Emma Wheeler, Head of Women’s Wealth at UBS Global Wealth Management, on the increasing importance of gender-smart investing solutions for advisors and how the financial services industry is unlocking women’s wealth.

Aunnie Patton Power is the founder of Intelligent Impact, an innovative finance advisory firm and a university lecturer on Innovative Finance, Impact Investing and Technology for Impact. She is also the author of Adventure Finance: How to Create a Funding Journey that Blends Profit and Purpose, and is starting a new book about alternative funding structures. We spoke to her about the most impactful lever and strategies for getting more capital flowing to women (and especially women of colour) - and how traditional structures can fall short.

We sat down with Jennifer Choi, Managing Director of Industry Affairs for the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA), to discuss their Diversity in Action initiative, the challenges of capturing diversity metrics in a global context, and the actions LPs and GPs can implement to advance diversity, equity and inclusion.

The COVID-19 Pandemic made a significant impact on gender lens investing over the last year. GenderSmart’s Suzanne Biegel and VC Include’s Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson share learnings from the Capital Connect ‘un-showcases’ to date, and the massive market opportunity in gender-smart private market (VC, PE, private debt) investment funds.

First-time women-led funds present an untapped source of alpha and impact. GenderSmart’s First Time Women Led and Diverse Funds Initiative offers an overview of why and how you should be investing in these funds as an opportunity to contribute to the promotion of gender equality on a deeper and wider scale.

GenderSmart and VC Include announce the first-ever global showcase with the goal of connecting gender-smart investors and fund managers with a gender lens.

New research from EIB identifies the barriers to risk capital for women entrepreneurs in Europe, on both the demand and supply side, with multi-level recommendations to get them ready for institutional funding. We interview Shiva Dustdar, Head of Division at EIB’s Innovation Finance Advisory, about the report’s key findings and implications.

Ruth Shaber MD is the founder and president of the Tara Health Foundation, which promotes health, well-being, and opportunity for women and girls through innovative evidence-informed programs. She is also the co-founder and board chair of Rhia Ventures, a group of foundations and investors that collaborate to bring new types of capital and enterprise to the field of reproductive health in the United States.

The following conversation took place on February 18, 2020, and is the first of a two-part interview series.

Vicki Saunders launched SheEO in 2015, a perpetual loan fund powered by the ‘radical generosity’ of several activators who each contribute the equivalent of 1,100 dollars (or $92/month) into a pool of capital for women-founded ventures solving social problems (or, as Saunders describes them, ‘the world’s to-do list’). SheEO launched in the UK, their fifth country, in late 2019, and have a pipeline of 70 further countries keen to replicate the model. The long-term goal is to reach a million women activators by the end of this decade, and a billion dollar fund helping 10,000 entrepreneurs every year.