Experience the Dynamic Potential of Impact Investing in These SOCAP24 Brief & Bold Talks
At SOCAP24, twelve impact leaders shared their perspectives on deepening systems change. During these short and insightful “Brief & Bold Talks,” speakers offered diverse interpretations and practical applications of impactful strategies across various sectors and stakeholders all with the aim of catalyzing meaningful change for an inclusive and regenerative economy.
Drawing on their extensive cross-sector global experience, these speakers shared powerful, real-world examples of how to challenge conventional methods and build something truly innovative. The stories shared in the videos below offer valuable lessons and inspiration for everyone — whether you’re a foundation leader, an entrepreneur building a new enterprise, or a strategist at a venture fund. Each example highlights the transformative potential of investing systemically, proving that not only is it possible, but it is already happening and making a meaningful impact.
Marla Blow, Skoll Foundation | How Three Degrees of Change Can Create Transformative Impact
“What if we stopped asking, ‘What about the risks?’ and started asking, ‘What about the opportunities’?“
Marla Blow is the President and COO of the Skoll Foundation. Previously, she was the North America lead at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and the Founder and CEO of FS Card Inc., a subprime credit card venture. Blow won the EY Mid Atlantic Emerging Company Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2018, and has been listed as one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business. Marla was featured in the April 2018 Vanity Fair “26 Women of Color Diversifying Entrepreneurship” photo shoot, and she is a Henry Crown Fellow as part of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Stuart Cowan, Buckminster Fuller Institute | Rewilding Impact Investing
“As we see the sad collapse of ecosystems around us, one of the most critical things that we can do is rewild the planet to preserve what we can.”
Dr. Stuart Cowan brings 25 years of experience as a planetary strategist, ecological designer, systems scientist, and regenerative economist. He serves as Executive Director of Buckminster Fuller Institute, which is dedicated to the realization of Fuller’s vision of a world that works for 100% of humanity in the shortest time possible without ecological offense or disadvantage to anyone. In this role, he supports efforts to advance design science for systems change. This includes launching the BFI Design Lab to support open innovation systems to strategically address critical planetary challenges. BFI Design Lab participants include The BioFi Project, Indigenous Rewilding Network, Regenerosity, and Open Future Coalition’s Regional Resilience Fellowship.
Leonor Gutiérrez, Root Capital | Women in Agriculture: Drivers of System Change
“Women are leading in some of the most incredibly difficult areas of the world and are demonstrating business acumen, social courage, and climate resilience. Their leadership is what our families, communities, and the world need to change the system in the way that we produce what we eat.”
Growing up in the countryside of Costa Rica, Leo Gutiérrez was surrounded by inspirational women in her community. They taught her the importance of three powers: the power of working together, the power of having a purpose, and the power of finding joy in whatever you do. Since then, she’s worked with international NGOs, educational institutions, and local nonprofits to intentionally build gender equity centered around the use of these three powers. Gutiérrez is honored to work alongside the rest of the Root Capital team and its client agricultural businesses to build holistic equity around the world.
Michael Hungerford, Seven Generations Capital | Seven Generations: Regenerating Indigenous Land, Culture and Wealth
“Ownership matters. … Together, what we can do to make this world whole — our land, our communities, our future. What would you build, if you could be whole?”
Michael Hungerford is a member of the Gwich’in First Nation through his mother and is of British settler descent through his father. He is passionate about promoting the well-being of Indigenous Peoples through initiatives in Indigenous economic development. Hungerford has 20 years of experience in real estate investment, management, and development and leads Hungerford Properties, a second-generation family real estate business with over $1.7B of assets under management and development. Under his leadership, its subsidiary Seven Generations Capital has integrated Indigenous values across its operations and is dedicated to impactful investments in Indigenous lands. These investments are designed to create meaningful outcomes to improve the well-being of Indigenous communities in various areas, including income and wealth, work and job quality, housing, knowledge and skills, community engagement, and environmental quality.
Jill Johnson, Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership | Creating an Inclusive Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: The Power of We
“Capital finds its way to the people who are connected to the people with capital. … If we are serious about inclusion, we, the people in this room, must be responsible for including. Go to events where you are the only one like you. Use your plus one to bring someone new into the room.”
Jill Johnson, a dynamic leader and change agent, is the Co-Founder and CEO of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership (IFEL), a non-profit organization based in Newark, New Jersey. Since its founding in 2002, IFEL has been at the forefront of championing a more inclusive entrepreneurial landscape. With over three decades of experience as a business strategist, Johnson has become a leading advocate for building inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems. Her focus on reimagining access to capital has positioned her as a pioneering voice in the industry. In 2023, Jill spearheaded the organization’s acquisition of Pipeline Angels, an angel-investing training program for women interested in investing in women entrepreneurs. This acquisition represents a significant milestone, merging two trailblazing organizations dedicated to increasing capital access for more entrepreneurs to create a more equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Brendan Lehan, New Capitalism Project | Financing System Health: The Pando Fund
“The profound social change that we’re all working on here at SOCAP can often feel like trembling giants … Pando teaches us to look beneath and to tend to the roots where the real health of systems exists if we want to understand and catalyze what’s above.”
Brendan Lehan is Co-lead of the New Capitalism Project (NCP), a multi-year collaborative experiment in catalyzing transformative economic change. Lehan has spent his career as a strategist and advisor helping leaders and organizations to achieve greater impact through growth, adaptation, and more effective collaboration. For the last decade, he has helped organizations develop robust strategies to tackle complex social issues like education inequality, climate change, financial inclusion, and many others. He operates as an independent consultant, looking for new ways to support mission-driven leaders and their organizations in project-based work or ongoing advisory and to participate in broader field-building, experimentation, and learning on how to tackle complex social issues.
Jacques-Philippe Piverger, GoodLight Capital | Post Ego Investing: What Nine Near-Death Experiences Taught Me About Investing
“Incorporating community and purpose tend to yield better returns across the board.”
Jacques-Philippe Piverger is Founder and Managing Partner of GoodLight Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm purpose-built to invest in and scale high-growth tech companies founded by under-represented individuals solving for consequential challenges of our time. Jacques-Philippe is an entrepreneur who harnesses private and public sector experiences to affect change where it is needed most. He has co-created and scaled a wide range of enterprises including MPOWERD Inc., and The Council of Urban Professionals. He has been recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and by the Council on Foreign Relations as a Term Member.
Jasmine Rashid, Candide Group | The Financial Activist Playbook: 8 Strategies for Everyday People to Reclaim Wealth and Collective Well-Being
“Financial activism is part of reclaiming our ability to shape change. The first step to practicing everyday financial activism is just to be curious; to question, ‘Why is this like this?’”
Jasmine Rashid is a New York-raised, Oakland-based, Bangladeshi-American who believes deeply in people power. As a financial activist, writer, and impact investing professional, she successfully supported the #FamiliesBelongTogether coalition in shifting billions of dollars in big bank financing away from the migrant detention and private prison industry. In her role as Director of Impact for Candide Group, she helps investors flow their money to predominately women & BIPOC-led social justice-focused companies, funds, and vital organizations building the next economy. Jasmine is also the author of The Financial Activist Playbook: 8 Strategies for Everyday People to Reclaim Wealth and Collective Well-Being. This work builds on her knowledge base as a Congressman John Lewis fellow, Just Economy Institute alum, Trauma of Money Method certified practitioner, and lived experience as a girl in her late 20s just trying her best to navigate contradictions under capitalism (and help build something better).
Ken Ruggiero, Goal Beyond | Sub-prime to Sublime: Unlocking the Power of Durable Economic Mobility
“We don’t have a failure to launch. We have a failure to finish an education journey… The number-one reason in 50% of the cases is the student ran out of money.”
Ken Ruggiero is a veteran and innovator in education finance with more than 20 years spent leading teams that create meaningful change and positive returns for students, schools, employees and investors. During his tenure at Goal Financial, the company originated more than $8 billion of private and government-guaranteed student loans, becoming a top 10 student loan provider in the country. After the company’s exit from the lending space in 2008, Ruggiero founded Goal Solutions and eventually, Goal Investment Group, a family of financial technology companies that serve the consumer finance market.
Rachel Sinha, The Systems Studio | An English Woman in Missouri: Stories of Womxn Leading Systems Change in the Flyover States
“We are in the process of building the field of systems change… and building systemic investing. As we fix those concepts, as evaluation frameworks take hold, we must be careful of the unintended consequences for the people that we leave behind if we don’t include them in the conversation.”
Rachel Sinha is the Director of The System Studio, where she helps leaders create meaningful impact by driving systems change. She has a strong track record in building ecosystems, multi-stakeholder platforms, and networks that foster transformative change. Sinha co-founded The Systems Sanctuary, an organization specializing in learning programs on systems change. Through innovative curriculum development and interactive workshops, she has trained teams in organizations such as United Way and WWF in systems thinking. One of her key initiatives, the Virtual Masterclass in Systems Practice, is a cohort-based training that has become a cornerstone of systems change education. Her work also includes developing peer-learning programs for Inspiring Communities and leading research on inclusivity for Ashoka Canada.
Samantha Veide, Forum for the Future | Systems Change: It’s About More Than ‘Big Change’
“How have we created and then somehow fundamentally normalized a system in which we waste 30 to 40 percent of our food supply and yet 700 million people go hungry? … We need people who are screaming from the rooftops, ‘Why the heck do we have 700 million people who are hungry in the first place?’ This is the work of systems change.”
Samantha Veide is the Managing Director of the Americas for Forum for the Future. She works with organizations, including her own, to stretch visions and set future-fit strategies that go beyond risk mitigation and dare to be part of work that contributes to the full restoration of our planet ecologically and socially. Prior to her role as MD, Veide led organizational design for Forum focusing on progressive governance & decision-making models, strategic planning, and capability-building. Prior to Forum, she spent 20 years in the food & beverage sector with businesses such as Mars Incorporated in learning & development, innovation, and corporate social responsibility.
Jared Yarnall-Schane, Biomimicry Institute | Nature as Disruptor: Innovations for a Resilient and Circular Economy
“We can learn from nature to disrupt our industrial ecosystems. I truly believe that we can create a planet that is not only beneficial for humans but for all species who we share our home with.”
Jared Yarnall-Schane is the Director of Innovation at the Biomimicry Institute, where he focuses on commercializing nature-inspired solutions to extractive environmental and societal problems. Before joining the Biomimicry Institute, he developed and ran programs with Penn State University’s incubator and accelerator programs and was the Program Director of Thought For Food. Yarnall-Schane has worked directly with hundreds of impactful startups from around the world, with some notable companies including Agrosmart, Agrospheres, ECOncrete, and Sudoc.
