Incentivizing Gender Outcomes through Innovative Investment Structures
Webinar
In recent years, there has been increased attention to designing investment structures that incentivize impact. Yet only 3 percent of investors surveyed in Bluemark’s 2021 report, The Benchmark for Impact Investing Practice, tie impact to financial compensation.
Such models are even less common in gender lens investing (GLI), a subset of impact investing. However, there are promising examples of the financial inclusion sector and beyond intentionally integrating gender into investment structures to contribute to women’s economic empowerment. These stakeholders understand that meaningful gender outcomes are more likely achieved if commercial incentives are baked into investment structures.
This webinar will highlight innovative models used by a range of GLI ecosystem actors – a development finance institution, GLI advisory firm, and a manager of catalytic capital – to integrate gender into investment structures, with a focus on the financial inclusion sector. By sharing these examples, the webinar aims to accelerate the uptake of these models.
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Speakers
Alvaro Espitia is the Director for LATAM at Athena Global, where he advises partners in both the private and public sectors in the development of Impact-Linked Finance solutions. Working at Athena, Alvaro has recently led SME/entrepreneurial financing projects in the Northern Triangle and the Caribbean and the development and implementation of an impact-linked model for Impact Fund in Southeast Asia.
Before joining Athena Global, Alvaro worked as a consultant in trade and regional integration at the World Bank, working on global projects (including gender and climate) and as a data and portfolio analytics consultant at Invictus Group, a strategic intelligence firm specializing in community banks M&A.
Alvaro has been part of the founding team of two SMEs: the Financial Manager and Business Designer for the rollout of a US$ 550K company focused on serving working mothers in Latin America and leading the rollout of a School for Sustainability and Entrepreneurship for communities in post-conflict zones in Colombia.
Elee Muslin is a Lead Investment Officer for Blended Finance at IDB Invest. He specializes in structuring investments with catalytic funding into high impact projects in Latin America and has structured or managed some of IDB Invest’s largest bilateral climate funds. He pioneered the integration of gender and workforce development outcomes into IDB Invest climate investments, and currently leads IDB Invest Blended Finance participation in the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi).
Previously Elee held various leadership roles at the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) of the William J. Clinton Foundation, including originating global business development and advisory engagements for the C40 Cities and earlier worked as a proprietary bulk commodities and chemicals trader in New York.
He holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, an M.A. in Energy and Economics from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins, and a B.A. in International Relations from Brown University.
Natasha Dinham is the Lead of Advisory and Advocacy at Roots of Impact, where she develops tools and advice for partners and implementors of Impact-Linked Finance and manages the Impact-Linked Fund for Gender Inclusive Fintech.
Before joining Roots of Impact, Natasha led the Innovative Finance Initiative at the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation, an organization using creative and disruptive tools to drive capital towards better social outcomes. Here she designed and launched innovative impact funds, managed the secretariat for the Impact Investing National Advisory Board, co-convened the University of Cape Town’s Impact Investing in Africa course, and developed impact strategies for pan-African financial institutions. Prior to this, Natasha managed the technical assistance portfolios of financial institutions in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia at FMO, the Dutch Development Bank.
Natasha has had the privilege of serving on the advisory and investment committees of multiple impact funds including the Green Outcomes Fund, the European Fund for Southeast Europe (EFSE) and the Credit Guarantee Fund Tajikistan (CGFT). She is passionate about financial inclusion and holds certificates in Rethinking Financial Inclusion as well as Migrant Remittances & Financial Services from Harvard Kennedy School.
Moderator
Estelle Lahaye leads CGAP’s work to contribute to enhancing practices of impact investors with measuring and managing impact for inclusive finance. She has more than 15 years’ experience in development finance and financial inclusion having previously led CGAP’s work with donors and investors to co-create knowledge, provide guidance, and advocate for effective financial inclusion, and led CGAP’s experimentation and research activities on digital financial services in the West African Economic and Monetary Union.
Before joining CGAP, Estelle worked as a private banker in Luxembourg at Banco Itaú Europa, the international private banking division of Banco Itaú, Brazil.
Estelle has a Master’s degree in Business from San Francisco State University and an undergraduate degree in banking, finance, and insurance from the University of Nancy 2 in France. She is based in Paris and fluent in French and Portuguese.