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E27 - Laura Ortiz Montemayor, Founder and Chief Purpose Officer at SVX Mexico
45 Plays3 days ago
What if it was possible to build a regenerative economy? In this episode, Laura Ortiz Montemayor, a pioneer of regenerative finance in Latin America and founder of SVX Mexico, unpacks assumptions behind today’s impact investing models and why they often fall short. Laura shares her perspective on one of the biggest challenges in the Latin American region: the belief that job creation alone equals impact, and protecting nature is treated as “nice to have”. She explores how impact investing has evolved from socially focused initiatives to a more integrated understanding that we cannot separate people from the ecosystems they depend on. Laura also introduces the concept of regeneration as a fundamental quality of life and how this enabled her to create a fund that supports regenerative agriculture and nature-based solutions. Through powerful examples, she explains how finance can support biodiversity, community resilience, and long-term value creation. This is an invitation to think differently and to co-create financial systems rooted in local wisdom, interdependence, and care.
Please review the episode, share your feedback, and subscribe to the podcast!
You can also:
- Visit our website: womenchangingfinance.org
- Follow Laura on LinkedIn
To go further, here are some of the references mentioned during the episode:
- SVX Mexico – https://www.svx.mx/
- Regenera ventures Fund – https://regeneraventures.com/
- ANDE (Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs) – https://www.andeglobal.org/
- Oxford Impact Investing Programme –https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/programmes/executive-education/person-programmes/oxford-impact-investing-programme
- SVX Canada – https://www.svx.ca/
- John Fullerton / Capital Institute (Regenerative Economy) – https://capitalinstitute.org/
- Beneficial Returns (Reciprocity Fund) – https://www.beneficialreturns.com/
- Vandana Shiva – https://navdanya.org/
- Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass – https://www.robinwallkimmerer.com/
- bell hooks – All About Love – https://dn790000.ca.archive.org/0/items/all-about-love-new-visions-bell/All-About-Love-New-Visions-Bell.pdf
Women Changing Finance is part of the Impact Alpha Podcast Network.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Women Changing Finance'
00:00:05
Speaker
Hi, welcome to the podcast Women Changing Finance, where you will discover amazing women from all around the world who are making finance become a force for good.
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the podcast Women Changing Finance. I'm Cristina Tora and I'm welcoming today Laura Ortiz Montemayor, who is a living system thinker and the founder of SVX Mexico.
00:00:33
Speaker
She's very committed to advancing regenerative culture, biodiversity and conservation. I have known Laura for a long time now and I'm always so energized by her contagious passion for impact.
Life-Changing Moment and Transition to SVX
00:00:46
Speaker
Laura, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Christina. As we begin, could you please describe for us the biggest barriers for scaling impact and impact investing in Mexico?
00:00:58
Speaker
Perhaps if you want a little bit of your views on Latin America as well, what trends are you seeing? What is moving? What is challenging? And perhaps with the perspective of ah SVX Mexico, how you created SVX Mexico to address those challenges?
00:01:15
Speaker
Yes. Thank you so much, Christina. So as you mentioned, founded SVX after some years in banking. So I used to be in wealth management, in asset management, and I was pretty much obsessed about success.
00:01:31
Speaker
you know financial success. And that brought me to to question my life and and to have a panic attack that really changed my life and made me quit the bank after like four months after the panic attack.
Impact Investing in Latin America
00:01:45
Speaker
And that really changed my my career perspective and my life mission because I said, okay, if I died today, which back then I was 29, so I was very young, but I was being a bit dramatic.
00:01:57
Speaker
And I was saying, okay, if I die today and all I did was make the rich richer, I'm not going to feel okay with that legacy. So I need to change now, like today.
00:02:09
Speaker
And so basically I started getting to know impact investing specifically. through a course that was delivered by ANDE, the ASPE Network of Development Entrepreneurs. And I was very lucky that that year, that was 2014, that year was delivered in in Mexico City because, I mean, that course usually changed from emerging markets. Like the year before, I think it was Brazil and the year after that was South Africa and the year after that was India.
00:02:34
Speaker
So I was very lucky that it was held in Mexico. And people from all over the world came to learn impact investing. And I was fascinated by the people. And I was also fascinated by the concept and I really liked it.
00:02:46
Speaker
But at the very beginning, i was like, wow, it was back in the year where the is sustainable development goals were launched. And so everything and anything was considered impact because sustainable development goal number eight is just growth and jobs. So that means everything.
00:03:05
Speaker
And so I was like, huh. So I was fascinated by the concept. I was fascinated by the people and the movement. But after like a year in or a couple of years in, I was a little bit like searching for direction, searching for a clear direction because impact could be anything and everything. And I was like, I needed a little bit more discernment.
00:03:26
Speaker
and clear direction. And going back to your question of like, what is particular about that in Latin America is that we could take the route of just translating what the global North says about impact investing, or we could co-create our essence and what we need from impact investing in Latin in
Perceptions of Impact in Latin America
00:03:45
Speaker
America.
00:03:45
Speaker
Because there's a lot of things we can do to tropicalize the concept and to translate it but we really need to see like what do we want to bring out thanks to impact investing from Latin America.
00:03:57
Speaker
And like for example, back then, and in my opinion, the American version was very much like venture capital with the added ingredient of impact.
00:04:07
Speaker
And the UK version, because I had the the privilege to be to have a scholarship to the Oxford de Impact Investing Program, that was wonderful. And so I saw like a UK version back then that I think right now is a little bit more globalized.
00:04:20
Speaker
it But back then it was more like the UK version that was more a centered, I would say, upon the public-private partnerships and the potential of the social impact bonds. And so it's not that they're different, but I would say it's just different versions.
00:04:34
Speaker
And I also had Canadian partners from SBX Canada that I think were very inclusive and like used a ah mixed version of both the American and the European, right?
00:04:46
Speaker
So I was like always thinking about like, the thought leadership that must be brought out by the Latin Americans to see what is our version, what is our flavor and what serves our purpose.
00:04:57
Speaker
And so when you ask about like, what are the barriers? I think some of the barriers, and this is completely my opinion, very, am I always say I'm 100% biased.
00:05:09
Speaker
to whatever i had in a lived experience. or this is very biased opinion. But in my experience, a lot of Latin American wealth owners and decision makers usually consider that our countries are emerging and risky.
00:05:23
Speaker
Thus, whatever makes... jobs and growth is impactful already. So many of them don't have any urgency to change at all. They view whatever they're doing today as already impactful and already enough.
00:05:38
Speaker
And so there's not necessarily a sense of urgency to transform whatever they're already doing. And they consider job creation like the best and greatest impact of them
Unified Social and Environmental Impact
00:05:50
Speaker
all.
00:05:50
Speaker
And for me, that is very worrying because I think in Latin America, we do have like this very precious, biodiverse continent. And I don't think we necessarily see that and appreciate it and bring that about.
00:06:05
Speaker
And I'm overgeneralizing. Of course, there's people that do. But in general, i will never forget a conversation with one of Colombian billionaires that is really important and that is one of those very important people in the country.
00:06:19
Speaker
And he was telling me about job creation for youth. And I was like, yeah, but is there any concerns or any filters of what kinds of jobs? Like any environmental concerns?
00:06:31
Speaker
Like is any job an impactful job? And he was like, he was telling me, you know, the environment, that's a nice to have. Like what we need is jobs. I'm like, wow, the environment is so nice to have. For me, that statement haunted me in my nightmares for weeks. I was like, oh my God, if he thinks the environment is a nice to have, maybe we're so over enveloped by this abundance, and especially him in Colombia, by this biodiversity and abundance of fertile ecosystems that he does not consider them important or takes them for granted.
00:07:08
Speaker
And the other barrier that I see is Where at least back then in 2014, 2015, there was a huge separation. Like the impact investing movement was 100% socially focused, very anthropocentric.
00:07:22
Speaker
It was all about education, jobs and health and microfinance. And like all the environmental, I would say, organizations and conferences were held in other events and the people didn't know each other. So the environmental people did not know the social impact people.
00:07:39
Speaker
And the the only, i would say, quote unquote, environmental investments that showed up in any social impact conference were about a solar panel.
00:07:49
Speaker
And so for me, the big concern was that nature was not present in social impact back then. And so what we started doing as ecosystem builders was like create this bridge, create this intersection, because we shouldn't have to, it shouldn't be a trade-off of social or environmental.
00:08:06
Speaker
Like we cannot save people without saving the water we drink, the air we breathe and the land that nourishes us. And vice versa, we cannot save any trees without the community that is their guardians.
00:08:19
Speaker
And so we need to see impact as indivisible. Social and environmental impact shouldn't be divided and it shouldn't be an optional theme.
SVX Mexico's Mission and Growth
00:08:28
Speaker
Like I think life should not be an optional theme. I think we should all be investing in life and biodiversity is a network of life.
00:08:35
Speaker
And so for me, that is like a ah fundamental basic principle that I think was not present so much back then. And so I think the impact investing movement has moved, grown and shifted within the Latin American space. I would say i definitely see more movement and growth in the impact space in Chile and in Colombia and of course Brazil than what I see in Mexico.
00:09:02
Speaker
So in in Mexico, we're still like very much the same people that we were in 2015. It hasn't really grown that much. And so I believe one of the barriers, as I mentioned, was that the wealth owners don't feel the urgency for transformation.
00:09:19
Speaker
And the other part is that that wealth transfer that everyone has been talking about for a couple of years now, about the next generations receiving the wealth, that's still... pending. Like that's still not yet happening at the speed that I would like it to happen because sometimes there is considerably daughters of big wealth owners that are the ones who are having that urgency of transformation and that are bringing that urgency of transformation within a family or within ah very powerful group.
00:09:52
Speaker
But still I feel very much a patriarchal finance society, at least in in Mexico, that is still very much elitist and that still, I would say, reveres Silicon Valley as like the ultimate destination that they would like to kind quote unquote replicate.
00:10:11
Speaker
both in Latin America and in South America. So like all the early years of of my Impact Investing Life, I saw every single country saying, oh yeah, we're going to build the Silicon Valley of Peru. We're going to build the Silicon Valley of Mexico. We're going to build the Silicon Valley.
00:10:26
Speaker
And I'm like really looking at Silicon Valley and saying, you know, i don't think like socially... I see a lot of, I don't know, like a decomposition of social life.
00:10:39
Speaker
Environmentally, they get bigger fires every year. And in terms of governance, many of the people that they adore one year and are in the covers of magazine, the next year they're found to be frauds.
00:10:52
Speaker
And so it's like, For me, it's like, how is that place so idealized and why does it want to be replicated? And so for me, what I mostly try to work on is like, why don't we not try to replicate anything, but rather bring about our wisdom, our local cases, our local reasons and our local purposes and local
Regenera Ventures and Investment Summit
00:11:16
Speaker
themes.
00:11:16
Speaker
And so basically, that's what's what we've been working at since 2015. That's amazing. So tell us more about SVX. What do you do? How do you operate? Maybe some examples of work.
00:11:28
Speaker
Yeah. So basically in SVX, we have a mission that we stole from the encyclical of Pope Francis Laudato Sint. So back in 2015, Pope Francis ah published and an encyclical that was called a The Care of Our Common Home.
00:11:45
Speaker
And for me, that encyclical was not just for the, i would say, Catholic church audience, but rather very like a global call, right? and one of his phrases was, I ask you to ensure that capital serves humanity instead of governing it.
00:12:02
Speaker
And for me, that phrase hit deep. Because I came from the banking sector and I really felt that finance was very much in control of the economy and the economy was much in control of the society.
00:12:14
Speaker
And the society was in control of the biosphere or nature. And so what if we switch that around? And so we changed that phrase from Pope Francis to say, okay, we We ensure that capital serves life instead of governing it. So we amplified not from humanity to life because we recognize that humans, you know, we're not the intelligent species.
00:12:38
Speaker
We're rather part of a bigger intelligence system that is bigger than us and that we're a part of. And so that is the acknowledgement that is, I think, critical that we are eco-dependent and interdependent.
00:12:52
Speaker
And so with that mission in mind, we started doing in SVX a lot of investor education. So what we do is how can we unlearn the typical financial and investment paradigms and how can we relearn new ones?
00:13:07
Speaker
Like we need open minds, open hearts, open wills, like in theory you, but also we need to suspend a little bit of judgment for a while in terms of the old paradigms, the industrial paradigms, they serve the purpose.
00:13:22
Speaker
And they they didn't necessarily start with the intention of the destruction that they have caused. And so at the very beginning, I think it was, I would say, a personal journey for me to like not use an attitude of opposition.
00:13:38
Speaker
And I have been unlearning and relearning to use an attitude of reconciliation. So reconciliation with those paradigms. So we do need to see the different sides, right?
00:13:50
Speaker
but we need a reconciliatory attitude towards it. Because for example, I believe that dynamic of control from finance comes from fear. And so when you have the fear that if I invest in you, you will run away with my money and buy yourself a Lamborghini and go to a very glamorous vacation, then I'm so much in fear of you that I need to put all these clauses of control of how you will spend my money, right?
00:14:16
Speaker
And so it is a very top-down dynamic. of control and domination. And so i I believe all of that dynamic of domination comes also from the human desire for dominating nature.
00:14:31
Speaker
And so I believe we are nature. We shouldn't be trying to dominate We are just a part of it and we are interdependent of it. And so it is Very, very different to put yourself in a position of control than to put yourself in a position of service and interdependence and reciprocity.
00:14:49
Speaker
And I think that huge shift of paradigm is what mostly we work on in SBX. And so we started with impact investing, but we went deep, deep, deep. in climate finance. And then we found the regenerative economy.
00:15:02
Speaker
And that finally gave me a clear sense of direction. And so for me, when I found the regenerative economy, that was back in 2016. It was when John Fullerton, who is the one that first wrote regenerative capitalism, he then changed it to regenerative economy.
00:15:19
Speaker
And now he gives courses that are wonderful, like it I truly, truly recommend it. So he has courses on regenerative economy, but also on regenerative finance. I have participated in the finance one as one of the um speakers.
00:15:31
Speaker
And he has been, I would say, my teacher, my mentor for a number of years. And I have learned a lot from him. He has a very macro perspective and a very... I would say, and and historical perspective as well.
00:15:45
Speaker
And he embeds that in his courses. And so we in SBX, what we do is we start with education and that is the door or the passage towards strategy and investments. And so at the beginning, our advisory work was only with the people that we had been our alumni.
00:16:02
Speaker
And mostly i would say our biggest clients are always international cooperation. So this year for us was tremendously hard because we had been working with USAID in Mexico since 2018.
00:16:15
Speaker
And so now seeing our former clients unemployed and like the way everything happened has been truly devastating, like truly, truly devastating.
00:16:25
Speaker
And in in Colombia, our biggest client is the Global Affairs Canada team. So like the Embassy of Canada in Colombia, and we strategize their mandate for impact investing.
00:16:36
Speaker
And we also do their grant giving. So that is, you know, a specific mandate that we have since 2022 and that has been renewed. And so that is the the kind of things like I would say the biggest clients, but there's also, you know, NGOs and everything. So in Mexico, we have to be a for-profit entity.
00:16:55
Speaker
Because there is no and government grants or support or fellowship to do this work as there is in Canada. So like our partners in Canada, SBX Canada, is a nonprofit broker dealer, which is ah you know a very unique way of incorporating, right?
00:17:12
Speaker
And they have a lot of government and support and they have been masters in networkers, like in They are very much involved with public-private partnerships, with government corporations, family offices, foundations, you name it. like they They are really, really amazing, i would say, and very good networkers.
00:17:31
Speaker
And here in Mexico, we didn't start with that advantage, I would say, or or network or or position. But we definitely have grown and definitely have worked in a lot of Latin American countries that have asked us because we were back then the first ones to do all of this work in Spanish.
00:17:47
Speaker
And so we brought both climate finance and biodiversity investments education to Peru, like with all the banks and all the microfinance institutions. And we've worked in Chile, we've worked in In Argentina once, actually with the GST, you remember that event that was moved from Chile to Argentina.
00:18:07
Speaker
And so, yeah, so we've been across Latin America, thankfully, but mostly in Mexico and Colombia, that is our biggest work. And we have two new, I would say, babies. One is our fund, Regenera Ventures Fund.
00:18:21
Speaker
And the other one is the first Latin American Regenerative Investment Summit. And so for us, the vehicle, the the fund is a learning vehicle because we see that as a proof point, right? To build a systemic regenerative transition for Latin America. So we see it as a starting point and we have a mission that is way bigger than that.
00:18:40
Speaker
And so the Latin American Regenerative Investment Summit is precisely to embrace that there's other players within that system and that we want to make the systemic case for it.
00:18:51
Speaker
And so we don't just present our fund. In the first one, we presented seven other funds and 12 direct investment opportunities. So we want to build the investment case for the regenerative transition in Latin America.
Understanding Regeneration and Challenges
00:19:03
Speaker
And that has been a lot of fun. That's amazing. Tell us about this new fund. What stage is it at? If I understand correctly, it's focused quite specifically on agriculture, sustainable and regenerative agriculture.
00:19:17
Speaker
So tell us more about the issues that you're trying to solve with the fund and and how it's progressing. Sure. So first, I would like to kind of talk about what is regeneration.
00:19:29
Speaker
So regeneration is an inherent quality of life. So when we are alive, we're always regenerating, right? Our hair, our skin, everything is regenerating while we're alive until we're not.
00:19:41
Speaker
So basically I find that very important that regeneration is the quality of life and it's within us. It's not something, i would say it's not a destination, it's rather an an approach.
00:19:53
Speaker
It's a process. There's so much to say, but Basically, regenerative agriculture, I would say, is a very visible starting point, but it's not the only thing.
00:20:04
Speaker
Right. And so when I say regeneration is a very good starting point, I mean, regenerative agriculture is a very good starting point is because I don't believe that agriculture is a sector. I believe that agriculture is everyone's life axis.
00:20:18
Speaker
And so it's a very different perspective when you start with that. If we go back to the origin of how value is created in the economy, the origin of all value comes from photosynthesis.
00:20:29
Speaker
Even the word capital comes from heads of cattle that used to be how you measured your household's wealth. And so we need to go back to those basic principles of what creates value and how photosynthesis keeps us alive and how photosynthesis keeps the economy alive and how interdependent the economy is on photosynthesis.
00:20:52
Speaker
And the problem is that all of these studies that put out that, oh, 70% of the economy relies on nature. That's wrong. That's completely wrong. 100% of the economy rely on nature because we are nature and we need to breathe every day to in order to do whatever other sector, like technology or whatever else.
00:21:11
Speaker
Everything relies on nature. You know, they all those AI stuff that rely on on water, temperature, all of these things, everything is within nature.
00:21:22
Speaker
So we cannot, like, i I believe there's like a lack of ecological intelligence that I believe is way more urgent than the artificial one, because there's a lack of understanding.
00:21:34
Speaker
And with this lack of understanding, you can see it everywhere. Like choosing the word decarbonize, choosing the word decarbonize as this common goal for humanity when we are carbon life forms and when carbon is the molecule of life.
00:21:50
Speaker
So this is a ah very, I would say, a cognitive dissonance or a scientific inaccuracy because the mainstream climate finance has, I would say, kind of demonized carbon as a bad guy, as the villain that we need to get rid of when carbon is a molecule of life. So I think there's a huge misunderstanding. One thing is to balance the carbon cycle and another is to eliminate carbon.
00:22:17
Speaker
So I think the word decarbonizing is really flawed and we don't necessarily use that. So what we want to do in this fund is really bring about the investments that are needed for the ecological intelligence to grow and for us to understand it better and have that alignment between productivity and ecological and social health.
00:22:39
Speaker
And that alignment brings resilience. And so many people for decades have been chasing unicorns and have been chasing you know exponential growth. And that exponential growth is always at the cost of something else.
00:22:51
Speaker
And I think there's profit in being productive with a healthy approach. And I think there's healthy returns to be had in that transition. And we see that, for example, in many ways, but starting with agriculture. So as you said, the fund is invested in agriculture. i would say 70% of our pipeline is linked to agriculture, but there's other other realms where natural capital, nature-based solutions and regeneration takes shape.
00:23:18
Speaker
like ecotourism and of course, cattle ranching and forestry and like the biological inputs now and and a little bit of biotechnology, the monetization of ecosystem services such as carbon, biodiversity and water.
00:23:30
Speaker
So not everything is 100% food system based, but there's, I would say, a photosynthesis base to it, right? And so basically what we see is that regeneration sometimes wants to be imposed.
00:23:46
Speaker
in a very top-down way. Like I buy this land and I'm going to regenerate it. And for us, we we really believe that regeneration should not be imposed, but rather liberate because regeneration is already happening.
00:23:59
Speaker
And the way that we liberate is that we find there's already three regenerators everywhere we look. And it's it's a growing movement and a growing conscience, I would say.
00:24:10
Speaker
And so we want to partner with the local regenerators and help them grow and their vision materialize rather than us buying something and imposing regeneration on it.
00:24:21
Speaker
And so basically we feel that way we mitigate a lot of risks in terms of like the local vulnerabilities and the the local discernment of what could really, what is really aligned with the essence of this place.
00:24:36
Speaker
And so we've seen natural capital investments for a while. There's been a lot of natural capital investments that are monocultures of non-native species that are planted and that are very invasive.
00:24:50
Speaker
And they are called natural capital investments. And for me, that is a very dangerous take because the monocultures that are non-native usually damage the local biodiversity a lot.
00:25:01
Speaker
And they have a huge risk. They have a huge risk and they have been suffering those risks now precisely because since that species is not from there, it gets much more vulnerability to plagues, you know, to so many other things when that basically it weren't calculated in the original financial model.
00:25:21
Speaker
So I'm going too much and into the weeds. But basically, it's a $25 to $30 million dollars fund to be like the pioneer fund, a very brave fund to prove the investment case of regeneration or the regenerative transition in Mexico, because not all the projects or pipeline start being regenerative from the get-go, but rather many of them need to
Success Stories and Lasting Legacy
00:25:45
Speaker
transition.
00:25:45
Speaker
And so we need to have that very holistic approach of both and. That's amazing. And thank you for sharing as well how you work with the local community because that was definitely one of my questions.
00:25:57
Speaker
This podcast is also an opportunity for you to reflect on achievements. So tell us about what you're most proud of, maybe do some projects that have gone really well.
00:26:07
Speaker
This is your time. Okay. So I do want to address when we had our time, we had a four-year project with USA that was wonderful. It was called Sustainable Landscape Ventures. For us, it was the biggest project in SBX history. And that is where Regenera Ventures was born from.
00:26:26
Speaker
And so this project was four years in a very specific area of our geography of Mexico, which is Southeastern Mexico. It's the Mayan Peninsula where the fleet takes place.
00:26:36
Speaker
and Chiapas and Oaxaca. And so but basically the southeastern part of Mexico is the most biodiverse, rich part in Mexico. And it's also one of the most well-known for having smallholder farmers associated through cooperatives.
00:26:52
Speaker
And so there's a very community driven place and wisdom about this place. And it's also the birthplace of the native cacao in Mesoamerica and so many things.
00:27:05
Speaker
And now Mezcal, for example, that is very fashionable. And so basically in this place, we have this biodiversity rich place and there's a lot of local indigenous leaders and communities that had been part of the resistance to the industrial agricultural model for, I would say, decades or centuries.
00:27:23
Speaker
And so they had been our resistance and now are the ones that have the certifications that are compliant to the European policy. now they have Now they are, i would say, the the ones that can sell for the best price, right? Because they were resisting agrochemicals all along.
00:27:42
Speaker
And so I am very, very proud to say that within that four-year project, it was was supposed to be a five-year project, but of course it was terminated early. And so within those four years, we achieved with 44 community enterprises that were connected to impact investors and that received investment.
00:28:02
Speaker
And so one of them, for example, that I believe is, it's a beautiful, beautiful example. There's actually a video because a one of the impact investors was Beneficial Returns, the Reciprocity Fund.
00:28:13
Speaker
We love them. Ted Levinson and all their team, like they are amazing. And they were part of this community of investors that wanted to get to know our pipeline and wanted to explore nature-based solutions.
00:28:26
Speaker
And so Beneficial Returns just put out this, I think, five-minute video, three-minute video in LinkedIn about their investment in Miel de Mixtepec. And it's a lovely video. But one person missing from that video, it's Itzel, the entrepreneur from Miel de Mixtepec.
00:28:41
Speaker
She's so young. She was the youngest entrepreneur that we've ever met. helped get funded. I believe she's 26 or 27 today. And so she was the first one in all her community to go to college.
00:28:54
Speaker
And so she received kind of the responsibility of managing the beekeeper's or Bee Honeymakers Cooperative. And so she was the one, you know, who negotiated with us like the first the first credit they ever asked for in foreign capital. And now they're growing and with beneficiary terms, they're growing. And another cooperative that is very dear to our heart, we just heard yesterday about an increase of investment that they received.
00:29:24
Speaker
that is called Renacimiento Mije. These are indigenous leaders that made their own microfinance cooperative back in like a decade ago or, you know, 12 years ago.
00:29:35
Speaker
And basically their own microfinance cooperative had kind of died down because the Mexican development banks for agriculture were terminated basically in in the last administration.
00:29:48
Speaker
And so when that development bank was no longer alive, like they as a microfinance cooperative still remained kind of alive, but like in a survival mode with like barely like the minimum, like these communities, they are so so wise and they make so much out of nothing. Like they kept it alive probably with like, I don't know, $20,000.
00:30:09
Speaker
and And the money was like flowing back and forth to their producers and cattle ranchers. And they are the ones who are financing the cattle ranchers to go into regenerative cattle ranching. And so last year we made an event with USAID and with many people from the finance space and the impact investing community.
00:30:26
Speaker
And that event, we called it Tejido Financiero, which means like like a financial weaving or or a loom where you're like, how do you say that? Yeah, weaving. Yeah. together. Yeah. So basically we're weaving finance together.
00:30:39
Speaker
Right. And so basically they presented on that event that was July of 2024. And before six months, they received their first investments. And yesterday they received an an increased investment and now they're building out their cooperative again, you know, their microfinance cooperative again.
00:30:57
Speaker
And so I'm super, super proud that we, we made something that outlasted the project. That for me is such a sense of pride because even though the project was terminated in in November, since November, we're still receiving calls and we're still receiving emails about, you know, and I closed this investment and this. Remember that you introduced us to this investor in 2023. They're now giving us this much and this much.
00:31:22
Speaker
And so for us, that was like, wow, we connected people that are still having this financial relationship thanks to that seed that we planted. And that really, really brings me joy.
Sources of Optimism and Inspiration
00:31:35
Speaker
And there's many others. There's many others, but I would say if those are genuinely some of the ones that make me the proudest. But there's LARIS, the community event that we did. It was our very first.
00:31:49
Speaker
We're not event planners at all. We don't do conferences for a living. We just wanted to gather our communities together. And so we did. And it was magnificent. Like the sense of finding your tribe and belonging was just outstanding. Like I really, really like the Latin American Impact Investing Conference, the FLEE.
00:32:11
Speaker
I believe it's one of the the best events and it's really, really awesome. But for us, sometimes it's so big and it's like everything. And so that's why we we thought that Larry's was needed because we wanted like a attempt for like nature-based solutions, regeneration, biodiversity in itself. And so basically gather our tribe together. and And, I believe it was not just successful in terms of like, yeah, they were investments and pipeline found, but rather i feel a sense of community and belonging that, that will leave a legacy and that will continue.
00:32:47
Speaker
That's wonderful. Yeah, I'm hearing the legacy in in what you're saying and what you're sharing. Three quick questions. What is keeping you optimistic? Wow, so many things, but yes, I have to start with my children.
00:33:02
Speaker
I have to start with them because, you know, sometimes I'm in this, I don't know, like crisis mode. Sometimes you are in a scarcity mindset and they look at you and they see like the most wonderful thing in the world and they tell you.
00:33:18
Speaker
And so I guess... Those are daily doses of reminders that happen within the day and the week and everything. And that are constant.
00:33:30
Speaker
That really, like, I think it lightens my day and it it makes everything worthwhile. Like, you don't feel like you're in this constant struggle. You'd rather see, okay, my role in this is important.
00:33:43
Speaker
And my participation here is important. And if I see them, that's important. And so like you see every part of your day as valuable, worthy, and part of a bigger role.
00:33:55
Speaker
And so that that keeps me hopeful. And also yesterday, for example, I participated in a panel It wasn't a big webinar event. It was probably 30 people. So we could really do like a, like a deeper connection.
00:34:09
Speaker
And one, one lady, she was crying and saying, you know, but how don't you feel alone in this work? Because she was saying, you know, I, I feel so alone so many times. And I'm like, I hear you sister. Like I have felt alone and not only alone, but rejected, like outright rejected.
00:34:28
Speaker
so many times and and so constantly. But I i like grab on to being brave all the time. And I always remember that regeneration is within me and it's with me. And you have all these multiple generations of wisdom within you and you're never alone.
00:34:46
Speaker
And that individuality is a myth. And that moment yesterday, you know, like we were all crying. And those are the moments, like I guess, that that bring me hope. That reminds us that we are a human network, right? And yeah, that we see during school each other in each of us.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Who or what is inspiring you? Well, I have several inspirations. One inspiration i would say is a Vandana Shiva.
00:35:17
Speaker
I don't know if if you know her, but she, for me, she's like the biodiversity warrior, or I don't know if warrior is the right word. It shouldn't be warrior. The biodiversity guardian.
00:35:28
Speaker
And so she, I always find inspiration in Vandana Shiva and her braveness. And another great inspiration is Robin Wall Kimmerer. I don't know if you know her, but she wrote this amazing book, Braiding Sweetgrass.
00:35:43
Speaker
And so what I love about Robin Wall Kimmerer is she's a Native American. So her blood is indigenous, but she's also a scientist. And so in Braiding Sweetgrass, visualize a braid, right?
00:35:55
Speaker
Like you're bringing in together and you're weaving in together. And what she's saying basically through this work is like the reconciliation of the ancient traditional wisdom with science.
00:36:08
Speaker
And so like not as opposites, but as complimentary. Wow. Like for me, that was just amazing because sometimes, even though I love Vandana Shiva, sometimes she can be in that opposite mentality.
00:36:20
Speaker
And in Braiding Sweetgrass for me, was like, I kept crying. Yeah. Because that reconciliation in her story, I felt was a reconciliation within me as well.
00:36:32
Speaker
Because I always say like, I carry both like the indigenous genes and the colonizer genes and here in Mexico, that is a whole story. And like that reconciliation was really important to me.
00:36:45
Speaker
And I felt like an onion that was peeling back, peeling layers and like, I don't know, unlearning things. old paradigms of opposition.
00:36:56
Speaker
You made me really curious about this work. I i want to explore it more. Are you reading something that you would recommend to the audience? Yes, all about love from Bell Hooks.
00:37:07
Speaker
So Bell Hooks was this activist in the United States. She recently passed away and And she was a very, I would say, very unique kind of activism about loving in a bigger sense, not like in in the romantic sense, but also a lot about justice.
00:37:30
Speaker
And it's really, really beautiful. It came in ah in a very good moment in my life. It was through a LinkedIn recommendation and I'm still not, I still don't remember who recommended it, but it was, I'm really glad I did read it.
00:37:43
Speaker
I love the title and I will add it also to my written list. Do you have any final thoughts or recommendations for the audience? Any asks? Well, I think we're in a moment where we need to remember what is like the task of our generation. And I don't mean generation of like the people that are my my age or millennials or whatever. No, like everyone that is alive today.
00:38:08
Speaker
I believe we have two very important tasks. One is reconciliation. And one is regeneration. And reconciliation, I mean that I think we've separated ourselves.
00:38:19
Speaker
We've separated into left and right. We've separated into male and female. We've separated into right brain, left brain. We've separated from nature. And so we need to reconcile and we need to reunite and we need to recognize the value reconciliation.
00:38:35
Speaker
in each other's paradigms and in each other's views. That I think is super, super urgent. And regeneration that starts with ecological intelligence, like really getting to know how life works should be at the epicenter of what financial decision makers need in their curriculum today, because there's a lot of false solution and there's a lot of money flowing towards not necessarily what science is telling us to so invest in.
Call to Action for Reconciliation and Regeneration
00:39:04
Speaker
And so that would be one of my reflections. And the other thing is just remember that you are inherently regenerative yourself and that it is part of you. It is part of the design of life.
00:39:18
Speaker
And the more we align the way we move capital with that, I think everything will will flow. And if I could use just one metaphor... I always say like the most generous bank in the history of humanity is the soil because we plant one small seed and it gives you a forest. It gives you food. It gives you shelter. It gives you beautiful landscapes and and everything.
00:39:44
Speaker
And that water is like capital. And the thing about water being the blood of the planet is that we have been desertifying We have been desertifying lot of landscapes and we need to rehydrate landscapes.
00:39:59
Speaker
And that's exactly what we need finance as well to do. Like it has been accumulated in this dam and desertify the whole landscape and we need to let the water flow.
00:40:11
Speaker
We need rivers of abundance. We need to let capital flow back and rehydrate the landscapes that have been desertified. And if if we use that infrastructure, much as our model i think we'll find the right answers at the right time that is such a beautiful conclusion to this episode thank you thank you so much laura for your time and your wisdom and yeah all the very best for what you're doing because it's really transformative thank you for that thank you so much christina also for your time
00:40:48
Speaker
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00:40:59
Speaker
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00:41:10
Speaker
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00:41:26
Speaker
Women Changing Finance is part of the Impact Alpha podcast network. Smart conversations by and for impact investing professionals.