Today’s guest is Mark Hays, Director of Sustainable & Impact Investing at Glenmede — a firm managing $48 billion with a client-to-employee ratio that keeps conversations personal and strategy focused.

Mark’s journey into finance started early — running a lemonade stand to save up for a Sega Genesis and learning about markets through a third-grade stock project that didn’t go as planned. That early curiosity eventually led to a career spanning Cambridge Associates, OMERS, Flat World, and J.P. Morgan — where he became the firm’s first U.S. sustainable investing hire.

Now at Glenmede, Mark helps clients align their portfolios with their principles — not just in theory, but through tangible investments.

Glenmede offers investment management, wealth planning, fiduciary, and advisory services to high-net-worth individuals, families, endowments, foundations, and institutional clients.

It has $48 billion in assets under management, but keeps a 4-to-1 client-to-employee ratio and promises, in Mark’s words, “the experience of a $200 million family as a $10 million individual.” That approach means every client gets tailored advice, deeper conversations, and impact reporting that goes far beyond ESG scores.

Nearly 20 percent of AUM sits in strategies that fit Glenmede’s four-category investment taxonomy (Integrated, Mandated, Thematic, High-Impact Concessionary) and span almost every asset class.

Mark’s through-line is what he calls “sustainable prosperity” — the belief that helping those with the least doesn’t take away from others, but actually creates more opportunity and value for everyone.

At Glenmede, that vision shows up not only in where the money goes but in how clients are engaged. Mark and his team don’t just plug people into products — they guide multi-generational families through deep, often difficult conversations about values, legacy, and measurable impact.

That means starting with inquiry, moving through education, assessment, and implementation, and ending with real measurement — not in vague ESG scores, but in tangible results like gallons of water saved, emissions avoided, or communities reached.

Mark knows that impact is a moving target, but he also knows how to hit it: by staying curious, staying human, and staying honest about what money can and cannot do.

Tune in to hear how he turns that approach into measurable impact.

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Additional Resources:
🔹 Mark Hays LinkedIn
🔹 E-mail: mark.hays@glenmede.com
🔹 Glenmede Website
🔹 2025 Market Outlook
🔹 As You Sow Website
🔹 See if your investments are sustainable. Use this free tool

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SRI360 interviews mentioned:

🔹Andrew Behar: Ep 27

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Books mentioned:
🔹 “Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now,” John Doerr
🔹 The Key Man: The True Story of How the Global Elite Was Duped by a Capitalist Fairy Tale,” Simon Clark

My guest today is Sugandhi Matta, Chief Impact Officer at ABC Impact – the largest Pan-Asian impact-dedicated private equity fund, with nearly $900 million in AUM.

Sugandhi began her career focused on growth and returns — first at Temasek, and later at Actis. But after a breast cancer diagnosis in her early thirties, she returned to work with a new question: What if she could apply her investing skills to businesses solving real problems?

That question led her to LeapFrog Investments — and eventually to ABC Impact, where she became one of the founding partners. From the ground up, she helped build a fund that integrates impact into every step of the investment process, from deal screening to reporting.

Today, ABC Impact invests across four themes:

• Climate and water solutions
• Financial and digital inclusion
• Better health and education
• Sustainable food and agriculture

Sugandhi leads the firm’s impact team. They developed a proprietary system rooted in the five dimensions of the Impact Management Project and tailored to ABC’s sectors.

The internal language centers on three Cs: consistency, comparability, and communicability. It’s a disciplined approach – built to align intention, data, and outcomes across the portfolio.

Sugandhi's goal is to hold impact to the same standard as IRR.

However, she points out that the burden of proof is often uneven. Expected returns are taken at face value. Impact is asked to justify itself at every turn. Because investors don’t yet trust its metrics the way they trust financial ones.

The double standard isn’t just about data. It’s about gender, too.

As one of the few female investment leads in Asia’s private equity ecosystem, Sugandhi has had to thread her way through what she calls the “quiet skepticism” – the unspoken assumptions around risk appetite, ambition, or expertise.

Even now, she’s often the only woman in the room with GPs or LPs. She doesn’t lead with gender, but she’s aware of how it plays out. The skepticism is often unspoken, but present.

Over time, she’s learned not to internalize it. Instead, she focuses on the work, knowing that – fairly or not – being a woman in this space can mean having to prove yourself just a little more.

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Sign up for the free weekly email update
Visit the SRI360° PODCAST
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Additional Resources:

ABC Impact website

ABC Impact LinkedIn

Sugandhi Matta LinkedIn

ABC’s 2020 Impact Report

ABC’s 2024 Impact Report

Insights from Dalberg and ABC Impact’s User-Centered Study

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SRI360 interviews mentioned:

💎 Stewart Langdon: Ep 17

💎 Eliza Foo: Ep 71

💎 Sharon Vosmek: Ep 07

💎 Tara Bishop: Ep 70

💎 4 Women-Led Funds: 4-in-1 Ep 86

💎 Sir Ronald Cohen: Ep 73

My guest today is Michelle Arevalo-Carpenter, Co-Founder of IMPAQTO and General Partner at IMPAQTO Capital. Michelle is a human rights lawyer by training, a fund builder by calling, and one of the most compelling system-reimaginers I’ve ever had on the show.

Michelle’s journey has taken her from a small apartment in Quito to the halls of Oxford and the UN — and back again. What she learned along the way is that real change doesn’t come from reports or elite institutions. It comes from being close to the problem — and the people.

Back in Quito, Michelle started where many great entrepreneurial stories begin — with no office, no plan, just an instinct that something better could exist. Over a hundred coffees with local founders, she kept hearing the same themes: isolation, lack of support, funding that didn’t fit.

In response, she created IMPAQTO, Ecuador’s first coworking space for social ventures, not because she had a real estate vision, but because people needed a place to belong. “They weren’t paying for square meters,” she said. “They were paying to not be alone.”

From there, IMPAQTO grew — into an accelerator, a research platform, a voice in policy. But the biggest problem persisted: no capital. Or rather, the wrong kind of capital.

Local businesses needed $10K–$500K. They didn’t want to sell equity. They wanted to grow on their own terms. Too big for microfinance, too small for venture. “That’s the missing middle,” Michelle said. “That’s where we live.”

So in 2021, she launched IMPAQTO Capital, a revenue-based investment fund designed not to chase unicorns but to nourish sustainable growth. Michelle described it not as alternative capital, but as capital that’s appropriate for the context they’re operating in.

Rather than chasing foreign LPs, her team went local. They raised over half their first close from Ecuadorian and Andean-region families — people with lived experience inside the very systems the fund aims to change. “Our investors aren’t impact tourists,” she said. “They’re system insiders.”

What Michelle is building isn’t just a capital vehicle. It’s an ecosystem intervention — a cultural shift that treats belonging as a precondition for growth, and care as critical infrastructure. She’s also a co-founder of CLIIQ, a regional research and advocacy platform focused on unlocking catalytic capital for women-led businesses.

At IMPAQTO Capital, every deal is evaluated not just on returns, but on whether it preserves the dignity and agency of the founder. Every exit includes a “cap party” — a ritual of closure and celebration that says: You did it. You paid us back. We’re done. And we’re proud.

There’s a lot to learn from Michelle. About capital. About leading with trust and care. About staying rooted in a place and still seeing the whole system.

But mostly, about how change happens — not from the top down, but from the inside out. Slowly. With proximity. And with people who never forgot where they started.

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About the SRI 360° Podcast: The SRI 360° Podcast is focused exclusively on sustainable & responsible investing.

—

Connect with SRI360°:
Sign up for the free weekly email update
Visit the SRI360° PODCAST
Visit the SRI360° WEBSITE
Follow SRI360° on X
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—

Additional Resources:

IMPAQTO Capital website

IMPAQTO Ecosystem Builder

Michelle Arevalo-Carpenter website

Michelle Arevalo-Carpenter LinkedIn

This spring, I had the chance to talk with four incredible guests, each with a different take on what it really means to put money to work and invest in line with your values.

Across late March and April, we explored climate-smart timber, social finance powered by dormant bank accounts, fully impact-focused wealth advising, and how catalytic capital is reaching places most firms won’t go.

Here are the featured guests, along with links to their full interviews.

Yasemin Saltuk Lamy, Head of Investment Strategy at Legal & General (L&G)

Yasemin’s path into impact investing started at J.P. Morgan, where she helped build the firm’s Social Finance unit from scratch. At the time, even defining the term “impact investing” took months of debate. “We spent four months just on the word ‘intent,’” she told me.

That focus on intent stuck with her – from J.P. Morgan to Omidyar to BII – where she helped lead the Catalyst Portfolio, growing it from $300 million to $1.6 billion. Her work was all about finding places where capital didn’t naturally flow, and designing structures that would pull others in.

Full episode

Stephanie Cohn Rupp, Former CEO of Veris Wealth Partners

Veris Wealth Partners is one of the only wealth management firms out there that’s 100% impact. No ESG sideline, no separate division. The whole firm is built around aligning portfolios with values.

Another thing that stood out in my conversation with Stephanie was how methodical their process is. It starts with what they call “impact discovery” – getting into the client’s mission, history, beliefs – and then building an investment policy around that.

Full episode

Stephen Muers, Chief Executive Officer of Better Society Capital (BSC)

Stephen brings a systems lens to social finance, and that comes from experience. After years inside the UK government tackling big issues like energy policy, housing, and justice reform, he saw firsthand how strategy alone doesn’t shift systems.

At BSC, the mission isn’t just to make good investments. It’s to make social investment possible at scale.

But BSC isn’t trying to maximize its own portfolio. The goal is to grow the entire social investment market. Over the past decade, they’ve helped expand it twelve-fold across the UK. And yet, it still isn’t enough. The capital’s growing – but not at the pace the problems demand.

Full episode

Bettina von Hagen, Managing Director & CEO, EFM Investments & Advisory

At EFM, forests are managed as long-term, living assets. It’s not just about timber – it’s about carbon, conservation, and communities, all managed through a single strategy. The question isn’t “how much can we harvest,” but “what’s the best outcome for this acre?”

EFM’s approach is built on the five Rs: rotation, retention, reserves, restoration, and relationships. It’s how they manage over 200,000 acres with just 11 staff and 90 contractors – by treating each forest like a custom portfolio.

Sometimes that means harvesting. Sometimes it means carbon storage or tribal access. The goal is a forest that’s more valuable ecologically, socially, and financially than it was before.

Full episode

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Sign up for the free weekly email update
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My guest today is Eric Rice – back for his second appearance on the podcast.

When we first spoke, he was running one of the only public equity funds in the impact space available to retail investors. Now, that fund has been shut down, the capital returned, and Eric has moved to private equity – specifically, to SEAF, an investor in emerging market SMEs.

This time, we talked about what happened, why it happened, and what it says about the current state of impact.

Eric’s core thesis hasn’t changed. The theory of change he developed at Wellington and BlackRock was simple: invest in companies doing socially useful work – even if they don’t realize it yet – and help them grow into that identity.

This was never ESG, and Eric is clear on the difference. ESG, he says, is about how a company operates. Impact is about what it does. “We weren’t ESG investors by any means. We were thematic investors – we only invested in companies solving social or environmental problems.”

That distinction got lost. Once the political backlash against ESG took hold, especially in the U.S., nuance didn’t matter.

Texas and a group of red states targeted a handful of BlackRock funds they deemed “too woke” to qualify for state investment. Among the six funds flagged, three were ones Eric had led. The result was that legitimate impact strategies became collateral damage in a culture war that had little to do with what those funds were actually doing.

As Eric puts it, they were “a different animal from the beginning”, but their message got hijacked.

After that, the pivot to private markets wasn’t just strategic – it was necessary.

At SEAF (Small Enterprise Assistance Funds), Eric is focused on small enterprises in emerging Europe, particularly in agriculture and food. Why? Because productivity in that sector is 40% of Western Europe’s – and no one has modernized it.

Eric and I talked about the limits of measurement frameworks, the role of trust in evaluating managers, and why so many funds labeled “impact” aren’t actually doing anything different.

This conversation is about what happens when a theory of change collides with political reality. It’s about staying true to the work in an industry that often prioritizes marketing. And it’s about the shift from public markets to private ones – not because it’s easier, but because it offers more clarity, more control, and maybe even more impact.

Listen to the full story.

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Connect with SRI360°:
Sign up for the free weekly email update
Visit the SRI360° PODCAST
Visit the SRI360° WEBSITE
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—

Additional Resources:

🔹 SEAF website

🔹 SEAF LinkedIn

🔹 Eric Rice LinkedIn

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Previous SRI360 interviews mentioned:

💎 Eric Rice: Ep 09

💎 Maya Chorengel: Ep 50

💎 Rochus Mommartz: Ep 57 & Ep 58

💎 Sir Ronald Cohen: Ep 73

💎 Hadewych Kuiper: Ep 83

💎 Michele Giddens: Ep 85

This 4-in-1 compilation episode is about capital that doesn’t flow on its own. It has to be pushed into places with no pitch decks and no polished management teams. The places where spreadsheets say “too risky,” but the need is obvious to anyone paying attention.

This is capital for the common good, yes – but it’s also capital that works. These aren’t grants. These are investments with measurable returns and track records to prove it.

In this episode, we revisit conversations with four guests who've built the policies and portfolios to make this kind of capital move.

Jenn Pryce, President and CEO of Calvert Impact Capital

Jenn describes Calvert Impact Capital as a bridge between retail capital and the places banks won’t go – solar in Sub-Saharan Africa, affordable housing in the U.S., even sovereign bonds too small for Wall Street to care about. With over $2.5 billion raised, their flagship Community Investment Note is accessible for as little as $20.

For Jenn, community investing isn’t about beating the market – it’s about redefining it. “We’ve learned the risk isn’t where people think it is,” she says. By working through local intermediaries and building data-driven track records, Calvert helps prove what’s possible.

Full episode

Ben Rick, Co-Founder of Social and Sustainable Capital (SASC)

Ben left the City not because he couldn’t succeed there – but because he did. After years at Goldman, UBS, and Lehman, the returns stopped justifying the worldview. “Surely there’s something I can do that’s better than this,” he told himself.

That became Social and Sustainable Capital, a private credit fund lending to UK charities – no shareholders, no profit motive, but plenty of contracts to deliver critical services.

SASC backs groups supporting domestic abuse survivors, people with disabilities, and youth exiting care – organizations with steady revenue but little access to traditional finance.

Full episode

Stephen Muers, Chief Executive Officer of Better Society Capital (BSC)

Stephen Muers came to Better Society Capital after a high-level government career – and brought with him a systems brain. At BSC, the mission isn’t just to make good investments. It’s to make social investment possible at scale.

BSC operates at the wholesale level, backing funds that then invest in frontline charities, social enterprises, and mission-driven lenders.

BSC is also focused on market transformation. In 10 years, they’ve helped grow the UK social investment market 12-fold. And yet, it still isn’t enough.

Full episode

Stewart Langdon, Partner and Co-Head of South Asian Investments at LeapFrog Investments

Stewart joined LeapFrog early, back when the firm was still raising its first fund. He came in to help move serious capital into places most investors overlook – India, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia – and do it in a way that actually reaches people.

LeapFrog started with insurance. Not because it was easy, but because it mattered. Health shocks, accidents, lost assets – these were the things pulling families back into poverty. Then came credit. Then healthcare. Same model each time: back companies already trusted in their communities, and help them grow.

Full episode

—

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Sign up for the free weekly email update
Visit the SRI360° PODCAST
Visit the SRI360° WEBSITE
Follow SRI360° on X
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This 4-in-1 compilation episode focuses on a persistent disconnect between capital and capability: women are founding businesses at record rates and leading high-performing funds, yet the capital rarely follows.

In other words, women are underrepresented both in receiving and managing capital.

Today’s episode is about those pushing back against that trend – women-led investment managers and those intentionally channeling capital into women-led businesses.

Here are the featured guests:

Sharon Vosmek, CEO of Astia & Managing Partner of the Astia Fund

Sharon Vosmek doesn’t see gender equity in venture as a social goal – she sees it as a market inefficiency. With just 2–3% of VC funding going to women CEOs, she argues the system consistently overlooks high-potential founders.

At Astia, she’s investing in women-led startups with strong early traction, particularly in underserved sectors like women’s health. She also challenges the informal, male-dominated networks – boardrooms, golf courses – where most deals are still made.

Full episode

Dr. Tara Bishop, Founder and Managing Director of Black Opal Ventures

Tara co-founded Black Opal Ventures to invest where healthcare and technology collide – and where traditional VC often misses.

She and her partner, Eileen Tanghal, raised $63 million from institutional investors like Eli Lilly and JP Morgan, becoming one of the rare female- and minority-led funds in venture. Their portfolio reflects that identity: women-led companies, underserved markets, and problems overlooked by legacy capital.

Full episode

Tammy Newmark, CEO and Managing Partner of EcoEnterprises Fund

Tammy leads EcoEnterprises Fund, a women-run investment firm focused on nature-positive businesses across Latin America. For over two decades, she’s backed companies in sustainable agriculture, ecotourism, and agroforestry – many led by women and rooted in rural or Indigenous communities.

Gender equity isn’t the fund's focus, but it runs through the portfolio: in leadership teams, supply chains, and daily operations. About half of their investments meet 2X Challenge criteria – not because it’s the mandate, but because that’s who’s doing the work.

With $150 million under management, the fund combines financial discipline with long-term environmental and social goals.

Full episode

Stephanie Cohn Rupp, CEO of Veris Wealth Partners

Stephanie runs Veris Wealth Partners, one of the few wealth management firms built from the ground up to do just one thing: impact. With $2.3 billion under management and offices across the U.S., Veris has been majority women-led and women-owned since its founding in 2007.

It’s built entirely around impact – certified B Corp, net zero, and intentionally conflict-free – and applies that lens across every asset class, with a deep focus on racial equity, climate, gender, and community wealth.

For Stephanie, this isn’t about doing impact. It’s about being built for it.

Full episode

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The SRI 360° Podcast is focused exclusively on sustainable & responsible investing.

—

Connect with SRI360°:
Sign up for the free weekly email update.
Visit the SRI360° PODCAST.
Visit the SRI360° WEBSITE.
Follow SRI360° on X.
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My guest today is Michele Giddens, Co-Founder and CEO of Bridges Fund Management — one of the early architects of impact investing, before the term was even coined.

Bridges now has over £2 billion in AUM invested in private equity and property, but back in 2002, it began with little more than a blank sheet of paper and a conviction that capital could — and should — be used to address some of society’s biggest challenges.

Michele and her co-founders, Sir Ronald Cohen and Philip Newborough, believed social and environmental impact didn’t have to come at the expense of returns. That belief has held firm for over two decades — and continues to shape how Bridges invests today.

After graduating with a PPE degree from Oxford, she skipped the corporate path and headed to Mexico City to teach English — the start of what became 15 years living and working abroad. From Hungary to Poland, Bangladesh to Mongolia, she followed the same instinct: a need to be close to where impact actually happens.

That drive brought her back to the UK in 2000 to advise the Treasury’s Social Investment Task Force, chaired by Sir Ronald Cohen. One of its key recommendations was to launch funds focused on underserved parts of the UK. Michele helped shape that idea — and stayed to build the first one.

Their first fund was £40 million, including £10 million in catalytic capital from the UK government, structured to take more risk and go in first. “One of the very best uses of taxpayer money,” she says — because it helped unlock over £2 billion in private sector investment since.

Today, Bridges operates across two verticals: building a more sustainable planet and a more inclusive economy. In property, that means co-living spaces, healthcare, and age-friendly housing. In private equity, it includes companies like AgilityEco, which helped 200,000 households reduce energy bills, and Talking Talent, which helps underrepresented employees rise through leadership.

Michele is clear-eyed about what impact can and can’t do. Some challenges need capital that’s more patient, more risk-bearing, or even concessionary. That’s why Bridges has built nonprofit arms to reach the edges of what the market can’t serve.

But she’s equally convinced — and backed by two decades of results — that plenty of investments deliver both meaning and double-digit returns, if you design for it.

That’s been the aim from the start — not to trade one off against the other, but to hold both to a high standard. Twenty years on, that idea hasn’t softened.

What Michele and her team have built isn’t just a firm. It’s a bridge. And over twenty years in, it still holds.

—

About the SRI 360° Podcast: The SRI 360° Podcast is focused exclusively on sustainable & responsible investing.

—

Connect with SRI360°:
Sign up for the free weekly email update
Visit the SRI360° PODCAST
Visit the SRI360° WEBSITE
Follow SRI360° on X
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—

Additional Resources:

Michele Giddens LinkedIn

Bridges Fund Management:
- Website

- LinkedIn

- X (Twitter)

- YouTube

The Bridges Spectrum of Capital - download here