dressed’ on what shared prosperity means to them
SOCAP25’s theme may have been “Making impact mainstream,” but the fashion on display in San Francisco was anything but normcore. In our annual SOCAP tradition, ImpactAlpha photographed Agents of Impact who expressed their values with their outfits. ImpactAlpha co-founder and fashion icon Zuleyma Bebell asked these fashion-forward Agents of Impact what shared prosperity means to them. “Shared prosperity means collective and ancestral abundance,” said Coded by’s Charney Robinson-Williams. “To know that no matter the circumstances, you always have the support and resources within your community.” Agents of Impact are all fabulous, of course. These 18 SOCAP attendees stood out. Big thanks to Sofía Cándano of Village Capital and Nicole Lasasso of SOCAP Global, who helped scout the gardens and hallways.
- Keep reading, “SOCAP’s ‘Best Dressed’ on what shared prosperity means to them,” by Zuleyma Bebell.
🏃 On the move
- Convergence Partners tapped Shirley Choo, previously with Algoritmi Group, as an investment director and committee member.
- Aurum Impact welcomed Marie-Therese Buttlar-Wallot, a former principal with Earlybird Venture Capital, as a partner.
- The ImPact named Olivia Prentice, formerly with Bridges Fund Management and Impact Management Project, as CEO, succeeding Sam Bonsey.
The Week’s Podcast
🎧 This Week in Impact
Host Brian Walsh takes up the week’s top stories with Dennis Price. Up for discussion: What’s on the minds of innovators and investors at SOCAP; building bipartisan support for community lenders; and, investing with and in AI for due diligence and impact.
- Listen to the new episode of This Week in Impact.Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
Pop Impact
🎥 The Lost Bus: When climate disaster hits home
Many people have memories of riding a school bus. “I’m willing to bet relatively few of those memories involve navigating a blazing inferno through gridlocked traffic, deadly power lines, and mobs of desperate residents,” writes Pop Impact columnist Dmitriy Ioselevich. Such memories will stick with students at Ponderosa elementary school in Paradise, Calif., which burned along with more than 18,000 other structures in the devastating 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history. The plight of these 22 stranded students and their heroic bus driver is the provocative set up for “The Lost Bus”, an Apple TV thriller directed by Paul Greengrass. The film has “all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster,” Dmitriy writes. “The fact that it’s based on a true story makes it all the more compelling for viewers and critics alike.” Dmitriy’s rating: Entertainment: 5, Impact: 4.
Get in the Game
💼 Step up
- Native American Bank N A is seeking an asset manager for a remote or hybrid role in Tulalip Bay, Washington.
- Citizens Bank is hiring a senior sustainability associate in New York.
- Pacific Community Ventures is looking for a chief lending officer in Oakland.
Dozens of job opportunities are available to subscribers each week on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
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