The Week in impact investing: Come from behind

TGIF, Agents of Impact! 

In today’s Brief:

• Roundup: Going exponential
• Guest posts from Jay Patel, Gayle Jennings-O’Byrne, Prateek Srivastava and Zach Stein
• Podcasts: Ben Thornley, Seçil Yıldız and This Week in Impact
• …and all of the week’s talent and jobs 

🗣 Going exponential. It’s well past halftime on the road to 2030, and we’re behind by far more than 29 points. That year was the deadline, collectively set in the before-times of 2015, to end poverty (Sustainable Development Goal No. 1), zero out hunger (No. 2), achieve gender equality (No. 5) and ensure good health, quality education, clean water and affordable, clean energy for all (Nos. 3, 4, 6 and 7). We also were to have halved greenhouse gas emissions (from 2010 levels) to stay on the path to net zero by 2050. Instead, they’re still rising. We have a lot of catching up to do to set up the global equivalent of OG Anunoby’s last-second tip-in that saved the day for the Knicks.

We have the tools for the exponential progress required. ImpactAlpha contributor Danielle Rossingh reported on the falling costs and surging demand that is making battery energy storage systems, or BESS, a game-changer for renewable energy. Lucy Ngige assessed the growing set of locally rooted fund managers who are seeding agricultural ventures in Africa that provide climate resilience and food security. S2G Investments raised a billion-dollar fund to ramp up proven solutions in food, energy and oceans, and Canada’s Inspirit Foundation even found that its 100% impact portfolio outperformed its benchmarks over the past decade, as Erik Stein wrote this week. Enterprise Community Partners’ Shaun Donovan and Krista Egger detailed the compelling economics, for both developers and residents, for investments in energy-saving improvements in affordable housing. As Christiana Figueres, the orchestrator of the Paris climate agreement, puts it, we’re in a race between an exponential climate catastrophe and the exponential deployment of clean energy and sustainable solutions.

In a policy brief this week, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei invoked AI’s own exponential scaling “laws” to forecast “a country of geniuses in a datacenter” that could arguably be put to work on such solutions. The stratospheric valuation of SpaceX (and Elon Musk) suggests that markets can mobilize ample (excessive?) capital for audacious goals. But the way requires the will. It’s not helpful that Saudi Aramco, the lead sponsor of the FIFA World Cup now underway, is “sportwashing” the harmful effects of fossil fuels, as contributing editor Dmitriy Ioselevich points out. Nor that many of the impact reports from self-identified impact funds contain more style than substance, as Dalberg’s Kusi Hornberger found in an (AI-assisted) survey.

Not to put too fine a point on it, voters later this year have a chance to summon that will. But, as Fran Seegull of the US Impact Alliance points out, the democratic pillars of fair elections, free press and an independent civil society are necessary but not sufficient. Investments in shared prosperity and other economic determinants of a healthy democracy are essential in order to overcome the deficits of trust and ambition that have us in a hole at this late date. Anunoby’s iconic game-winner shows that history can still be made every day. Agents of Impact need to stay in the game and get ready for our own come-from-behind victory. – David Bank

Next Week’s Call

☎️ Launching and building your career in impact investing. How best to establish a career in impact investing, or at least to land a job? Vistria Group’s Sherry Wang says building a career in impact investing has been incredibly rewarding. “Not only have we been able to create new innovations that reshape how capital can benefit communities,” she says, “I’ve made lifelong friends over the last 20 years.” Wang will join Community Capital Management’s Alyssa Greenspan, California Endowment’s Aifuwa Ehigiator, and San Francisco’s Cynthia Wong, in conversation with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Kimberlee Cornett and ImpactAlpha’s David Bank, to share advice and encouragement for students, recent grads, career switchers and anybody looking for pathways into impact investing, Monday, June 15, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP today.

• Find a job or post an opening on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub. And send your jobs and career questions in advance of The Call to [email protected]. 

The Week’s Voices

New Markets Tax Credits still miss the places that need them most. The New Markets Tax Credit has steered $66.6 billion into distressed communities over two decades. A closer look reveals huge swaths of the country where capital still won’t go. Jay Patel of the National Community Investment Fund argues that the credits’ newly codified permanent status creates an opportunity to redirect investment toward rural counties, tribal lands and other places conventional lenders continue to avoid. Read on. 

Can big finance finally deliver on economic opportunity? Corporate America has made no shortage of promises about expanding opportunity in underserved communities. Gayle Jennings-O’Byrne of Wocstar Capital argues that Jamie Dimon’s $80 billion American Dream Initiative represents a more consequential test: whether a major financial institution like JPMorganChase can pair long-term capital with operational support to help overlooked entrepreneurs build durable businesses. Hear her out.

What a structural engineer sees in your infrastructure portfolio. Infrastructure investors are underwriting 30-year assets with outdated climate assumptions. Structural engineer Prateek Srivastava says AI analytics are exposing the gap between engineers’ understanding of physical risk and the price markets put on it. That creates opportunities to preserve returns and identify mispriced assets. Check it out.

China shrugs off fuel shortages, leans on renewables. The energy shock caused by the war with Iran is a test of whether major economies can decouple growth from fossil fuel demand, writes Carbon Collective’s Zach Stein. China is absorbing the disruption in oil supplies with surprisingly little economic fallout, thanks to years of investment in electrified transportation and diversified power sources, offering a model for India as it responds to its own energy vulnerabilities. Learn more. 

This Week’s Podcasts

🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: Battery makers’ pivot from EVs to grid storage for renewable energy in Europe; Lukas Walton-backed S2G Investments’ big raise and big trucks; and, the World Cup’s sportswashing bonanza, brought to you by Saudi Aramco.

• Listen to the new episode of This Week in Impact. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.

🧑🏽‍🎓Impact(ed): Impact investing has a VC problem. Has impact investing become too concentrated in venture capital? On the latest episode of “Impact(ed),” Tideline’s Ben Thornley argues the problem is not too much VC, but too little of everything else. Thornley joins hosts Rodney Foxworth and Lucas Turner-Owens to discuss the need for liquidity, the challenges faced by emerging managers, and why LPs may need to take a more entrepreneurial approach if impact investing is to reach full maturation. 

• Tune in.

👩‍🏫 Women Changing Finance: How Türkiye’s development bank is turning sustainability into a banking strategy. Seçil Yıldız of the Development and Investment Bank of Türkiye joins host Krisztina Tora to share how development banks can catalyze financing, from Europe’s largest solar farm to incentives for women-friendly workplaces. “We need to find ways to make life sustainable on this planet,” she says, “and each and every impact is very much crucial.”

• Check it out.

The Week’s Dealflow, Talent and Jobs

💼 See and share more than a dozen new impact jobs posted this week on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub and view hundreds of more jobs in impact investing and sustainable finance. Have a job listing to post? Submit it here. And catch up on all of this week’s dealflow reporting.

Joanna Reiss is moving on from Apollo Global Management after almost six years with the firm. She helped launch Apollo Impact Mission, the firm’s impact strategy (see, “Ownership, collinearity and KPIs: Apollo’s Impact strategy turns five”)… John Pion is stepping down as director of impact investments at Social Finance… Enduring Planet promoted Daim Ashraf and Ramsha Rizvi to vice president. The firm raised a $12 million second climate fund last week. 

Monarch Investment Partners welcomed Kyle Lind, a former principal with Ares Management Corp., as an investment principal… BlackRock promoted Louise Kooy-Henckel to managing director and global head of sustainable and transition solutions… HealthQuest Capital promoted Witney McKiernan to partner… Nolan Henson, previously with Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Flint, joins Kellogg Foundation as a program specialist… Shannon Nash joined Vibrant Planet as chief operating and financial officer. 

Michael Basch, co-founder of Atento Capital, joined Renaissance Philanthropy as a fellow focused on developing new philanthropic programs and funds… National Equity Fund welcomed Sadie Nott as vice president and relationship manager… Andres Llado Muniz, previously with EY’s climate change and sustainability services team, joined The Bridgespan Group as a senior associate consultant… GreenieRE Coalition tapped MIT Sloan School of Management’s Nazrin Balayeva as a summer fellow.

Zenith Wealth Partners tapped Kristen Yu, Anyae Jordan and Ali Anderson as summer interns… DC Green Bank hired Renee Scott as chief of staff and Christian Perkins as originations director…  Social Investment Managers and Advisors brought on Lan Anh Pham as vice president… Triple Jump promoted Valentine Delouvrier as regional manager for Africa and the Middle East… Parity Homes welcomed Cayden Hercules as a real estate development associate… Jordin Metz, previously with the US Department of Energy, joined Ceres as senior manager of investor network and policy engagement. 

That’s a wrap. Have a wonderful weekend. 

– June 12, 2026