It was an exciting time to be in the impact investing space, as it was being talked about extensively and so many organisations were trying to figure out how to do it, but there were very few impact investing programmes in the marketplace.
I had spent 10-15 years working in the development space across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, designing and implementing agricultural development and market system development programmes funded by institutional donors, foundations etc. A key aspect of those programmes was always small and medium enterprise (SME) development and financing; however, one of the main tools used was grants, and that never really was, or is, a sustainable or effective solution. Therefore, many organisations and practitioners like myself were looking for more sustainable solutions, and that is where impact investing became very interesting.
When I saw the Oxford Impact Investing Programme at Saïd Business School it seemed like a perfect fit for me, and I was lucky enough to be accepted into the second cohort of the programme back in 2013.
Applying learning to life
I was already dabbling in impact investing as many others were as well, but I found there was still much to learn. My fellow participants were also a huge source of information and inspiration to me. The programme was a great networking opportunity and it was so interesting to hear from people in my situation from all around the world - that I would never normally get a chance to meet - comparing their experiences and sharing best practice.
My impact journey
Since my time on the programme, I have been fortunate to work in impact investing the past 4-5 years with Missio Invest. We manage an investment fund called Missio Invest Social Impact Fund (MISIF LLC) and make long-term, unsecured loans between $50k to around $1MM directly to entities run by the Catholic Church in Africa and Asia. These entities are congregations of sisters and/or brothers, dioceses, that run thousands of farms in Africa, around 70,000 schools, and thousands of clinics and hospitals providing around 30% of healthcare locally. They have never had formal access to credit, however, and given that they never sell, equity is not really an option. So, we now provide this type of financing and provide a lot of pre- and post-investment business advisory which is very important for success.
If I think back to 2013, I would not have imagined I would be in such a great role with an investment fund like Missio Invest even though that was the aspiration. So few formal impact investment funds were actually operating and had the knowledge. In our own case at Missio Invest, we learned and built our expertise little by little over the years.
The quality of your fellow classmates is exceptional, and they come from such diverse backgrounds. I see so many of my classmates from that 2013 cohort having stayed in the impact investing field and doing many ground-breaking things. I stay in touch with many of them, and even hired one as a consultant to help with some impact measurement work on investment deals in Mozambique and Malawi.
I really could not recommend the Oxford Impact Investing Programme highly enough – if you are considering applying, I would urge you to do so immediately, as it really is life-changing.
