Thursday, July 19, 2012

INSEAD and Partnering for Global Impact 2012 - Powering Deals With Purpose



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:

·         Uwe Schulte – Executive Director of INSEAD Social Innovation Center


·         Filipe SantosAssociate 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.

(For more information on Professor Santos’ work in the field of Social Entrepreneurship, you can refer to his recent presentation on the topic or his working paper “A Positive Theory of Social Entrepreneurship”.)

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:

·         First Place – Swiss Leg

·         Second Place - Ruby Cup

·         Third place – VIVUS

  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 additional content from PGI, check out the live blogging summary from SocialFinance.ca (PGI’s media partner): http://storify.com/socialfinance/partnering-for-global-impact-2012/.

·         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.


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