INSEAD’s
dedication to Social Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation has been most
recently demonstrated through INSEAD’s collaboration with Partnering for Global Impact®
(PGI). PGI is a new conference which aims to facilitate transactions in
social investing and philanthropy through one-to-one meetings. PGI aims to
become the leading and most innovative forum for the social impact community – promoting
partnerships and generating investment and funding. With these goals in mind and
with INSEAD’s position in the world of business and academia, this collaboration
can be very powerful in the years to come as the impact investing space
continues to evolve.
This
year’s inaugural conference was held in beautiful Lugano, Switzerland on 9-10 July 2012. PGI
was co-founded by Gamil de Chadarevian along with EBD Group and Carola Schropp.
The vision behind the conference was that EBD Group's sophisticated web-based partnering service, partneringONE®,
that has been used extensively around the world primarily in the field of
healthcare, could be used in the social impact space. As a result, this
partnering vision gave rise to PGI as a powerful way to engage all key
stakeholders in the field while providing an environment for the creation of
tangible action plans and partnerships.
PGI was
a great success with the following highlights:
·
447
one-to-one meetings
·
300
participants
·
202
companies
·
42 countries
represented
·
40
initiatives presented
·
5
Fidelity Future Impact Prize contestants
PGI brought together delegates who
were a mix of social entrepreneurs, impact investors, traditional investors,
academia and partnering experts who all brought their respective stories,
experiences and expertise to the table. Given its relationship with PGI, INSEAD
was well represented by a large delegation including:
·
Filipe Santos – Associate Professor of
Entrepreneurship at INSEAD, Academic Director, INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship
Initiative
·
Loïc Sadoulet - Affiliate Professor of Economics at INSEAD
·
Christine Driscoll - Associate
Director, INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Initiative
·
Julia Hieber - Wendel
International Centre for Family Enterprise
·
Marc Le Menestrel – INSEAD Visiting Professor of Ethics
·
Chandra Leo – INSEAD MBA 02D
Alumni and INSEAD Healthcare Alumni Network President
·
Mila Lukic – INSEAD MBA 12D Candidate and INDEVOR
(Social Impact Club) Co-President
Additionally, it was very exciting to see that INSEAD was also
represented by social entrepreneurs who are graduates of INSEAD's Social Entrepreneurship Programme (ISEP) and who were at PGI presenting (with great success)
their organizations and projects. Social entrepreneurs in presence were: Krystian
Fikert (MyMind), Mark Ruiz (MicroVenture and Hapinoy) and Caroline Watson (Hua Dan) along with Jack Sim of World Toilet Organization who will be coming to the ISEP program this year.
INSEAD Delegation
The
discussions at PGI focused on 5 sectors: education, financial services, health,
housing & water. For an in-depth coverage of the health topics and
discussions – please refer the Chandra Leo’s write up on INSEAD’s Healthcare
Alumni Network blog.
Day 1, Monday July 9th, 2012
Opening Remarks, Keynotes and Panels
Day
1 kicked off with opening remarks from the co-founders, Lugano’s mayor’s office
and Percy Barnevik, Chairman of Hand in Hand International and Honorary
Chairman of Partnering for Global Impact Advisory Board. It was interesting and
motivating to hear Gamil de Chadarevian’s personal mantra: “Each and every one
of us should invest 5% of personal wealth in impact focused investments.” With
this intention from successful players of our business world – we can hope and
look forward to further positive developments in the fields of impact investing
and venture philanthropy.
The first keynote and
panel were delivered and led by Andrew
Kuper – President and Founder, LeapFrog Investments. Andrew Kuper and
LeapFrog Investments do cutting edge work in the field of micro insurance, and
it was truly great to hear firsthand about their start and plans for the future.
The key takeaway from Andrew’s keynote was really the opportunity
in this field! As stated in Andrew’s talk – one billion poor are
potential clients for microinsurance! This is because - 135 M are currently
covered but 1.5 to 3 Billion vulnerable people are people able to pay for insurance.
To realize this potential and opportunity Andrew highlights that: "it will
take an ecosystem and an asset class of impact investing to create a real and
fast impact." Specifically, it is important for everyone in the sector to
understand that a continuum is being created, and we should not be attempting
to situate ourselves only on one point of this continuum. Andrew also
emphasized that, overall within the sector, there should be a flag for scrutiny
(for everyone) especially for people and organizations doing well.
After
his keynote – Andrew led a panel on microinsurance featuring the following
panelists:
·
Michael Anthony – Allianz SE and Board
Member, Boond, Inc.
·
Ross Beerman – Managing Director,
AllLife (Pty) Ltd
·
Martin Eling – Director, Institute of
Insurance Economics, University of St.Gallen
Microinsurance Panel
During
the panel, Michael Anthony – Allianz SE
and Board Member, Boond, Inc. (a social enterprise founded by an INSEAD alum)
emphasized the opportunity in the space through a sobering example: After the
December 26th tsunami, which was the worst natural disaster to ever
strike Thailand, no visible impact was
created on the balance sheet of big insurance companies. This was a sobering
realization indicating the extent to which there is an opportunity to devise
new insurance products that are fitting for this un-served market.
Ross Beerman – Managing Director,
AllLife (Pty) Ltd showcased the amazing work that AllLife
is doing. Ross and AllLife provide simple and affordable life and disability
insurance for HIV Positive or Diabetic individuals in South Africa. They looked
at the serious problem of HIV levels in South Africa as an opportunity to treat
people as individuals with unique life insurance needs. Their mission is that
they are a for profit business, and it is in their interest that their clients
live as long as possible – hence all of their work and services align with
this. In turn, this results in significant positive impacts on the lives of
AllLife’s clients where their lives change from social exclusion to the ability
to be fully participating in normal activities.
Martin Eling from University of
St.Gallen
emphasized the role and importance of academia in these emerging fields, as it
is critical for thinking and theories to develop and be tested.
Next
on the agenda was the Education panel led by Paul Simon – Special Adviser to Lord Fink. More about this panel will appear in a
separate Education-related post.
Following
the panels, a keynote address was held by His Excellency Prince Max von und zu Liechtenstein (CEO of LGT Group and founder of
LGT Venture Philanthropy) who emphasized that financial capital is not
enough to create positive change and that we need to develop human capital and
knowledge to be able to address long lived problems through these new
solutions. I think that the opening panel and keynotes all emphasize that this
is an exciting time. Opportunities for ideas and actions from brains of many
different backgrounds and successful collaboration and partnering amongst these
different stakeholders will be key in advancing this high potential work.
Filipe Santos and New Frameworks for
Evaluation of Social Enterprises
Next
up was our very own Filipe Santos (Academic
Director of INSEAD’s Social
Entrepreneurship Initiative) who absolutely
captured the crowed with his extremely relevant presentation on the new
frameworks that should be used for the evaluation of impact investing
opportunities. Specifically, Professor Santos highlighted that the impact-investing
field focuses on value creation – not value capture (as does traditional
business) and this is why we need new frameworks. To answer this need, Professor
Santos introduced his version of Porter’s five forces but focused on creating
value through Social Entrepreneurship (showcased below) as opposed to traditional
business competition.
Filipe
Santos also emphasized that capitalism needs a second "invisible
hand", not solely motivated by financial profit. Professor Santos calls
Social Entrepreneurship this second invisible hand – where the goal is impact
and profit creation is a consequence. A
full video of Filipe’s presentation is available here.
Filipe Santos – 5 Forces for Social
Entrepreneurship
Day
1 continued with panel discussions on impact investing market shapers as well
as personal stories and motivations of some outstanding “next generation philanthropists”.
For more information about these panels, please refer to our twitter stream (@INSEADSocialEnt).
Presenter Showcase - Showcasing
Innovation
The
afternoon of day 1 and most of day 2 were dedicated to company/organization
presentations showcasing their work and pitching for funds. The categories
included organizations focusing on work in Financial Services, Education,
Health, Housing, Water and a “Spotlight” category including organizations form
various categories. For the full listing of organizations that were showcased
as well as info about their work and key contacts please refer to: http://www.partneringforglobalimpact.com/program/presentations/.
During
this time, our very own INSEAD’s ISEP
alumni were also presenting. Caroline Watson showcased Hua Dan’s
work through a superb presentation (check out a powerful video about Hua Dan’
work here). Mark Joaquin Ruiz presented Hapinoy (for a video about powerful
Hapinoy’s work please click here). Finally, Krystian Fikert presented his brilliant work in MyMind (for a video about MyMind click here).
Also
during this time of individual presentations, most of the scheduled
networking/meetups took place.
Fidelity Future Impact Prize
Competition
Day
1 finished with the Fidelity Future Impact Prize Competition. PGI launched the Fidelity Future
Impact Prize, an exciting competition for social entrepreneurs seeking seed
funding. The prize money of CHF 25,000 in total, sponsored by Fidelity
Worldwide Investment was awarded to three powerful ideas that have the
potential to become solutions of the future.
Partnering for Global
Impact collaborated with the HUB Zürich to source and select five social
entrepreneurs to compete for the award. The finalists who pitched on July 9th
were:
The prestigious panel of judges (including our very own Professor
Filipe Santos) decided on the winners. The top three entrepreneurs were:
Fidelity Future Impact Prize
Competition Judging Panel Voting
Day 2, Tuesday July 10th,
2012
Day
2 kicked off with a very interesting panel on Health. A detailed write up can be found on the INSEAD Healthcare
Alumni Network blog. The day continued with further
presentations from social entrepreneurs.
The
highlight of day 2 for many was the panel “Women in philanthropy: Three stories
of change” featuring three female powerhouses. Michael Green, Adviser to the Big Society Network and co-author of
“Philantrocapitalism”, brilliantly led the panel. During the panel, we
primarily heard how these women managed to deal with setbacks while doing their
highly challenging work. The overarching message on how to deal with setbacks
was that it is critical to continuously and strategically engage all relevant
stakeholders while being passionate, holding your own ground, and not letting
anyone tell you that it cannot be done, because you know that it can!
“Women
in philanthropy: Three stories of change” panel featuring:
- Catalina Escobar – President, Juan Felipe Gomez E. Foundation
- Rina Lopez Bautista – Founder, President and Executive Director, Knowledge Channel Foundation (KCFI)
- Liesel Pritzker Simmons – Managing Director, Blue Haven Initiative
The
day ended with closing remarks and final takeaways that really resonated with
the crowd, so if you are interested read on.
PGI Key Takeaways and
Closing Remarks:
·
Sharing is key.
·
It is important to admit and share failures so
that we can all learn from them.
·
Traditional best practice is already out-of-date
in this ever changing environment, so it is all about “next practice”. In other
words, it is about taking what has been done to come up with new best practice
that in itself is not a destination/arrival but a next step in driving the kind
of change that we want to see externally and internally (personally).
·
Hope is an extraordinarily important part of
what we are doing.
Finally – it is clear that
the partnership between INSEAD and PGI is a powerful collaboration through
which new solutions to global challenges will be created and advanced!
We are very much looking
forward to Partnering for Global Impact 2013.
Additional
Info and Resources
·
For
the twitter summary – check out the #PGI12 hash tag.
·
For a
glossary of social entrepreneurship and impact investing terms prepared by
Professor Filipe M. Santos and Christine Driscoll Goulay for this conference,
please click here.
3,000 participants from 50 countries
