TGIF, Agents of Impact!
Live on ImpactAlpha Edge. We’ve added profiles of high-net-worth individual LPs (like French rugby star and impact investor Antoine Dupont) and a larger selection of LP co-investors, meaning more paths to warm introductions. We’re now tracking 1,200 LPs, 1,100 GPs and 2,700 allocations. Up next: Editorial-to-Edge links, helping you go from insight to action.
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In today’s Brief:
- Roundup: Narrative change
- Podcasts: Laura Ortiz Montemayor, Giselle Carino, Meradith Leebrick
- Chart: Chinese solar sales soar
🗣Narrative change. While in Atlanta this week, we went out to the site of the Chattahoochee Brick Company’s factory and met local resident Donna Stephens. In the decades after the Civil War, the brick factory was an epicenter of the convict lease labor system that effectively re-enslaved hundreds of thousands of Black men, along with women and children. The site was due to become an oil and gas terminal until Stephens started telling anyone who would listen about the factory’s brutal legacy. Stephens’ storytelling turned around the plans of a major railroad company and enabled a deal that will turn the 77-acre site into a public park and memorial to the people who worked and died there.
The ImpactAlpha team was in Atlanta for the biennial Mission Investors Exchange conference, where we expected to hear about grim responses to the challenges facing communities and their champions in “the current environment.” That continued resolve certainly came through. But so too did the excitement about what can be done – and is being done – to build wealth and agency in those communities. Frank Fernandez explained how the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta in the last three years has leveraged $122 million in philanthropic and impact capital into more than $1 billion in financing for affordable housing. In a guest post, Kresge Foundation’s Aaron Seybert laid out the role of community development financial institutions in stabilizing local markets. In many cities, wealthy athletes are providing seed capital for first-time home buyers, diverse entrepreneurs and affordable housing, as Roodgally Senatus reported. Indeed, “place-based” has become the watchword for many Agents of Impact. “The local saves the national,” as McKnight Foundation’s Tonya Allen put it.
Even in this current environment, impact investors are planting the seeds of a new narrative around the role of government. “The government’s role as an investor and market shaper, not just a spender, is an old American tradition overdue for revival,” contributing editor Antony Bugg-Levine wrote in his latest column. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Kimberlee Cornett suggested three messaging points for that revival: public programs pay dividends; subsidies are not handouts; and public policies can build wealth, not bureaucracies. In emerging markets, development finance institutions like British International Investment are increasing their risk appetites to mobilize institutional investors, as Danielle Rossingh and Jessica Pothering report, while secondary markets are helping recycle capital by providing much-needed liquidity, per Sango Capital’s Richard Okello.
“We are in the midst of a massive narrative struggle,” Equal Justice Initiative’s Bryan Stevenson said to close out this week’s MIE conference with a masterclass in powerful storytelling. “If we’re not participating in this narrative struggle, we will be much less effective than I think we could be.” The fear and anger that has predominated in recent years must give way to one of hope and freedom, he said. “I don’t talk about slavery and lynching and segregation because I want to punish America. I talk about these things because I really want to liberate us. There’s something better waiting for us in this country, I believe that, something that feels more like freedom, more like hope, more like equality, and it’s waiting for us.” – David Bank
The Week’s Podcasts
🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editors Jessica Pothering and David Bank. Up this week: Recent developments in Africa’s carbon markets; which wealthy athletes are getting into the impact investing game; and debriefing this week’s Mission Investors Exchange conference.
- Listen to the new episode of This Week in Impact. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
👩🏫 Women Changing Finance: Building a regenerative economy. Host Krisztina Tora is joined by SVX Mexico’s Laura Ortiz Montemayor to unpack assumptions behind today’s impact investing models and why they often fall short. Ortiz shares her perspective on narrative challenges in Latin America, including the belief that job creation equals impact, and that protecting nature is only “nice to have.”
📯 Criterion Institute Podcast: Movement-led finance. What happens when feminist movements stop asking permission and start acting as asset owners? Host Joy Anderson is joined by Giselle Carino and Meradith Leebrick of Fòs Feminista to explore how movement‑led organizations are building financial tools, institutions and enterprises that sustain reproductive justice over the long term.
The Week’s Chart
Strait shutdown spurs Chinese solar sales. The war with Iran has dramatically boosted Russia’s oil revenues. Even more momentous is the jolt to China’s exports of solar photovoltaic supplies. With the Strait of Hormuz shut, shipments of Chinese solar panels, cells and wafers doubled in March to a record 68 gigawatts. Conflict in the Gulf is accelerating a shift to clean power, rewarding China’s massive investments in green technology. Fifty countries set all-time records for Chinese solar imports in March; Africa’s imports spiked by 176% from February. “Fossil shocks are boosting the solar surge,” said Euan Graham of the research firm Ember, which analyzed Chinese customs data. “Countries are importing solar panels at record levels, and building up their own domestic assembly and manufacturing capabilities to address surging global demand.” Also driving the surge: changes to China’s export tax rebates that went into effect in April. China exported more batteries and EVs as well. Battery exports rose 44% from February to reach $10 billion in March. Overseas sales of Chinese-made electric vehicles jumped 140% from a year earlier.
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 coverage.
Supply Change Capital promoted Rachel Stinebaugh to principal… Overture Ventures promoted Leila Pirbay to partner… Laura Walk, formerly with SignalFire, joined Town Hall Ventures as a vice president… Richard Brandweiner, chair of Impact Investing Australia, is named CIO of Australia’s Future Fund… Matt Christensen departed his role as global head of sustainable and impact investing at Allianz Global Investors.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority appointed Emily Jamieson as chief financial officer and internal control officer, and Kathleen O’Brien-NeJame as general counsel and secretary to the Authority… Rick Alexander stepped down as CEO of The Shareholder Commons on June 30. Dan Osusky, chief research officer, will take his place… Impact Community Capital promoted Andrew Zimmerman to chief investment officer.
New Hampshire Community Loan Fund tapped Keith Sandbloom, previously with Finca Impact Finance, as senior vice president of residential lending and portfolio management… Enterprise Community Partners welcomed Neill Coleman, formerly with Trinity Wall Street, as its first chief external affairs officer… Purpose Built Communities recruited Lynnette McRae, previously with the Chicago Community Trust, as vice president of prospects and growth… Bridget Meller, previously with Capitala Group, joined Mosaic Capital Partners as vice president of business development.
That’s a wrap. Have a wonderful weekend.
– May 1, 2026
