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• Shareholder Advocacy’s Role in Reimagining Capitalism

  • When
    02 Dec 2021
  •  
    1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
  • Location
    Webinar: Instructions will be emailed to registrants

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  Impact Capital Forum is excited to host an online discussion with Andrew Behar. Join us to learn more about the rise of shareholder advocacy, the growing importance of active ownership in enabling the emergence of a regenerative economy based on justice and sustainability, and the latest trends in shareholder empowerment following a successful 2021 proxy season with five majority votes. 

  • Andrew Behar is CEO of As You Sow, the nation’s leading non-profit practitioner of shareholder advocacy and engagement. Since 1992, As You Sow has used shareholder power to align investments with values and compel companies to reduce material risk on issues including climate change; toxins in the food system; ocean plastics; diversity, equity, and inclusion; racial justice; and wage equity. Previously Andrew was a documentary filmmaker and entrepreneur founding start-ups developing an innovative physiological monitoring medical device and grid-scale fuel cells. He is on the XPrize Brain Trust for Abundant Energy and the advisory boards of Real Impact Tracker and 1-Earth Institute. His book, The Shareholders Action Guide: Unleash Your Hidden Powers to Hold Corporations Accountable, was published in November 2016 by Berrett-Koehler.

  • Stephanie Lavallato (Moderator) is an Associate Program Director of Climate & Environmental Justice at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), a 50-year-old non-profit shareholder advocacy coalition representing over 300 global institutional investors with more than $4 trillion in managed assets. Stephanie is responsible for ICCR’s Just Transition initiatives, focusing on the worker and community impacts of the clean energy transition. Prior to ICCR, Stephanie worked on CDP’s Capital Markets team helping investors and other financial services companies integrate corporate environmental disclosure data into financial products and investment decision-making. Stephanie is also an MBA in Sustainability candidate at Bard College, where she will graduate in May 2022 with a concentration in Impact Finance. 

  
  

  Join us for a fireside chat with Andrew Behar to discuss the power of shareholder activism. 

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• Legal Ways to Help the Impact Economy

  • When
    09 Dec 2021
  •  
    12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
  • Location
    Webinar: Instructions will be emailed to registrants

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  Lawyers play a critical role in determining how the necessary paradigm shift to a more fulsome impact economy is financed, and regulated, as well as how the ecosystem functions. This Conversation with a Catalyst will feature a discussion with a distinguished attorney, Chintan Panchal, who has co-created and facilitated the launch of numerous scalable and investible solutions that address social and environmental targets for clients around the world. Together with ICF Board Member, Michael Lear, we will explore why lawyers are needed to navigate the increasingly complex geography around the impact economy. In practice, when the triple bottom line enters seriously into the conversation, many conventional assumptions and methodologies break, and new models and instruments need to be crafted. This discussion will take us through the reasons why the foundational notions of stakeholder capitalism and a circular economy need not only clarifying principles and effective measures but also effective mechanisms for them to not only be usefully implemented but truly transformational. Please join us for what promises to be an exciting conversation along with Q&A.

  A transformative figure and influencer since the early days of impact investing, Chintan Panchal is recognized for his ability to use the levers of finance and law to create novel transaction frameworks that have been used to address some of the most pressing global challenges around the world. Chintan is committed to the idea that success in impact investing often requires a multidimensional approach that combines traditional investment tenets and a commitment to transaction rigor with new thinking and approaches to drive multiple bottom-line outcomes for investors, entrepreneurs and growth enterprises.

  Chintan has helped architect a number of groundbreaking transactions for clients around the world that have become templates for the rest of the industry, including innovative blended finance structures; a series of investments in Africa and other emerging markets that leverage capital and relationships from Development Finance Institutions and corporate investors; and a range of financing structures engineered to align social impact with financial performance.

  Chintan is a Founding Partner and Head of the U.S. region at RPCK, Rastegar Panchal, a global boutique law firm whose mission is to co-create and facilitate the launch of scalable and investible solutions that address social and environmental targets. He has assembled a deep bench of senior talent who honed their craft at some of the world’s leading law firms and are highly skilled at building impact-investing concepts into complex financial transactions.

  The firm works closely with leading family offices and foundations, high growth companies, and investment funds across a broad spectrum of industries throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America on a range of capital investments that generate social and environmental impact alongside market-rate, risk-adjusted financial returns.

  Chintan has been recognized many times for his contributions to law and impact investing. He was a 2019 and 2021 Grunin Finalist, he has contributed to legal and business texts on impact investing, and he teaches lawyers impact finance.

  Chintan is a regular speaker at a variety of industry conferences around the country, including at the Sorenson Winter Innovation Summit, Gratitude Railroad, the Impact Capitalism Summit, SOCAP, and the Grunin Center’s Legal Symposium on Impact Investing.

  In addition to his corporate practice, he has performed pro bono work representing displaced U.S. workers denied retraining benefits under the Workforce Reinvestment Act, and also served as a member of the team representing 11 Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Chintan is also a Board Member of Camelback Ventures, and a Beyond Capital Ambassador.

  Chintan received a JD from Emory University and a BA in International Relations from Michigan State University and is a member of the bar in New York.

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• Female Founder Friendly Capital - Panel 1 of 2

  • When
    13 Dec 2021
  •  
    1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
  • Location
    Webinar: Instructions will be emailed to registrants

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  As part of our yearlong gender lens working group, Impact Capital Forum is excited to invite you to our next series of conversations, featuring VCs investing capital with a gender lens. 

  Now is an exciting time for venture capital opportunities in female-led companies. Investments can range from early-stage angel funds to later-stage venture capital rounds. There are more opportunities than ever for new investors, especially female and BIPOC investors, to learn about and invest in these funds at more accessible entry levels. Impact Capital Forum has gathered an impressive group of six female fund managers across two panels to share their various investment approaches, their journey to matching more investment dollars with female entrepreneurs, their work to engage and mentor more female investors, and their efforts to ensure both a social and financial return. 

  Dr. Alicia Robbis the Founder and CEO of Next Wave Impact and the Managing Partner of two early-stage venture funds. She is also the Research Director at Cruelty Free Investing and a Research Fellow at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She was previously a Senior Fellow with the Kauffman Foundation for more than a decade. Alicia received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She previously worked as an economist with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Office of Economic Research in the SBA. She is a prolific author on the topics of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial finance. In addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters, she is the co-author of A Rising Tide: Financing Strategies for Women-Owned Businesses and The Next Wave: Financing and Investing Strategies for Growth-Oriented Women Entrepreneurs published by Stanford University Press, as well as Race and Entrepreneurial Success published by MIT Press. She teaches workshops on angel investing and investor readiness around the globe.  She is an active angel investor, a limited partner in three early-stage venture funds, a mentor to various young firms, and a board member for several groups, including the Deming Center Venture Fund, the Kachuwa Impact Fund, Good Food Institute, Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary, and Vegan Investors.  Alicia was awarded the prestigious Hans Severiens Award in 2020, ACA’s annual award recognizing one individual’s work in advancing the field of angel investing.  

  Gayle Jennings-O'Byrne is a venture capitalist who co-founded the WOCstar Fund, an early-stage investment fund that invests in the future of consumption and innovation using a female arbitrage strategy -- women of color tech entrepreneurs (“WOCstars”) and diverse/inclusive competitive advantages. Gayle (pronounced: Gay-lä) takes a unique builder capital approach to help entrepreneurs scale and grow to success while working with investors and allies to participate in the innovation, wealth, and success being built. Named "10 Women Changing the Landscape of Leadership" by the New York Times, March 2021. Recently named one of 500+ LinkedIn Influencers, a list that includes Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Arianna Huffington, and Mary Barra. She hosts "VCs off the Record", a podcast for both entrepreneurs and investors that provides real talk by real investors. She is a former mergers and acquisitions banker at JPMorgan, including working on media deals such as Lions Gate Entertainment and Artisan Entertainment. Previously served as an advisory board member of the Ghetto Film School and led the capital/planning effort for the Cinema High School, 1st public high school of its kind. With over 30+ years of wall street, technology, philanthropy, training, and professional speaking experience, she is unique in her global experience and knowledge and one among few AfricanAmerican women to start a venture capital firm. Gayle is a highly sought-after thought leader in matters of innovation, tech trends, finance, investing, and entrepreneurship. She is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business, the University of Michigan, and an attendee of the National University of Singapore and City of London Polytechnic. She has traveled, studied, or worked in over 75 countries. Gayle is President of The Nantucket Project Academy and a board member of Women.NYC and BE NYC (Black Entrepreneurs), both based out of the New York City Department of Small Business Services. She is a proud Nazarian Social Innovator-in-Residence at Wharton Social Impact Initiative, and a Tribeca Disruptor Fellow. 

  Shila Nieves Burney is the founder and managing partner of Zane Venture Fund, where she leads with the experience, empathy and energy to inspire both first time founders and seasoned investors alike. With decades of experience at the forefront of organizations championing the human rights of people of color, Shila has seen firsthand the cracks in our system where underrepresented founders often get overlooked. To fill those cracks, Shila independently built an ecosystem of education, access, mentorship and investment in human capital. Zane Access is an entrepreneurial support organization that exists to break down systemic barriers for underrepresented founders which, in tandem, provides Zane Venture Fund with opportunities to invest in the best and the brightest founders of the future. 

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• Female Founder Friendly Capital - Panel 2 of 2

  • When
    14 Dec 2021
  •  
    12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
  • Location
    Webinar: Instructions will be emailed to registrants

  Register

  As part of our yearlong gender lens working group, Impact Capital Forum is excited to invite you to our next series of conversations, featuring VCs investing capital with a gender lens. 

  Now is an exciting time for venture capital opportunities in female-led companies. Investments can range from early-stage angel funds to later-stage venture capital rounds. There are more opportunities than ever for new investors, especially female and BIPOC investors, to learn about and invest in these funds at more accessible entry levels. Impact Capital Forum has gathered an impressive group of six female fund managers across two panels to share their various investment approaches, their journey to matching more investment dollars with female entrepreneurs, their work to engage and mentor more female investors, and their efforts to ensure both a social and financial return. 

  Angela Lee is the founder of 37 Angels, an angel investment network and training bootcamp for women investors. She is an entrepreneur and angel investor with a passion for education. She is also a consultant and educator and teaches Strategic Problem Solving, Entrepreneurial Thinking and Executive Communication at Columbia Business School, NYU, and General Assembly. Angela started her career in product management and then moved to consulting at McKinsey.  She has started 4 startups, and through 37 Angels, invested in 70+. Angela has spoken at the White House and NASA and is an expert in teaching online and making learning scalable.  She is a sought-after expert on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, MSNBC and Fox Business.  She was recognized by Inc. as one of 17 Inspiring Women to Watch in 2017, by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of 6 Innovative Women to Watch in 2015, and by Crain’s as a Notable Women in Tech in 2019.  In 2020, she was awarded the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence at Columbia Business School.  She serves on the boards of Fresco Fund and Cariclub.

  Deborah Jackson is the founder of Plum Alley. Deborah started her career on Wall Street in the early 1980's at Goldman Sachs and spent 20+ years raising capital for public and private companies and entities including healthcare technology. After retiring from Wall Street, she became an early stage investor investing in women entrepreneurs in consumer internet, cloud software, mobile, medical, among other industries. With a desire to have an even bigger impact, Deborah founded Plum Alley with the mission to advance the economics of women entrepreneurs and gender diverse teams. Deborah’s additional experience includes: Co-Founder/Advisor, WIM Accelerator to build mobile tech; Columbia University Committee Advisor to President on entrepreneurship; Hosted hackathon w/ 18 women developers who built an anti-sex trafficking game; covered by Fast Company. Awards & Recognition: TechCrunch 40 Over 40, Forbes “Women Changing the World” (VC/Enrepreneurs), Fast Company “League of Extraordinary Women,” Bpeace Economic Impact Award. Start-up Competition Judge: Harvard Business School New Venture Competition, Technovation, Startup Weekend. Featured Speaker: CNBC, Family Office Association, HBS, The Atlantic Conference, Columbia University, UPenn.

  Kathryn Cartini is a cofounder of Chloe Capital. She is a venture capitalist with a proven track record of fundraising, recruiting top founders, managing portfolio companies, promoting the firm / Movement, and making investment decisions. She represents a new service-oriented VC. In addition to Chloe Capital, Kate is the CMO / COO of Upstate Venture Connect, and the owner of Peacock Media, LLC, a content marketing firm that works with investors, founders and personal brands. In these roles Kate excels as a business coach and promoter – having connected hundreds of founders with investors. Learn more at KathrynCartini.com. 

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