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E08 - Aunnie Patton Power, Academic, Advisor, Author & Investor
112 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, Krisztina Tora sits down with Aunnie Patton Power, an investor, academic, and global thought leader, to explore how we can radically rethink the very foundations of investment. Aunnie shares why simply tweaking traditional models like venture capital and private equity isn’t enough, and how new, regenerative structures are urgently needed to better serve people and planet. Drawing from her book Adventure Finance, she brings practical insights into how investment models can shift from extractive to inclusive, and what courageous leadership looks like in building a financial system fit for the future. If you're passionate about systemic change in finance and curious about the real innovations shaping the next generation of impact investing, this conversation is a must-listen.
Please review the episode, share your feedback and subscribe to the podcast!
You can also:
- Visit our website: womenchangingfinance.org
- Read Aunnie's full bio
- Follow Aunnie on LinkedIn
To go further here are some of the references mentioned during the episode:
- RLabs https://rlabs.org/
- Creating a World Without Poverty - Muhammad Yunus https://www.muhammadyunus.org/post/252/creating-a-world-without-poverty
- Unitus Capital https://unituscapital.com/
- Adventure Finance – Aunnie Patton Power https://www.adventure.finance/
- Capital Explorer tool with Village Capital https://vilcap.com/our-tools
- Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth https://www.kateraworth.com/
- Doughnut Economics Action Lab https://doughnuteconomics.org/
- Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii by Toby Wilson Neal
- Educated by Tara Westover
- Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
- Africa Impact Summit 2025
Recommended
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 Krisztina Tora I'm welcoming today Aunnie Patton Power, an entrepreneur, an academic, a consultant, an author, ah practitioner of Impact Finance who is based in Cape Town, South Africa.
00:00:37
Speaker
I met Aunnie almost 10 years ago. Aunnie it's been a while, yeah. As part of a an OECD workshop aimed at designing policies for impacting messaging. But we've both come a long way since then. And I'm therefore super excited to have you on the show.
00:00:54
Speaker
so that you can tell us about your cutting edge work on all of the different areas that you're leading on.
Evolution of Impact Finance in South Africa
00:01:00
Speaker
But before we go further, I'd love to better understand, even though your work is global, you're based in South Africa, so it would be really interesting to hear your thoughts on the South African ecosystem for impact.
00:01:12
Speaker
It would be great if you could paint us a bit of a picture of the landscape, the trends, and what you are seeing in in South Africa for impact and impact investment. Absolutely. Wonderful to be here. I cannot believe that was 10 years ago. It seems crazy.
00:01:26
Speaker
So in South Africa, you know, we've come up. So I've been I've been living in South Africa for almost 12 years and originally from the U.S. and but have lived kind of all over the world for the past 20 years.
00:01:38
Speaker
And I've really seen a significant change in South Africa in the past years. 12 years, when I arrived, the idea of impact finance was nascent as it was you know everywhere.
00:01:50
Speaker
But it was particularly because there's a strong philanthropy culture here, as well as a very well-developed traditional investment culture. And so that, like in many places, that bridging in between of impact finance was a kind of awkward, uncomfortable place for a lot of people.
Challenges and Commitments in South Africa
00:02:07
Speaker
And so I've certainly seen growth growth One of the things that's interesting about South Africa is that we are a middle-income country versus a lower-income or higher-income country.
00:02:19
Speaker
And so there's a lot of opportunities here to do and some of the more sophisticated financial structures, as well as having ah really vibrant traditional venture capital, private equity, wealth management ecosystems, and strong family offices.
00:02:36
Speaker
So there's living in a context where you see and and experience poverty and inequality on a daily basis. It's impossible to avoid.
00:02:48
Speaker
There's ah really strong commitment by a lot of individuals, corporations, companies, et cetera, to impact. And so it's taken a long time. i mean, that's been it's been ah a journey, certainly, convincing people.
00:03:03
Speaker
kind of more traditional financiers that some of these impact sectors are ah huge opportunities has been tough, but there's significant demand. There's more products.
00:03:14
Speaker
One of the things that's really important in South Africa is the green transition and having it be a just transition. And so a lot of funders kind of come into an impact space through the green space. And there's been global commitments to South Africa around the green and the just
R Labs: Hope and Entrepreneurship
00:03:31
Speaker
transition. And so it's opened up a lot of really interesting conversations.
00:03:34
Speaker
Obviously, jobs are a huge focus. And so the ecosystem has grown significantly. We have outcome-based contracts. We have all vibrant impact investing ecosystem.
00:03:45
Speaker
you know family offices that are doing some really interesting impact first work and all in this context of middle income countries. And so there's still long ways to go, I mean, as there is everywhere, but it's a really interesting melting pot and kind of microcosm of other places in the sense of lots of different kind of trends and and kind of competing forces that make it both huge opportunity, but also difficult.
00:04:15
Speaker
But there's lots of opportunity here and the ecosystem is um has grown and is vibrant. And a lot of kind of other parts of Africa are more in collaboration now.
00:04:28
Speaker
so working more with East and West ah Africa, as well as Northern Africa around different types of investments. That's really awesome. And yeah, we were really happy to be part of the ah first Africa Impact Summit last year, which was in Cape Town.
00:04:42
Speaker
Do you have any impact stories from from South Africa that you want to highlight or favorite social entrepreneurs?
Ani's Journey and Commitment to Impact
00:04:50
Speaker
That's always a hard one. I always get in trouble for that because when I mentioned one, then other people get upset.
00:04:54
Speaker
But so for me, one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs that I've ever met anywhere in the world is a man named Marlon Parker and his wife, Renee Parker. They together founded something called R Labs, which is based out in an area called Mitchell's Plain, which is kind of referred to as the gangland in South Africa. So it's a very dangerous place.
00:05:14
Speaker
place, but they have now globally built a movement around hope. And what they do is they bring this just, would say, really beautiful, welcoming, inclusive spirit to people, particularly young people, particularly young unemployed people ah that have felt and grown up in communities where their options are very limited.
00:05:36
Speaker
And i cannot even keep up with all the things that they do. They're in dozens of countries now. They've built these incubators, these labs, They actually work with young people around kind of obviously entrepreneurship and computer training and have had some of their, the companies as they've incubated with and then actually go on to raise venture capital.
00:05:56
Speaker
And Marlon, a few years ago, I forget it was maybe 2017, 2018 was like WEF Global Entrepreneur of the Year. So I get the opportunity to go out a few times a year with my students and take them to go to the headquarters and get to hear from Marlon. And his story of starting out as a child in you know this community and growing up and just really not being given a lot of options and having to just really fight for what he has built.
00:06:23
Speaker
And then to see the way that he's translated that into this just message of hope that is a successful business as well as, you know, an incredible nonprofit. And I think for me, that is, i am always just incredibly inspired by
Innovation in Financial Models
00:06:39
Speaker
that.
00:06:39
Speaker
There's ah ton of opportunity, a ton of growth that they're going to have globally, but the impact that they're making in communities, in South Africa cannot be arrested. I mean, they have helped hundreds of thousands of people get jobs, which is a not number in any context.
00:06:57
Speaker
Wow. Well, I will look them up. I didn't know about them. So thank you so much. And definitely it's a super inspiring story. um And my experience of of the South African ecosystem is that there is a lot of social entrepreneurs that are doing really great work. So well done for picking one.
00:07:15
Speaker
I now want to kind of hear more about you and your journey and how you got here. actually never got the opportunity to ask you. So I'm quite i'm quite curious. Can you tell us about how you got here, any milestones or turning points in your journey, maybe anecdotes that have kind of paved the way of of you getting where you are today? And you're doing so many things. So please feel free to reflect on on any of those kind of journeys.
00:07:42
Speaker
Sure. So for me, it all started back in Chicago, Illinois. i was working as and investment banking analyst and a friend of mine gave me a copy of A World Without Poverty, which is a book by Muhammad Yunus.
00:07:59
Speaker
And in it, you know, he goes beyond just those first few books were more about microfinance. And this one really talks about social business. And this was really before term. So 2008. kind of, you know, the term impact investing hadn't really been socialized yet. It may have been just created Bellagio that summer.
00:08:19
Speaker
But for me, it just really resonated. i was feeling... I knew I was quite good at finance in the sense of, you know, I was an an investment banker, mergers and acquisition at a really good firm, doing exceptionally well on track to kind of continue up the ladder very quickly.
00:08:37
Speaker
But I just was very disillusioned by so not the work. I loved the finance, but what we were who doing it for. And so I, instead of taking the private equity job that I was offered, and quit.
00:08:49
Speaker
And this was in 2009. So was a really volatile time in finance. And you know it was a strange time to to be turning down a job and selling all of your things and and leaving. But I did a ah trip around the world and ended up and in India and um was really just super inspired by the work that an organization called Unitas Capital was doing, which was really one of the first investment banks for social enterprises in the world.
00:09:20
Speaker
And I, for me, saw this opportunity, like I begged them to let me to come work for them. So I was like, this is what I know. I know investment banking, but I want to do it differently. And I just didn't see anywhere else. you know And I was looking around, if everyone was saying, oh, you should go work for a foundation. You should work for a nonprofit.
00:09:35
Speaker
like There was just no concept of like what this like middle ground was. And I wanted to use my like very technical financial skills to do that. And so I begged them to let me come work for them and and and did. And just really learned a ton. But I think one of the biggest, for me, the key milestone there was I loved working with them, still love. It's an incredible organization.
00:09:59
Speaker
still I'm very impressed by all of their work. But I realized very quickly that the contracts that I was seeing and the models and the types of investment were exactly the same as what I had seen in my my former career in traditional investment banking.
00:10:16
Speaker
And so, you know, I mean, this was early, right? This was like very, very early in the impact investing space. And so what was happening is that people were taking very traditional private equity term sheets and like trying to make, know, essentially like just throwing on kind of impact, but not even in the, you could go whole term sheets without seeing the word impact.
00:10:34
Speaker
And so I think for me, I figured out very quickly that, A, this was a space I wanted to be in But I saw a huge gap around like what I saw was that what was going to happen is that we were just going to take all these very traditional financial structures and just add impact. And and I was uncomfortable with that.
00:10:53
Speaker
And so really from the very beginning, but One of the things that drove me was like, well, what should the structures look like? but like How should we be doing things differently? If this is a radical new space that is financing these incredible organizations, like how should this look different from traditional
Rethinking Venture Capital for Impact Investing
00:11:11
Speaker
finance? Otherwise, we're going to end up in the same space.
00:11:14
Speaker
And then from there, have went to Oxford, did my MBA, wrote a book with one of my professors, worked Ghana for a bit for an entrepreneurial support organization, helped a bunch of companies, kind of raised money and and ended up back in Oxford, of Feeling like there was something for me around this. Like, I didn't know I wanted to be an academic.
00:11:38
Speaker
I like, you know, floated with my PhD. He wrote the first paper, hated it. And really from that point forward, put together a portfolio career that, you know, if I look back, the only way to describe it, I mean, it's been 13 now.
00:11:54
Speaker
The only way to describe it is doing what was needed and the industry at the time. And so, and really guided by the sense that, you know, structures, processes, and incentives needed to have impact embedded in them and needed to be inclusive.
00:12:11
Speaker
And so how do we build that? So as you know, I've written, i've taught I've built, I've done all of the things that are kind of, I feel like what like what has to be done and do that and then move on often. and But I'm kind of sometimes all in sequence.
00:12:29
Speaker
So there's there's a lot of things happening, but I can really see that through line. Looking back all of those years of really wanting to help create the like the next generation of impact investing that really is absolutely embedded with impact at every stage of kind of capital selection allocation, the aggregation, all of those pieces.
00:12:55
Speaker
There's so many things to unpick in what you said, but one that I would like to dive more into, which to me is quite unique in what you do, is reflecting on how do we not redo something that doesn't work, but how do we really change it to make it as impactful as possible?
00:13:15
Speaker
So can you tell us more about you know the reflections, the state of the art of the thinking of how do we transform actually the business models into in the finance industry, in the venture capital industry, in the private equity industry?
00:13:29
Speaker
You know, what are the things that we need to change in those business models to make them much more impactful instead of being extractive, to being more regenerative?
00:13:40
Speaker
And these kinds of questions and and perhaps one one other, so that's kind of the content, but also one other in terms of the context. Do you feel supported? Do you feel that you're fighting an uphill battle? Do you feel that there's more people coming into these conversations with you?
00:13:59
Speaker
How do you see that that change happening? So I'll take the second first, which is to say that I always joke that if I bang my head against a wall long enough, it'll either break or I'll get a concussion. So I've had some concussions and I've broken some walls.
00:14:12
Speaker
I would say absolutely there are more people coming on this journey. There's not enough and I want there to be more, but... So your question, actually, I'm going to make more radical your first one, which is, yes, there are some things we need to do in venture capital and private equity, but I fundamentally don't think those should be the default for the impact investing space.
00:14:30
Speaker
The traditional venture capital and private equity models can absolutely be tweaked. And my second book, which I'm working on right now, has 16 different kind of fund managers that are profiled doing kind of very radical types of funds or processes or ways they've and engaged um with incentives.
00:14:48
Speaker
within their funding structures, but it actually, you have to take even a further step back. And you know how I always work with my clients, I work mostly with family offices now, and the type of capital that is used or the type of structure that we are designing, the type of process, et cetera, needs to be designed with the end goal in mind.
00:15:11
Speaker
We've set up a financial system that works for investors. And it's created around the type of risk investors want to take, the type of capital investors have.
00:15:22
Speaker
And that makes sense. But there's a reason that it doesn't work for entrepreneurs, impact um projects, e etc. And that's because we're designing it based off of this is what investors can handle. This is what can you can be stomached. And so for me, like there is a just the process begins with like what is needed on the ground, who like what type of capital is needed.
00:15:48
Speaker
so I'll give you an example. So take something that's relatively ubiquitous, which is gender lens investing. So one approach to gender lens investing is to say, okay, let's get more women investors.
00:16:01
Speaker
Let's get more women on and investment committees. And let's do more investment readiness for female entrepreneurs. That is designed to fit women into the traditional venture capital space.
00:16:16
Speaker
Now, if you go talk to female entrepreneurs and ask them if they want to take on equity funding, which requires them to sell their their company in five years, requires them to be on a hyper growth journey, which means that they're supposed to work 80 hours a week, potentially scale at all costs to be able to, again, sell their company in five years.
00:16:34
Speaker
There are a lot of female entrepreneurs, and I know, they're like, I don't want that. Like, don't try and make me more investment ready. Like, that's not the funding that I want. So a different approach to that, and I'm not saying we don't do all those things around gender lens, but like ah different approach to that is to say, what type of capital is needed for female entrepreneurs and to encourage more women to become female entrepreneurs?
00:16:59
Speaker
That might not be traditional venture capital. Doesn't mean it's not risk capital. Doesn't mean that it's something we design something that's second rate. Absolutely not. Let's try and design something that works for people. And so it might look more like revenue-based financing. it might look more like more debt-like options. It might be things where you're actually doing you know syndications of a bunch of different types of angel investors and so that aren't using traditional equity.
00:17:23
Speaker
And so let's tweak the system can only get us so far. And to be honest, I spend very little of my time in that these days versus the like, let's build things that work for what is needed on the ground, community-based looking at ownership, looking at how things are, how power is distributed.
00:17:48
Speaker
So why do we exit as entrepreneurs, as impact investors?
Vision for an Entrepreneur-Driven Financial System
00:17:52
Speaker
Why do we exit to large multinationals or other investors just taking that wealth that potentially has been created and keeping it in the hands of a very few?
00:18:01
Speaker
Like thinking about distributed ownership, thinking about who should own these types of assets. And so sometimes I try purposely to be quite provocative. And because we can get very comfortable in traditional venture capital, private equity, and like try and do these small tweaks to make it impactful. And I,
00:18:21
Speaker
And I really strongly believe, I mean, I work with lots of venture capitalists and private equity funds, but I like really strongly believe that there's only so far traditional financial structures will take us and for only some subset of the market.
00:18:36
Speaker
And so if we start to see from an impact perspective that traditional venture capital, traditional ownership, traditional investment processes have a role to play, but are should not be the default, if we start thinking more like really innovatively,
00:18:55
Speaker
around how we design our structures, how we put together processes and how we essentially create incentives within the market that are fit for purpose and driven by the needs of of entrepreneurs.
00:19:08
Speaker
We can build a new financial system that will look quite different. And it's very counter to the whole mainstreaming idea that we've been talking about forever, right? Like, because we've gotten there, we have trillions of dollars in the space.
00:19:23
Speaker
But are things really that much better? Maybe, maybe not.
Balancing a Portfolio Career
00:19:28
Speaker
What's really interesting in your view is that it actually proposes to innovate, to simply innovate in an industry which has not has been innovating that much in the past.
00:19:44
Speaker
I don't know, 30 years. And so it's a wonderful approach to really rethink the purpose of finance and the purpose of how we use capital to create impact for people on planet.
00:19:57
Speaker
You have a really great supporter in me, for sure. And yeah, I would love to continue the conversation and how we make those models more widely seen because they do exist.
00:20:09
Speaker
That's really the work that you're doing is to shine a light on what's working, on what's happening, how people are really rethinking these very old school approaches to make them fit for purpose.
00:20:22
Speaker
So, well, thanks for that. And definitely keep let's keep conversing on how we make it work. But perhaps I want to come ah back to another kind of something that you said before.
00:20:35
Speaker
You mentioned portfolio career. And I wanted to kind of double click on that. It's a relatively new concept for many people. So can you tell us a little bit about what it means for you, how you built it or how you are building it?
00:20:51
Speaker
Sure. It is a, I mean, portfolio and remote, like remote career, also remote working. So I've been remote working to be able to do a portfolio career across multiple geographies for gosh, a while now, seven years, eight years, probably more than that.
00:21:07
Speaker
But it's the, pandemic certainly kind of brought into place a lot more of this like obviously acceptance of of remote and also I think this you know obviously we a lot of us had like a very much a kind of awakening around like you know what's important and you know all of these things and so for me but what I did I've pretty much Other than kind of the initial job that I had, I've pretty much always had multiple roles that I've played.
00:21:37
Speaker
I don't think I have interviewed for an actual position since I convinced Unitas to take me on. And I don't even know that that was really a position.
00:21:49
Speaker
And so when I transitioned out of my last like m mostly full-time job back in um kind of 2017, I believe it was, with the University of Cape Town, is i actually kept them on as a essentially as ah as a client, a couple of days a week for a period of time. And and that's really, a i always tell people when they're wanting to transition into portfolio career,
00:22:13
Speaker
you know trying to find an anchor client that helps you to a pay for pay your bills and B, kind of gives you that stabilizing force to be able to add other pieces in.
00:22:23
Speaker
And so, you know, for me, what I what i have done is I've tried to, i always say it's like, I do like 50, 50, 50, instead of like,
00:22:34
Speaker
I try and split my time up between writing, which is really important to me, and like you know getting some of these thoughts down and and highlighting and showcasing other work that others are doing, as well as work that I'm doing.
00:22:48
Speaker
The actual doing, the building structures, the working with funders, the trying to kind of design and and implement some of these ideas, and then the teaching.
00:22:59
Speaker
So for me, those are kind of the three key pieces. And so they have a lot of synergies between them. That's really important in a portfolio career. And a lot of people obviously r are very interested in, you know, how do you how do you become a university lecturer? And like, I can tell you, it was totally by accident for me, but I don't think that's how most people get into it.
00:23:20
Speaker
But how I got into it was when I was at Oxford, essentially, my a lot of my colleagues were really struggling with finance. And so even though I had never taken a finance course before that, because I had gotten a liberal arts degree and so it never had a finance course. So I'd only had my my work, my time teaching, my time working.
00:23:37
Speaker
And so I had done some teaching when I was at Unitas around equity investing. And so I just started teaching my classmates, And so the finance department started calling me their unpaid TA ah hub during my MBA. And so that was really the... And so when I tre when i essentially went back to Oxford and said, yeah I like just created a role for myself. I was like, think I should be called the Dean's Fellow. And so I like wrote this whole thing, like made it a thing. and And then it became a thing. They now have Dean's Fellows at Sahid.
00:24:06
Speaker
But... So I started teaching there and have really enjoyed that. And I built that up. So having that obviously really is very synergistic with ah the writing because the writing and the framework work that I do you know leads itself to to the material that I teach.
00:24:24
Speaker
I believe very strongly that the the actual doing the work advising family offices and foundations and others. We worked with governments, et cetera, in the past.
00:24:35
Speaker
You know, obviously just like continues to test all of those pieces. So for me, I try if I can, as I said, it often is 50, 50, 50 or 50, 50, 50, 50 when you throw something else in there, who knows?
00:24:46
Speaker
But I try and kind of maintain a bit of that balance. And I find it really fulfilling to be able to do and the teaching and engaging with practitioners. It's mostly and practitioners, kind of senior executives, those types of things, some entrepreneurs to be able to do that, but then also have the time to to think and to really kind of be able to engage with ideas as well as really the building. And when I talk people about portfolio careers, you know it's how do you create ah set of kind of projects, options, you know, things that are very synergistic, but that also will allow you to kind of feed off of each other. Because if you're doing three completely separate things or four completely separate things,
00:25:31
Speaker
it can be very overwhelming. But if you have things that are building off of each other, it can be a really beautiful way to get to experience different parts of of the ecosystem. And I would also just say the biggest thing that I always tell people is just be very useful.
00:25:46
Speaker
And that's what I've always told. you know i everyone I also started, as you know, a career platform called Impact Finance Pro because I needed some place to send people for career advice.
00:25:57
Speaker
And I say that on there in one of our courses around portfolio careers is like, just be super useful to as many people as possible. Because if that is the reputation that you have, then you know you will be able to kind of pick up extra work.
00:26:10
Speaker
And so, yeah, so just keep trying to be very useful and creating useful products and things for people. That's a really amazing advice. I really like your approach to kind of building your own career and building your own roles.
00:26:27
Speaker
And in a way, that's, you know, how you manifest what you want and and how you can really be your best self.
Inclusivity in Finance as a Woman
00:26:35
Speaker
Maybe ah question to you about how does it feel to be a woman doing this work?
00:26:41
Speaker
Does it feel special? what What are your thoughts on that? It's interesting because I've obviously had my share of annoying, frustrating, and uncomfortable things in general in this space, some of which have been kind of more impactful than others.
00:26:59
Speaker
But I found there's an incredible community of women doing this work. For me, I'm very proud to be doing, like helping other women.
00:27:11
Speaker
the The angel investing that I do here in South Africa is only in female appearances. founders and it's with a female investment group. And, you know, I feel very proud of that, but inclusivity more in general is more important to me. I think gender is very important, but racial, socioeconomic, like, you know, sexual orientation, all of those things, like, like I really would love to see the world of finance just be more inclusive in general.
00:27:37
Speaker
And so I don't necessarily just identify with investors or practitioners because they're female or that they identify as female, but it's more around like that philosophy.
00:27:48
Speaker
So I feel very grateful that there's this like incredible like community of women that, you know, are super supportive. And I really loved that. Becoming a the mom I hadn't my first daughter two and a half years ago. And I was really concerned.
00:28:05
Speaker
Like it was, you know, we had to do all this. We did this work for husband and I beforehand. And I'm like, my biggest, biggest fear was around my career. That's why I originally didn't really want to have children for a long time. i was not sure.
00:28:18
Speaker
that I did. I didn't want, I wasn't sure that i it would work for me. And then the pandemic came and I was like, okay, well, I guess we're all at home anyway, which is what I said to my husband, which is great way to so think about that.
00:28:29
Speaker
But it's been really interesting seeing how, when I look back, the last two and a half years have been the most productive of my career. because, you know, I've started saying no more. I've been very disciplined with my time. And I love both men and women that have that experience, whether it's with a child or with a parent or just that like experience of like having something to care for that is that you're willing to make sacrifices for. Like I find that bonding experience quite nice. Like just saying to someone, sorry, no, like I have lunch with my daughter.
00:29:00
Speaker
Like I can't do that. Or no I'm not doing those trips because I actually, you know, have a young child and people saying, yeah, nope, I totally understand. And so I do think there's a way in which, and and particularly obviously working mothers, we have some great discussions around that.
00:29:13
Speaker
And so i do feel like there's an affinity there that is really beautiful for me. There's working fathers, of course, absolutely. Particularly with working mothers that I find to be incredibly empowering and you know, the working mothers in the space are passionate about what they're doing, but also trying to manage that kind of essentially your own little micro impact.
00:29:37
Speaker
So, so yeah, I don't, it's interesting because i I'm often asked this as kind of, but I, I love being a woman in this space. For me, there's a ah lot of ways in which I have still been incredibly privileged that I like do not overlook.
00:29:54
Speaker
And being a white woman from America that's had exceptional education opportunities. So I still feel very much like I need to use that privilege. And in particular, living in South Africa, one of the ways that i have tried to do that very purposely is is starting to, particularly in the past couple of years, step off of positions of power or positions of you know speaking and and very purposely give them to women of color.
00:30:19
Speaker
that should absolutely have those experiences. And so just being very and of strategic slash like just trying to do that in a very authentic way is something that I will continue to try and do. Because it doesn't necessarily, it doesn't need to be my voice, whether it's a woman or a man, but it doesn't need to be my voice.
00:30:37
Speaker
And it doesn't need to necessarily be you know my position.
Work-Life Balance and Setting Boundaries
00:30:41
Speaker
Thanks, Aunnie. And thank you for sharing this in a very like authentic manner and your thoughts around it.
00:30:48
Speaker
Work-life balance is a struggle for everyone, especially for working mothers who are really passionate about changing the world. Where do you find support? How did you overcome any challenges that you had?
00:31:00
Speaker
It's a bumpy road, right? So what tips or or what insights do you have for others? Sure. I mean, we're still deep in it. There's still a lot going on.
00:31:13
Speaker
I'd say, you know, obviously living and South Africa, we have access to really great. We don't have family. Neither my husband and i have our parents here, but we've we have his siblings here, which is really helpful.
00:31:25
Speaker
We have an incredible nanny that is amazing, that really is a huge part of us doing what what we can do. And then for me, I would say my balance looks different than others.
00:31:38
Speaker
you know, I work from home when I'm here, when I'm not traveling, which I've cut back on my traveling significantly, which it's been really wonderful. And in other ways, like, you know, like it's tough. Like I want to be, i get these incredible invitations to go and do and speak and be part of these convenings, particularly now, it seems like, you know, the post COVID, like everyone wants to get together in person, which I love doing. and And I love convening, you know, saying no to a lot of that over the past couple of years has been tough, but important, but I still do travel still kind of do five or six trips a year for teaching and for kind of events that I, that I convene.
00:32:16
Speaker
And so my balance looks a little bit different. For me, I work from home. i set aside i have an hour to have lunch with my daughter and put her down for her nap. I try and wake her up from her nap. And then I really try hard to stop working between kind of five and eight o'clock in the evenings. I i will do kind of eight to 10 p.m.
00:32:36
Speaker
calls and things because I have a lot of clients on the West Coast of the United States. And otherwise, it's very difficult to catch up with them. So at least a couple of days a week, I'll kind of do that eight to 10 slot. But... So for me, the balance looks like when I'm here, like like being very present for my daughter and my husband.
00:32:54
Speaker
And then I leave for a week at a time, you know, six times a year, which is not easy. My husband's incredible and like really is just amazing at being able to step up with that.
00:33:05
Speaker
So my balance looks a little different than other people's balance, which might be more, you know, less travel, kind of more time potentially at home. But I found that it works quite Who knows what's going to happen with the next kid if we're going to be able to keep that.
00:33:21
Speaker
But the biggest thing that I've just found is I just say no a lot. So and I have bit more ruthless with it. And I feel terrible all the times that I do it. You know, when I say I just can't like I just don't have capacity to do that.
00:33:32
Speaker
But people do understand. And there's... I'm just no longer ashamed of saying, no, I can't do that because my daughter, like I like, cause nope, I have, you know, I used to be like, oh, I have a meeting or I can't, you know, I have to like, it's like, nope, I have to up pick my daughter from the park. So it's, we're going to have to cut, you know, our call off or no, I can't teach at that time.
Managing Client Communications and Burnout
00:33:53
Speaker
It does become easier as you obviously get more established in your career. But I do think that just being very clear about getting a lot of things done in the hours that you work, But being very clear about those boundaries that you set, i just think are is just incredibly important because you don't want to feel like the your work is at the expense of your family. Because otherwise, some of that joy will seep out of the work.
00:34:18
Speaker
And you will i have flirted with burnout many times. And yeah, hopefully we'll not get there. But I'm pretty sure I've been pretty close and or in there in burnout and not been able to kind of figure out how to get out.
00:34:31
Speaker
Yeah, I hear you. And that's probably something that many of us experience at one point or another, because we're so passionate about really trying to make a change.
00:34:44
Speaker
And sometimes it takes a lot of energy and time away from maybe our own health. Any kind of tips or things that, you know, have helped you kind of come out of it or Just, I mean, A, say no. B, making time for For exercise, i mean, that's for me is ah is a huge thing.
00:35:04
Speaker
So I like, I just have to be able to be in the gym or in the yoga studio a few times a week. That's really important. And think it's just really realizing your limits, right?
00:35:16
Speaker
So Yes, there are lots of people that want to take your time, but figuring out ways that you can allocate a certain amount of time to that. I'll give you a really like silly example, but in, I'm sure you're probably the same, but particularly in Africa, I mean, WhatsApp is used as ah medium of like business communication as well.
00:35:38
Speaker
So it is not uncommon for people to WhatsApp you. And so What I did a couple of years ago is create a business WhatsApp account that's actually on my UK number. And so i' am very like I try and be very clear about not giving out my actual personal number so that people can't... So like when I'm on the weekend looking at... it is messages from friends asking me like to do things as opposed to people being like, Hey, can you do that? Or, you know, Hey, I've got this sort of question or whatever.
00:36:05
Speaker
And so I try and like, just from a mental perspective, keep that separate. And that's also been really helpful because it allows me to like authentically engage with people that I want to engage with, but not have to worry about feeling very overwhelming of getting all of these messages and groups and everything like that on my personal phone. So that's another thing that I think has been really useful.
00:36:28
Speaker
And I just find that... just setting those boundaries and having that time and trying to do less. I'm not good at that though. So I'm never going to give anyone the tips on that. I've been saying I'm going to do less every year for like, i don't know, eight years. And it's just not happened.
Past Achievements and Future Projects
00:36:44
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know doing less, but for sure, setting boundaries is really important and prioritizing your time is incredibly important. So I have an assessment that often we're too humble about what we're doing.
00:36:58
Speaker
And so I'd love for you to have the opportunity to kind of promote yourself and promote your achievements. So we'd love to hear from you. What do you consider to be your biggest achievements? What makes you proud?
00:37:12
Speaker
What are the things that you feel have really made an impact? and And maybe also thoughts about what next? Sure. I mean, I still feel like there's...
00:37:23
Speaker
I mean, I'm definitely proud of things that's done, but I still feel like it's not enough. There's a lot more to do So I'm certainly proud of my book that I wrote, Adventure Finance, which I sold a few thousand copies of and it's been downloaded a lot of times, which is great.
00:37:38
Speaker
So that's it's great that that is hopefully being very helpful to individuals. We built in ah very cool diagnostic tool with Village Capital on top of it that's called um Capital Explorer, which I'm very proud of.
00:37:52
Speaker
And essentially uses the book content to be able to help you decide what type of structures you should use. And that was a very cool, um long process. I feel like, you know, there's been some, designed some cool structures, things like that, but yeah, I've written some cool things.
00:38:09
Speaker
I still feel like there's like, I still feel like there's so much more to do. So, know, working on this next book, have a couple of pretty big kind of projects in the pipeline, one of which, you know, I'm hoping could help to catalyze half a billion dollars into the employee ownership space in the U.S., which is very cool, but at not ah done yet.
00:38:30
Speaker
And not like the money is not there. So don't know. I feel like there's there's definitely a movement happening. I feel proud When I see language that i have kind of created, in some instances, co-opted from other things, people using it and people adapting it and people saying, I think one of the things that I feel the most proud about is when people tell me, oh, well, I'm doing this because I was inspired by this work. It's like, that's why I built this type of fund. That's why I'm doing this type of investing. That's why I've kind of changed
00:39:03
Speaker
this process that I do. And so that makes me very proud. And so, yeah, that makes me very proud. There's, but no, I certainly still feel like there's just, there's just so much to do. And so the next step is, you know, the next set of books, I've got a book that I'm working on right now. And then the third book that I'll work on in a couple of years.
00:39:20
Speaker
So about alternative fund structures and alternative market structures. And then we'll be launching a new initiative that is not public yet in the next few months. Well, not the next few months, actually about six months.
Collaborating with Donut Economics Lab
00:39:33
Speaker
And that's very exciting. And I am looking forward to that. That's going to be pulling together a bunch of this work and really setting it in hyper growth. But can't talk about it yet. It's not real. Okay.
00:39:44
Speaker
keep my eyes peeled for what's coming. ah Very exciting. Thanks, Ani. I mean, from my perspective, you're really one of the thinkers that will help this space to really transform to something different. So I want to shout out for for that and for The first book, I want to read the second one and definitely will share all of the content and and links to the things that you've mentioned in the notes of the podcast.
00:40:13
Speaker
Before we get to to the closing, I would like to have a quick ah way of asking you questions. Maybe you can answer in one word or one sentence to kind of get a feel about something nice to to kind of conclude the the podcast.
00:40:28
Speaker
So what's keeping you optimistic? The next generation. What is inspiring you? Also the next generation. I love how radical they are They like, they just, when I like, I don't teach them very often, but when I do, yeah, they're amazing. They just, they don't accept status quo. And I, I love that.
00:40:49
Speaker
I like, can't wait for them to be in positions of power and just shaking things up. Yeah, absolutely. It's a real no BS generation. And that's really wonderful.
00:41:01
Speaker
Who is inspiring you? Oh, that's always tough. ah Lots of people. Oh, to pick one. I've recently been starting to, very loosely, but starting to hopefully more formally collaborate with Kate Raworth in the Donut Economics Lab.
00:41:18
Speaker
And Yeah, I just think our stuff like just really like melds really well. And so I'm like quite inspired by how she has built just this like recognition around kind of some of her ideas and the way that's been implemented in cities. And I'm super excited about continuing to be able to figure out how the financing models really fit into that.
00:41:41
Speaker
Wow. Well, I know I said one sentence, but can you tell us more? i was always very curious to hear about how the lab is working. Yeah. So the whole thing, right, is that there's, so what they've taken the lab is now doing is that donor economics, it's quite bit easier to apply to more, not easier, but it's like, you know, governments, large kind of ways that we're looking at systems. And so the lab is doing incredible work around really how do you translate this to ah companies and um also to investments.
00:42:14
Speaker
That's where the team and I are Still like you figure that our work is so overlaps. And so being able to think about, you know, how we meld, meld it together in the sense of it's, you can have these, these constructions around how companies exist and how ownership exists and how companies are thinking about their growth.
00:42:34
Speaker
But if they then enter into financing agreements with investors that expect them to yeah hyper-growth, they essentially reject some of these kind of core principles are done in economics through their financing, then obviously then it just negates it. And so there's some real beauty in like, how do we, like the types of alternative and impact-driven financing that are imperative to be able to build the types of economies and the types of ah companies that that we really want to see that operate within this donut.
00:43:10
Speaker
And so there's resources we're going building. There are kind of ways in which we'll be and kind of writing and talking about this, but it is like there's a huge amount of synergies there.
00:43:22
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, and makes total sense given that three quarters of the planet live in cities. So there is a lot to do to make sure that we can live within planetary boundaries and how we finance that.
Encouragement to Transform Finance
00:43:36
Speaker
Okay, well, have more questions on that, but maybe another time. you Are you reading anything that you would recommend? So I haven't started it yet, but I just downloaded it. and I'm very excited. I listened to the podcast, but I just downloaded, think it's called The Art of Gathering, I believe.
00:43:54
Speaker
And I'm looking forward to that. I also have gone back to reread Donut Economics again in preparation for some stuff that's coming up. And I do just love it.
00:44:06
Speaker
So but's I would say that's it. And other than that, I generally often read things that are totally unrelated to the impact investing field. So I have at least a few minutes of my day that are not not in that.
00:44:19
Speaker
Any good books to recommend, fiction? So many, so many good ones. I just finished, know that would really recommend it. It was interesting. I just finished Freckled, which is like uneducated or educated, sorry, educated. That's like a, you know, kind of a growing up kind of in a very, not I would recommend it, but it was interesting.
00:44:37
Speaker
My favorite thing that I've read in the past year is still um Lessons in Chemistry. Oh, yes. I heard really great things about it. It's unbelievable. Okay. on Great reminder.
00:44:48
Speaker
i need to buy it. It's, I totally recommend it. You'll love it. Cool. Thank you so much. Oni, it's been, wow, such a pleasure. I can't imagine that we've been speaking for this long already.
00:45:02
Speaker
Any, do you have any final thoughts, advice to fellow changemakers or maybe any specific asks or calls to action from them? The thing I always say at the end of all of my talks and things like that is just a reminder to just be courageous because this space was created to be radical. And some of the ideas at the beginning, i e investing for impact and building social enterprises, like was radical.
00:45:28
Speaker
those things in themselves are not radical anymore. So like continuing to be courageous and like pushing boundaries, like we are building this world. And there's not like anyone that tells you that like something can't be done or like that is status as quo. And so I think just always tell people just like, just continue to be courageous, ask questions, be willing to do things differently because that's the only way things change.
00:45:50
Speaker
It really does resonate with me. Thank you.
Conclusion and Engagement Invitation
00:45:53
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you so much for your time, Aunnie, today. I'm going to put all of the different things that you mentioned in the transcript of the episode so that people can go and look at other information if they want to dive deeper into the topics that you mentioned.
00:46:11
Speaker
Thank you. i am staying tuned for any other announcements of your work going forward. And yeah, hope to see you maybe in person soon.
00:46:21
Speaker
Thank you very much. i appreciate that Thank you, Ani.
00:46:29
Speaker
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00:46:41
Speaker
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00:46:52
Speaker
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