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In this week’s Open:
- KKR’s Pete Stavros on shared ownership as a competitive edge in private equity
- Erik Stein’s dispatch from the Sustainable Investing Challenge in London
- Combatting displacement on Main Street with PIE and Sherrell Dorsey on PluggedIn.
- New podcasts from ImpactAlpha, Impact(ed), Criterion Institute, Community Capital Live and Activest
Let’s dig in. – Dennis Price
Must-reads on ImpactAlpha
- KKR’s Pete Stavros: Shared ownership as a competitive advantage in private equity (Q&A). Private equity firms, long known for laying off workers to boost profits, are instead starting to look for a competitive edge by sharing a portion of their payouts with employees. KKR, the $638 billion private equity buyout giant, is winning deals from competitors because of the firm’s commitment to broad-based employee ownership, says Pete Stavros, KKR’s co-head of global private equity. Read more.
- Direct experience informs students’ designs for sustainable financing mechanisms. ImpactAlpha data journalist Erik Stein’s team was a finalist in this year’s Sustainable Investing Challenge, hosted by Morgan Stanley and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Innovative climate financing mechanisms in emerging markets took the three top prizes. Erik’s reflections.
- With medical research funding in peril, one biotech VC firm pushes innovation forward. The Trump administration’s plans to decimate funding for medical and scientific research and disease prevention “is galvanizing Big Pharma, nonprofits, family offices, venture capital firms – all of us – to figure out how we navigate this current environment,” says Glenn Rockman of Adjuvant Capital. See how.
Agents of Impact
🏃 On the move
- Blue Earth Capital welcomed Vita Mateychuk, previously with Citi, as a private equity partnerships analyst.
- Regeneration.VC added Nathan Jackson of Circular Ventures as an advisor.
- Allison Jegla, formerly with 100 Women In Finance, became head of platform of Renown Capital Partners, an energy-focused venture capital firm.
The Week’s Call
Plugged In: How Partners in Equity empowers Main Street businesses to combat displacement. Many investors overlook Main Street mom-and-pop shops in their pursuit of venture-style returns. Partners in Equity, or PIE, aims to unlock financial and social value in these community assets. The North Carolina-based commercial real estate firm helps small business owners in underserved communities acquire the properties where they operate. On the latest Plugged In, host Sherrell Dorsey spoke with PIE’s Talib Graves-Manns and Wilson Lester about how shared equity for down payment assistance can create wealth in undercapitalized communities.
The Week’s Podcasts
🎧 This Week in Impact: The buzz at the Milken Global Conference. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with Jessica Pothering. Up this week: With US markets in turmoil, investors at the Milken Global Conference shifted their focus to ownership, AI and the rest of the world. Adjuvant Capital on how VC health investments can advance innovation amid cutbacks in medical research funding. And, forget your Zodiac sign – Phenix Capital has mapped four archetypes for impact fund managers. Which one fits you?
- Listen to the new episode of This Week in Impact. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.
🦸 Agents of Impact. The spinout venture capital fund JFF Ventures is betting on a high-road vision of workforce innovation – and AI – to expand economic mobility for workers amid technological disruption and economic uncertainty. “The evolution of technology and innovation has created a ripe moment for us to invest in technology companies that help upskill, train and connect low- and middle-wage earners to better jobs,” JFF Ventures’ Yigal Kerszenbaum says on the latest Agents of Impact podcast.
🧑🏽🎓 Impact(ed): Navigating the path to purpose. In their Season 2 opener, co-hosts Lucas Turner-Owens and Eric Horvath chart their journeys into impact investing with Worthmore’s Rodney Foxworth. They unpack Impact(ed), as well – a space for the full spectrum of stories in finance, especially those that are too often left out. Listen to the full episode.
📯 Criterion Institute Podcast: Reimagining resourcing for social transformation, Part 2. Host Joy Anderson speaks with Equality Fund’s Katharine Im-Jenkins about the innovative financing strategies behind Equality Fund, the power dynamics in endowments, and sustainable funding for grassroots organizations working on gender equality. Tune in.
🏘️ Community Capital Live: Financing vibrant communities in North Carolina. Host Joel Skene is joined by Matt Raker of Mountain BizWorks, an Asheville-based community development financial institution that has funded local entrepreneurship for over 30 years. Raker shares how peer-to-peer networks, flexible capital and community-rooted strategies drive long-term success. Watch the video podcast.
🗺️ Activest Podcast: Activest’s journey from concept to reality. Hosts Ellen Ward Owen and John Killeen trace their paths from the early concept of Activest to the launch of Next World Assets and reflect on the challenges of fiscal justice and place-based impact investing. Check it out.
Get in the Game
💼 Step up
- ICA Fund is hiring a chief investment officer in the Bay Area.
- Raymond James Financial has an opening for a community impact associate in St. Petersburg, Florida.
- The Michigan Center for Employee Ownership is hiring a grants and financial specialist in Grand Rapids.
Dozens of job opportunities are available to subscribers each week on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
🤝 Meet up
- June 4-5: 4-5 IMPAQTO’s Latin American Impact Investment Summit (Quito)
- June 11-13: Africa Impact Investing Group’s Africa Impact Summit (Accra)
- June 23-25: ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit (Seattle)
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