My entry into impact investing happened in 2007, right around the time the term “impact investing” was first coined. It was the year after Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank had been awarded the Noble Prize for microfinance, which acknowledged that economic prosperity and peace go hand in hand.
The more I learned about microfinance the more interested and inspired I became. Career-wise, I had always worked at the intersection of finance and international development, so microfinance was a natural transition. I started working as an investment officer for Triple Jump, a specialized asset manager for microfinance funds based in the Netherlands, making loans to microfinance institutions in Central and Eastern Europe.
In 2010, I joined Calvert Impact Capital (at the time known as “The Calvert Social Investment Foundation”) as an investment officer on its international lending team. Since 1998, Calvert has played a pioneering role in impact investing in the United States and in the developing world. While at Calvert, I made loans to a wider range of social enterprises across a variety of sectors (renewable energy, water, etc.) and business models.
Since 2012, I have been working for the Development Finance Corporation (“DFC”) formerly known as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (“OPIC”), the development finance institution of the U.S. government, as an investment officer on its Social Enterprise Finance Team. The DFC mobilizes private capital to frontier and emerging markets through loans, loan guarantees and political risk insurance. While at DFC I have made investments in social enterprises and impact investment funds across a broad spectrum of sectors (microfinance, renewable energy, water and sanitation, etc.).
My LinkedIn profile can be found here.
My Twitter account is @millvalley69
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The viewpoints expressed in this site are my own and do not reflect those of my employers, past or present
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to my friends, family members and colleagues have all given me useful advice and feedback on my blog. I would also like to acknowledge the many contributions of Melody Jensen, who joined me as a student intern while at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies serving as an Assistant Editor. She now works at Toniic, a membership-based network of individuals, family offices, and foundation asset owners who invest for impact across the capital spectrum. I would also like to thank Ashley Baboota, who provided excellent insights, advice and recommendations on search engine optimization when I launched my blog. Thank you both!
