TGIF, Agents of Impact! Meet up with ImpactAlpha’s Dennis Price and Amy Cortese and other Agents of Impact next Thursday evening, June 12, at The Standard beer garden in New York. RSVP today.
- Roundup: Inciting incidents and openings for change
- Podcasts: Agents of Impact, Impact(ed) and Criterion Institute
- Plugged In: Investing in mobility beyond EVs
📞 Join next week’s Call: Ramping up green lending – even without that $20 billion. The pipeline was robust for the networks of green banks and community lenders set to deploy the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The abrupt shift in federal policy stranded deals representing tens of billions of dollars in community investment that stood to reduce energy costs, improve air quality, create jobs and boost resilience in communities across the US. That makes the moment ripe for opportunistic investors and for a rethink of impact investing more broadly.Join Climate United’s Beth Bafford, Justice Climate Fund’s Amir Kirkwood, NYCEEC’s Curtis Probst and other community climate investors who are shaping a new market for green lending – even as litigation continues, Wednesday, June 11 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP today.
🗣 Show time. In screenplay structure, this week’s blowup between the mega-billionaire and the MAGA president represents an inciting incident of the kind screenwriters use to kick off the major conflict and move the plot into high gear. With coalitions fractured, loyalties tested and plenty of surprises ahead, the room for maneuver now dramatically expands and, just possibly, good ideas will again have a chance. The big, not-so-beautiful tax and budget bill was already teetering in Congress, perhaps providing a reprieve for clean electricity production and investment tax credits and other incentives that have spurred hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment, as As You Sow’s Danielle Fugere and Diana Myers advocate in their Fiduciary Future column. The flip side of the climate coin is being emphasized by investors like Colin le Duc, a founding partner of Generation Investment Management (and, earlier, Galvanize’s Tom Steyer). Le Duc, who sees opportunities to scoop up clean tech companies with good management and long-term potential as others retreat, told ImpactAlpha’s Amy Cortese, “The fundamentals of the sustainability transition are very much intact.”
The choose-your-own-adventure aspect of the current moment was also on display in Aren LeeKong’s departure as head of private lending at Carlyle Group’s to found Nine Dean, a new permanent holding company anchored by the Ford Foundation’s largest-ever mission investment (disclosure: Ford Foundation is an investor in ImpactAlpha). Instead of quick hits and big layoffs, Nine Dean is talking long term and quality jobs, with LeeKong vowing to measure its success “not in quarters, but in generations.” At Navajo Power, Brett Isaac is similarly flipping the script on energy production in Indian Country. In our podcast conversation, Isaac laid out Navajo Power’s utility-scale plans to produce cleaner electrons while ensuring Native peoples make the call on how their resources are used, who benefits and how. RPCK’s Aaron Bourke provided a road map for structuring incentives for fund managers linked not only to financial returns but to impact outcomes as well. And, as Amy reported, the recent Global Climate Finance Forum, seeking to mobilize capital for locally-led solutions in the Global South, did the sensible thing in the face of arbitrary immigration (not to mention climate) policies in the US, and convened instead in Jamaica. “Global conversations should not happen in places the global majority cannot access,” said Marilyn Waite of the Hewlett Foundation-backed Climate Finance Fund, which underwrote the gathering.
The food fight among the oligarchs over just how many Medicaid and Obamacare clients to sacrifice on the altar of tax cuts for the wealthiest should not obscure mounting evidence in favor of more sensible priorities. Each dollar invested in climate adaptation and resilience, for example, yields more than $10 dollars in ‘triple dividends’ over the course of a decade, reports Lucy Ngige, based on analysis from the World Resources Institute. Likewise, güil Mobility Ventures commissioned a ‘hit list’ of global challenges and effective solutions to help impact investors “better bridge the funding gap created by the collapse in government aid,” wrote Gilad Tanay of ERI Institute, which produced the roster. On our This Week in Impact podcast (see below), new CEO Dennis Price shares how ImpactAlpha is stepping up to meet the moment. Now as full-time editor-in-chief, I’m counting on Agents of Impact to help track the plot twists and turns, and together to write a new script. – David Bank
The Week’s Podcasts
🎧 This Week in Impact: ImpactAlpha’s CEO transition. In this special episode of This Week in Impact, host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s leadership transition with founder and editor David Bank and newly named CEO Dennis Price (read the announcement). “The play is to super-serve Agents of Impact,” says Price, who linked up with Bank and ImpactAlpha co-founder Zuleyma Bebell over a decade ago to build the platform. ImpactAlpha has “become a must-read editorial platform in the industry. What we’re executing is to become a must-use intelligence tool for Agents of Impact.”
- Unabashedly impact. In a moment of great volatility and change, investors and other practitioners who are using finance as a force for progress are stepping up, said Bank, ImpactAlpha’s founder and editor-in-chief. “We’re stepping up as well.” To bring transparency and connectivity to the impact investment marketplace, ImpactAlpha is turning its deal reporting and editorial insights into datasets and tools. What’s not changing? “Our laser focus on impact” in finance, says Price. That hyperfocus on impact, he adds, “is the driver of the evolution and the transition we’re talking about.”
- Listen to the new episode of This Week in Impact. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
🦸 Agents of Impact: Building a pipeline of utility-scale solar projects in Indian Country. “Indigenous communities have the resource potential to site projects of the size and scale that we need,” Navajo Power’s founder and CEO Brett Isaac says on ImpactAlpha’s latest Agents of Impact podcast. Isaac and Navajo Power’s COO Michael Cox joined David Bank to discuss how the company is developing clean energy projects and community benefits on Native lands. Check it out.
🧑🏽🎓 Impact(ed): Purpose fitting impact for community needs. Smit Naik of Sorenson Impact Institute joins Lucas and Eric to talk about his previous work at Gary Community Ventures. On tap: the importance of deploying the right capital, at the right time, for the right purpose; how philanthropies leave so much potential impact on the table; and why even investors could use a dose of human-centered design. Listen in.
📯 The Criterion Institute Podcast: Supporting African founders and the power of community. After a three-decade career in banking in Africa, Joyce-Ann Wainaina started Chui Ventures, a Nairobi-based seed fund that backs African founders. The fund’s first close came together in just 16 days, thanks to Wainaina’s personal network. “In Africa, VC is very nascent,” she tells host Joy Anderson. “But the idea of backing people is not. Especially in Kenya, there is a common understanding that it takes a village.” Tune in.
The Week’s Call
Plugged In: Investing in mobility beyond EVs with Reggaria Goddard of Crowned VC (video). For many people, the term “mobility” conjures electric cars or public transit. For Reggaria Goddard of Detroit-based Crowned Venture Capital, the more expansive mobility opportunity encompasses deep tech, critical infrastructure and a holistic approach to urban development. “When I talk about the future of transportation and mobility, I think a lot of us get EVs as the first intersection,” Goddard told host Sherrell Dorsey on this week’s Plugged In. “There is lots of overlap from other industries, including tech, deep tech, communication, insurance tech,” Goddard says. “All these things are wrapped up into mobility.”
- Cities as laboratories. Goddard says cities like Detroit, her hometown, and Miami are pushing the boundaries of mobility with initiatives to attract and retain talent, reduce congestion, lower emissions and minimize accidents. As an investor, she looks for mobility solutions for local challenges that have the potential to expand. Says Dorsey, “Maybe it starts for the urban community, but it has a bigger footprint in the long run all around the world.”
The Week’s Deals, Talent and Jobs
💼 See and share dozens of new impact jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub. Have a job listing to post? Submit it here. And check out all of this week’s dealflow reporting.
JPMorgan Chase appointed Sarah Kapnick, a former investment banking analyst at Goldman Sachs, as global head of climate advisory… Mauritania’s former economy minister Sidi Ould Tah was elected president of the African Development Bank last week, succeeding Nigeria’s Akinwumi Adesina… James McIntyre is stepping down as chief strategy officer of Inclusive Prosperity Capital.
Mission Driven Finance promoted Peter Metz to portfolio manager… Columbia Business School’s Christian Carrion-Vera joined Uplifting Capital as an impact investment summer associate… Valerie Abbruzzese, an MBA candidate at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, joined Inspire Access as a summer venture fellow… Social Finance Institute welcomed Sahana Vivek, a rising senior at Georgetown University, as an intern… Mohadeseh Abdullahi, previously with Molten Ventures, joined Giant Ventures as partner.
Conduit Impact welcomed Emma Lupton, former responsible investment VP at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, as venture partner… National Cooperative Bank added Gerardo Espinoza of the Local Enterprise Assistance Fund and Sparkfund’s Bill Bush as board directors… Caprock tapped Vivek Jindal, previously with KORE Private Wealth, as chief investment officer… Indigenous Prosperity Foundation appointed Relay Tangie as acting executive director, temporarily replacing Michelle Okere, who begins maternity leave later this month.
That’s a wrap. Have a wonderful weekend.
– June 6, 2025
