Impact Investing in Latin America: April 2014

Impact Investing in Brazil – from margin to mainstream
14^th August 2014 13:00 – 19:00

Since the last conference on Impact Investing in 2013, the HSG Hub São Paulo, Insper and their network partners have developed new research and initiatives to further develop the Impact Investing market in Brasil. The objective of 2014 is to focus on applicable best practice solutions, in order to take Impact Investing from margin to mainstream. The conference will provide insight in challenges of the Impact Investing market as well as discussion practical showcases, with directly applicable recommendations for entrepreneurs, investors, academics and public authorities.

You can find more information about past and upcoming events on our web-site and on facebook.

Information about the preliminary program, the confirmed speakers and the topics are coming soon. Stay tuned.

Maria Cavalcanti, representative of Toniic

On the 3^rd of April 2014 the University of St.Gallen supported the launch event of the Toniic E-Guide in Portuguese. The event took place at the Impact Hub São Paulo and was attended by many representatives of the Brazilian Impact Investing ecosystem.

The introductory opening was done by Angélica Rotondaro, from the University of St.Gallen, who presented the event’s main purpose, the speakers, as well as how the university supports the development of the impact investing market place in Brazil. Angélica underlined that the University of St.Gallen focuses on the generation of academic knowledge, the transmission of knowledge through education, courses and lectures as well as the annual Impact Investing Conference, already planned for the 14th of August 2014 in São Paulo.

The next speaker was Maria Cavalcanti, from FIRST Impact Investing Fund Brazil, who was the representative of Toniic for the E-Guide launch. In the course of the event, Maria presented the Toniic Guide for Early Stage Global Impact Investing as a schema to support the development of Impact Investing businesses. Thereby, the E-Guide is a very helpful and useful tool to structure the different phases of Impact Investing, increasing the possibilities for positive outcome.

Diana de Castro, from ACG Association for Corporate GrowthBrasil, talked about the challenges of the Impact Investing industry. With her background in private banking, she underlined the importance of clear definitions of the terms Impact Investing in differentiation to e.g. social responsible investing. Diana also highlighted the importance of the identification of potential clients that have the possibility to take Impact Investing from margins to mainstream, such as the private banking industry, family offices or high-net-worth individuals.

Célia Cruz, from ICE (Instituto Cidadania Empresarial) picked up the idea of accelerating the Impact Investing industry. She highlighted the importance of integrating the academic actors in the field in order to anchor the ideas of Impact Investing in university education as well as in research. Consequently, she talked about the efforts of ICE to engage the universities to reach for academic players in the field. Additionally, she presented Forum Brasileiro de Finanças Sociais e Negócios de Impacto, which will take place in São Paulo on the 6^th and 7^th of May 2014.

The next speaker was Rebeca Rocha, from ANDE (Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs), who did a short reporting back on the impact investors mapping study for Brazil, coordinated by ANDE, Quintessa, and LGT-VP in collaboration with the University of St.Gallen. Rebeca also emphasized the importance of focusing the efforts on the development of the Impact Investing industry by strengthening the connections to powerful clients in order to release the Impact potential and to build and consolidate the market. She also talked about the need to take the possibility of Impact Investing in Brazil to an international audience as well as to expand the support for projects to greater variety of geographic locations inside Brazil.

Flávio Giani Ramos took the role of bringing the entrepreneurs’ viewpoint to the conference and did an introduction about his business Educar 3.0. He also talked about the most common challenges of being an entrepreneur of impact in Brazil. The entrepreneurs’ view-point was also covered by João Vitor Caires, from The Impact Hub São Paulo, who did an introduction about the concept, events and organizational structure of the Impact Hub São Paulo. He also brought up an overview of how the global Impact Hub movement.

The University of St.Gallen Hub São Paulo would like to thank Toniic and FIRST Investment Brasil for the trust to jointly organize the E-Guide launch event. We would also like to thank the sustainability committee of the Swiss Chamber of Commerce for their support. The E-Guide launch also counted on the support of ACG Association for Corporate Growth Brasil, Halloran Philantropies, The Impact Hub, Editora de Idéias.

For accessing the impact investing E-Guide please click here.

With our best regards,

University of St.Gallen Hub Office São Paulo.