Read our Why Good Capital Series conversation with impact leader Gloria Nelund about why the Good Capital Project is needed in this moment as well as the invaluable insights each subject has into our industry. Gloria Nelund is Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of TriLinc Global and a pioneer in the development of social impact products. She previously served as CEO of the U.S. Private Wealth Management Division at Deutsche Bank.
Do you believe that collaboration is important in this industry and if so, why?
GN: I think it’s critical. Any movement that has ever been successful in changing behavior over time has been collaborative instead of competitive. We need people from every single background, way of thinking, business model. You need them all. The only way we’re going to get there is to collaborate because there’s too much to be done.
I had a conversation with somebody recently who said, “You spent your whole career on Wall Street. Did you ever find that space to be collaborative?” I started laughing and I said, “Oh my, no.” Now that’s not to say that there weren’t people who were collaborative, but as a group I would say no, absolutely not. I was disappointed when I got really involved in the impact investing space and found that it wasn’t either. We have to become collaborative.
As a firm, collaboration is one of our founding principles. We share information. I go speak at conferences, I offer classes. We do all these things to contribute data to all the databases. We are completely transparent about all of our processes because, look, it takes all of us. We’re not trying to do it all, we’re trying to do one thing, right? We’re trying to do it really well. We need everybody else doing the same thing and collaborating where we can.
Collaborating does not need to mean anybody loses. I’m one of those people who believes in the great idea that you can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want. That to me is what collaboration is all about. I don’t have to lose anything because I help people.
Read the full conversation with Gloria Nelund here.
