This e-talk is part of a series of EVPA events on Investing for Development.
What is this e-talk about?
Investing in and supporting (social) entrepreneurship development in emerging countries is already an important area of engagement for EVPA‘s investing for development community. In the second theme oft he investing for development event series we would like to explore innovative approaches to finance the "missing middle" and close the financing gap for early stage impact oriented start ups as well as what it takes to support entrepreneurship development, facilitate access to markets and strengthen entrepreneurial eco-systems.
We discussed myths and realities of business development and financing with members of the EVPA community who are leading practitioners in the field.
Jessie Coates
Working with small and growing businesses globally to help scale new technologies and business models that purposefully drive progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Jessie is the EY Global Impact Entrepreneurship Leader.
A Chartered Accountant by trade, she began her career in corporate finance before working with clients spanning the social, private and public sectors within the EY UK&I Advisory services. Since 2017, Jessie has focused on supporting impact entrepreneurs in overcoming barriers to growth, primarily in emerging market contexts. She also serves on the board of several local and international impact enterprises and non-profits.
Jessie holds a BA and MA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, graduating with a First Class Honors, and is an alumnus of the INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Program.
Nicholas Colloff
Nicholas' career has focused on developing enterprise related solutions to poverty. He was the founder of Opportunity International UK part of the global financial inclusion network, Opportunity International of which he was one of the architects. With Opportunity, he helped start two MSME banks in Eastern Europe and an investment fund for financial inclusion for Eastern Europe.
Leaving Opportunity, he helped establish Basic Needs, focused on mental health in developing country contexts, where he helped develop a model for community mental health care that included pathways to enhance employment and income generation for people with mental illness.
He then joined Oxfam GB first as Country Director for Russia and subsequently Director for Strategy and Innovation globally and focused on emergent areas of concern - urban poverty, impact investing, micro-insurance - and helped launch the Small Enterprise Impact Investing Fund.
With Argidius, the focus has been on developing small and growing business support ecosystems and especially on identifying what are the characteristics of an effective business development intervention; and, how improve businesses access to knowledge, talent and finance.
Wolfgang Hafenmayer
Challenger 88 aims for a world in balance. Challenger 88 achieves this through two main strategies:
- By inspiring and advising families, foundations, impact funds and companies how to create positive impact according to their values across all asset classes
- - By investing in strongly growing companies with outstanding environmental and social solutions
Since leaving LGT Venture Philanthropy (today LGT Impact Ventures), Challenger 88 advised serveral companies, funds and foundations around impact investing topics. Among the larger engagements, Wolfgang took an ad-interim role as "Head of Societal Impact Advisory for Trusted Family" to build their Societal Impact Advisory area and advise Trusted Family's 100 large family clients around impact investing topics (education, strategy & implementation).
Challenger 88 also supported Global Acceleration Partners, an innovative investment company that invests in companies with outstanding, proven environmental technologies that can help to solve our biggest environmental challenges gloablly.
From 2007 - 2014 Wolfgang built LGT Venture Philanthropy from scratch, with the financial support of the Princely Family of Liechtenstein. LGT VP is recognized by the industry as one of the global leaders in impact investing. Wolfgang managed a team of 30 investment managers and impact investing advisors on five continents who invested in strongly growing companies with outstanding social and environmental impact. End of 2014 around 7 million less advantage people benefit from the around 50 portfolio companies of LGT VP. A growing number of clients enjoyed the advice and investment skills of the global LGT VP team with significant local expertise, networks and experience. If you want to get inspired, please enjoy www.lgtvp.com.
Before starting LGT Venture Philanthropy in 2007, Wolfgang gained rich experience in the industry as an investment manager with BonVenture, the first social venture fund in german-speaking Europe and helped set up Forma Futura, a sustainable asset management company. Previously, he was the executive director of the IT and management consulting firm Consileon and also worked for the consultancy Bain & Company.
During a trip around the world he interviewed 230 social entrepreneurs, politicians and scientists in 26 countries and recorded his findings in his book "Die Zukunftsmacher/The FutureMaker". Wolfgang Hafenmayer holds a masters degree in economics and business administration from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Marnix Mulder
Marnix Mulder is an expert in developing and implementing blended finance strategies with more than 20 years of experience. His passion is to build scalable finance solutions to tackle main societal challenges of today.
He is currently responsible for developing and managing Triple Jump's Market Development activities, including the Seed Capital & Business Development program (www.dggf.nl) that aims to improve access to finance for the Missing Middle.