OIIP 2023-Celebrating 10 Years in the Classroom-Lessons for the Field

Dear friends,?

The Club Room is quiet.?Just me, a cup of tea, and a very large portrait of Margaret Thatcher. I keep expecting to see all of you huddled around the coffee machine; vying for ginger shots; or in lively conversations about new concepts, team presentations, or the upcoming debate. ( Ewa Jackson and Maggie Korde ... you were terrific! Thank you, Peter Hinton for coaching our first OIIP student debaters.)?

The World is Home.?

With 46 students from 25 countries, the Oxford Impact Investing Programme class of 2023, continues to represent the world. In a decade, more than 1,000 senior executives from 90 countries have attended our Impact programmes. You represented the diverse perspectives of nongovernmental organizations, foundations, finance, and business that have become a hallmark of our portfolio programmes. Like our first class in 2013, there were more women than men in the cohort.?

Our Focus on the Global South was Intentional.

In this class, more than half of you live or work in countries in the Global South. Moreover, people of the Global South will bear the brunt of the climate crise and growing inequities. Gilberto Ribeiro de Oliveira Filho , vineet rai , and Frank Aswani offered us insights into these challenges and investment innovations. Look for new forms of leverage capital—diaspora, faith-aligned investing.?

Our goal has been to create a programme that is personal and relevant to all our students who view the world as home. I was happy to hear Ambassador Damali Ssali Founder and CEO, Ideation Corner say in her reflections, “Unlike other educational experiences, I could see myself in my classmates and faculty.”?

Class Exercise: Expanding Global South-to-South Creative Economies.

Investing in Creativity?was a theme for our 10-year anniversary programme. As cascading Wicked Problems—or “polycrisis” emerge—we all need to ignite our creativity to reimagine impact investing and find new ways to solve multi-layered, multi-sector Wicked Problems. We are in this together! No one group of investors can solve global financial inequality and insecurity; the consequences of climate change and natural disasters; massive human migration; the accelerated loss of biodiversity; and the growing digital divide. (Even with our excitement about Fintech and AI, roughly 3 billion people or one-third of the global population, lack access to the internet.)???

Find Your Inner Artist. The class exercise called on teams to use impact investing to expand South-to-South Creative Economies. It was designed to help you to apply what you learned in class to a real-life investment opportunity. As I said in class, your team presentations were magical. Multi-sector collaborations work. (I hope you had fun and found your inner artist...now, don’t lose it!)?

So, crank up the volume and listen to the OIIP 2023 playlist whilst we review three daily highlights from our week together. There are many more insights—check your mini-Bodleian Library for resources. (Reminder: tackling Wicked Problems requires good dance music to keep spirits high and allow creativity to flow!)?

Celebration: Kool and the Gang

https://youtu.be/3GwjfUFyY6M

Diego El Cigala—El Raton?

https://youtu.be/dgy1f1l0EBA

Burna Boy—Question

https://youtu.be/0rOer3k2DWg

Bayethe by Nomcebo Zikode, Wouter Kellerman, Zakes Bantwini

https://youtu.be/kTj4jm48A1s

Here comes the Sun—the Beatles?

https://youtu.be/KQetemT1sWc

Trail Markers for Impact Investing Trail Blazers.

Day One: Be Unreasonable?(aka George Bernard Shaw), Afram Plains. Global South Ecosystem. Green Finance at Scale.

• Your leadership matters.?You will be challenged as an impact investor. Find your moral compass. Speak candidly about what is and what isn’t working. Don’t fall under the spell of group think. Accept the consequences of your investment decision. Yes, you define the terms of an investment.?
• See the system, not the silo.?Understand the interconnected risk and unintended consequences. Accept responsibility/liability for your decisions.??
• Form follows function.?The problem you seek to address should define the impact investing tool used. The strategy doesn’t define the impact. A fund is one strategy. There are others. Circumstances change—so should your investment approach.?

Day Two: Lumina case. Measurement Matters.?

• Be prepared to iterate.?Play out different roles and scenarios?throughout the investment process.
• Build internal support—find three allies.
• Impact measurement isn’t mystical.?Yes, look for partners with experience. As Ana asked, “I do theory of change—is it different from what we do in international development?” No, it is not. Colleagues can help you fill in your knowledge gap.

Day Three: Wisdom from Alex Nicholls . Rodney Schwartz . vineet rai .

• Impact Investing is a movement.
• The impact movement has fundamentally and permanently changed the investment landscape.?That for all the bumps along the way, impact investing and the movement around it has dramatically shifted the way we think about investing—from a two to a three-dimensional activity.?
• Impact investing is hard.?Capital likes to grow. We need to be comfortable with allowing that to happen.

Day Four: Impact Investing in India/Asia; Brazil and Latin America; United States.

Listen: Jorge Torre , COBI, Six Lessons in Six Minutes?

1. Listen to community and build trust ... ask questions and drink coffee together.
2. Don’t bring your bias and try to convince me to use your money on things I don’t want or need.
3. Build my capacity to understand impact investing and how it is useful to me to advance my mission.
4. Lost in Translation is real—become multi-lingual and able to speak the language of impact across sectors.
5. Recognize that communities have many financial needs that will require funder-investor-NGO collaborations. It requires holistic funding to link housing, health care, education, food security, infrastructure, and conservation.
6. Address the gender divide—90% of funds are run by men; 45% of fishing value-chain involve women; 75% of employees in aquaculture are women.

John Duong : Don’t fall in love with a deal because you love the other funding partners.?Do your due diligence and ask tough questions. Do site visits.?

Gilberto Ribeiro de Oliveira Filho : Get out of a bad deal?that isn’t good for the communities you serve, and your values aren’t aligned with your investment partners.

Peter Hinton : Understand local context, local needs.?

Outstanding Debate Question: Should all NGOs be Impact Investors? ... Let’s see how this plays out!?

Day Five: Team Presentations and Bringing Knowledge Home

• Go slow to go fast.
• Your teams/presentations were magical:?TOC—If?we put teams together from different sectors, different countries, different experiences;?if?we give them an exercise that allows them to tap their collective creativity to use impact investing to advance Global South Creative Economies;?then?investment solutions will be developed that will advance gender equality; provide high quality jobs for unemployed youth; mitigate the effects of climate change; create livable cities; and promote effective cross-sector partnerships.???

Damian Payiatakis : Intrapreneur 10 Commandments (top 5)

1.?????Build your team, it is not a solo activity.

2.?????Share credit widely.

3.?????Ask advice before you ask for resources.

4.?????Remember it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

5.?????Come to work each day willing to be fired.

Applause to Our First-in-Class, Best-in-Class Impact Investing Faculty

For our anniversary, we expanded our guest faculty to give you even great access to world-class, first-in-class leaders who launched impact investing in their respective countries and continents. They spoke candidly and discussed success, the challenges in impact investing. A special thanks to our faculty for sharing their stories of impact and vision for the future.

·??????? vineet rai vineet rai ,?founder & chairman at Aavishkaar?Group?has led impact investing in India, Asia, and Africa.

·??????? Gilberto Ribeiro de Oliveira Filho Ribertio of Vox Capital—Brazil’s first impact investor and leader in Latin America—above photo. (Vineet advised Daniel Izzo during the creation of Vox.)

·??????? Jamie Merisotis , CEO Lumina Foundation who has championed education philanthropy and launched the case study, Impact Investing at Lumina Foundation: Potential, Pitfalls, and Progress Enjoy the read!

·??????? John Duong CEO Kind Capital who helped launch Mission Related Investing at W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Lumina Foundation.?

·??????? Rodney Schwartz Schwartz, founder of Clearly So who has been leading impact investing in the UK and Europe for more than 20 years.

·??????? Phyllis Kurlander Costanza Costanza, former CEO UBS Optimus Foundation, launched the world’s first Development Impact bonds in girls’ education and health care and is now leading a new consultancy OutcomeX to make outcome-based ESG investing measurable.

·??????? Jeremy Nicholls , founder Social Value and IMM for SDGs guru.?

·??????? Tara Sabre Collier Saber Collier, Skoll Centre Visiting Fellow for helping provide measurement frameworks.

·??????? Shaun Kingsbury CBE Kingsbury, CBE for creating Green Banking in the UK and investing in Nature-based finance for the world.

·??????? Peter Hinton , CEO Summit Development Group, Associate Fellow, and newly minted DPhil graduate.

·????? Frank Aswani, CEO Africa Venture Philanthropy Alliance for sharing his vision for Impact Investing in Africa.

·??????? Damian Payiatakis , Barclays Head of Sustainability and Impact Investing.?

·??????? Carolina Biquard (OSFP alum) brought her passion and experience for transforming the Creative Economies into global economic opportunity.?

·?????? Ojoma Ochai for sharing her hopes and vision for the Creative Economies in Africa and the Global South. Thanks for joining us!?

·???????Professor Marc Ventresca, for chairing our debate!?

Kudos?to Annabelle Richards , Tonielle Ballard , Abbey, and Leah for a job well done.

Finally, thanks to you all for joining us in Oxford and celebrating our 10-year anniversary?in the classroom. Please keep in touch. We want to hear about your courageous and creative journey. Yes, in the words of J.R.R Tolkien, “courage is found in unlikely places.” We hope you found yours in Oxford.?

Follow-up promise?to students in our ad hoc sustainable agriculture group: Joseph (Son of the Soil), Dorothee, Kimberley, Maritza, and Madalena, I am happy to convene a follow-up session or individually provide contacts and additional resources. Anyone from class can provide resources or reach out with special needs. Let me know how you would like to proceed.?

With warm wishes on a windy, sunny Spring Day in Oxford,?

Gayle

gayle peterson

associate fellow?|?said business school?|?oxford university

director oxford impact investing and social finance programmes

visiting fellow?|?skoll centre for entrepreneurship

co-lead faith and impact finance project

[email protected]