Impact(ed): Live - Nontraditional Talent & the Unclear Path to a Career in Impact Investing

Eric: Hi, welcome folks to the Impacted First Webinar. ⁓ my name's Lucas Turner Owens, one of the co-hosts of Impacted, and we're on with Eric Horvath, co-host and co-founder of the podcast, and Shuvan, ⁓ Rizal, research partner for this episode, who's got some interesting research he wants to share with folks who are tuning in. You'll get that after the pod ⁓ webinar is concluded. ⁓ this session is being recorded and will be published as an impacted episode. ⁓ folks who are listening can submit questions through the chat and QA, and we'll try to get to as many of those as we can. Before we kind of dive into the discussion, which is ⁓ thinking about, you know, what it takes to break into the impact investing space and some some research that we've done and some some findings and as well as some anecdotes from our own journeys. I want to just ⁓ give folks some grounding on kind of what impacted is, how it started. ⁓ So again, my name's Lucas Turner Owens. I met Eric Horvath back in 2017. At the time, I was the fund manager for a really, I think, revolutionary impact investing fund called the Boston Ugima Fund. ⁓ and Eric was doing work with Transform Finance, which was trying to bring folks from the social justice world into the world of finance and impact investing to understand and kind of bridge the gap between those two worlds to help more folks ⁓ control how money flows, because so much of power and that kind of outcomes that we want to see lives in that domain. And Eric and I would see each other on the conference circuit and appreciate each other's thoughts on panels. And we we realized we had a lot in common and how we thought about the field. ⁓ so when I later decided to start a consulting practice in 2020, ⁓ working with a lot of folks in the impact investing space, I tapped Eric to to join me on that journey. And we worked with about 25 different impact investors, ⁓ ranging from foundations to affordable housing developers to nonprofit, ⁓ small business loan funds. And when that work concluded in 2022, ⁓ Eric asked me if I'd join him on a similar kind of entrepreneurial journey, which is starting this podcast, Impacted. ⁓ he was teaching at City College in New York. ⁓ he now teaches at Tufts as well as City College, ⁓ teaching folks on the the field of impact investing, ⁓ and often helping people break in for the first time to the field. And he and I shared the the joint mission of wanting to say, How do we kind of widen the tent of who gets to be a practitioner in this space? So it's not just kind of a reward for folks that have spent 20 years already in finance and now want to do good at the tail end of their careers. ⁓ how do we bring in folks who are, and I love this term from the research summary that everyone listening will get, how do we bring in folks who are mission proximate, right? ⁓ so mission proximity, ⁓ I think of as a type of subject matter expertise. If if you come from an area that's been underinvested in, you have a deep understanding in what that neighborhood or area needs. ⁓ if you yourself have you know suffered ⁓ injustice in how you've been treated in the healthcare field, you might be a great ⁓ health equity investor. ⁓ and when you're able to turn that mission proximity into insight in venture capital, it's called an earned secret. You have an earned secret on what that field is lacking or how ⁓ the work actually happens in that space. ⁓ and I I will say as a as a venture capital investor, We would probably not invest in, let's say, a platform for people who work in the skilled trades if no one on that founding team had actually worked in the skilled trades. So I think this should be true for all investors. You need that mission proximity. ⁓ and that's what we're trying to do by bringing in more folks into this work. ⁓ so with that, I want to turn it to Eric and Siobam to have them introduce themselves. So I'll pass it to Eric first. Yeah, Lucas, thanks. And you know, it's I I love the introduction too, because You know, when you know, we'll get into more of this when people ask about like pathways and ⁓ the downside it's obviously there's a downside when there's a lack of clarity, but also one of the upsides of it is that you and I met at a conference and we became friends and then I supported you, you supported me. This kind of unclear path led for more creativity in terms of how we were able to partner. ⁓ so I feel like it's it's that and then the rest has really been history. So before we go in ⁓ to the introductions, I want to do a little level setting, and then I think people are gonna kind of get the sense of kind of my background as we kind of lay out some of the research. So this kind of like framing opening comment we wanna put is we feel like people in impact investing often talk about the importance of diverse knowledge, to Lucas' point around health equity and being a health investor with lived experience and proximity to social and environmental challenges. ⁓ But we really want to know how it really, how easy is it really for those mission approximate folks to actually find roles and develop career paths in the field? And again, just a definition of housekeeping is that for us, ⁓ there has been great research done by Harvard Business School, by some of our colleagues, ⁓ friends and colleagues studying the impact investing labor market. ⁓ if you if you haven't seen that, I recommend you checking it out. ⁓ that sample was focused on more MBA candidates and folks going to more ⁓ I guess commercial impact PE and VC firms. So very valuable, a different part of the market. For us, ⁓ our hope was to investigate the impact investing labor market more towards, I guess you could call impact first. ⁓ you know, for those that have studied the space, it's extremely difficult to find discrete definitions. ⁓ some words mean everything to some folks, some people define things very differently. But for us, we were really thinking about ⁓ institutions like in community development, in philanthropy, and family offices. Impact first means something specific, but those are clearly impact motivated, you know, kind of as a raison d'entra institutions, which we find to be distinct from impact venture or impact private equity. And then the second ⁓ kind of definitional thing is important is that for non-traditional candidates, no easy way to slice that either. But for us, the way we approach the research was around ⁓ not coming from an MBA or a traditional financial institution. So ⁓ the first thing that I kind of wanted to to a to talk about is, you know, why did we even start this? You know, with with all the preamble and like all of ⁓ the conversation from Lucas, it was really about, you know, where did this even come from? And actually think I see my old colleague Andrea on the on the call. ⁓ and Lucas mentioned my time at Transform Finance. So I'll just say maybe like eight, eight or ten years ago, I I also a non traditional candidate. I was hired to work as a junior grant making officer ⁓ at a foundation. And then after two years that I was exposed to impact investing, ⁓ program related investments at foundations, and then after two years I joined a nonprofit. called Transform Finance, where my main role was basically going around the country, ⁓ providing education specifically focused towards activists and community organizers and nonprofit folks ⁓ in about a dozen cities, about twenty, thirty people, ⁓ per kind of conference or workshop. And it was really just about how can they understand and try to harness capital for good. ⁓ The remit was a bit broader than impact investing or community-based investing, but just in general, it was really the mission and the spirit was how do we reach folks that are not currently enfranchised around investing, finance, moving capital. And one thing I really learned in those, you know, eight eight years ago where I was going around the country and talking to hundreds of people, ⁓ that really were the inspiration for the the people that we surveyed. ⁓ in the research was that I I reframed all this jargon around finance and investing to just be about mobilizing resources for the issues that you care about. And for me, the one thing that I always heard from folks was just that we have huge systemic structural issues and we don't have enough money or we don't have enough resources. So rather than me go in and tell them that impact investing is the only way to cure and solve everything. ⁓ I really just saw it as how do we add this as ⁓ something that we were literate in and as a tool and as something that can ⁓ support that resource mobilization to these major issues. And when I came to reframe it like that, I just it's an innumerable amount of conversations and calls that I've had in the last decade or so. People saying, How do I learn more? How do I a job in this space? How do I influence more capital? How how do I just mobilize more resources? And I think where we are today is that after, you know, almost a a decade of those conversations in the shadows or kind of over coffee or in private, I realized ⁓ a lot to Shuvam's credit too, ⁓ and then we'll bring Shubam in in in here for this is ⁓ those are those are nice, but you know, to borrow the language from the the research, it is unclear. And it's not very structured for me to continue to have conversations like that. And I'm sure we have some employers or academics on this call that have heard similar conversations from quote unquote non-traditional or career pivoter career pivoters as well. So we knew we needed to do this at a larger scale and kind of analyze it in a more structured way. So I guess before we turn to you, Shabam, I I want to kind of bring you in by having you describe your own kind of path into this space and what about the mission of this research assignment really resonated with you? Yeah, happy to. ⁓ thank you, ⁓ Lucas, Eric, and everybody here. ⁓ pleasure to be with you all today. I think probably my interest in ⁓ this very specific research question is very much aligned with my own journey as well. So that works wonderfully with your question. my background spans across the worlds of economics, ⁓ particularly with regard to international development. I was born and raised in Nepal. Other side of the world, up in the Himalayas, you know, very much engaged ⁓ with the questions around social and environmental impact as as there are all these very unique challenges that are set forth in that part of the world. And so the way my career unfolded early on was I became interested in economics as a way to solve these problems that I constantly saw growing up. Over time, I became a research economist. ⁓ I worked, I went back to Nepal, I worked for several years in the development climate space. ⁓ the South Asian region is, of course, very, very vulnerable to climate change. As we all know, the Himalayas are up there, the oceans are up there. ⁓ and essentially what happened was over time, as I became more and more immersed with the question of impact, I just started becoming more curious about. questions around capital allocation and where money is actually going. and so my movement towards impact investing is very much nonlinear myself, you know. if we were to really surgically think of the word impact investing, I think ⁓ early on Lucas, when you when you talked about, you know, there's there's a certain archetype where somebody works in investing and then makes the pivot to impact. I am the opposite where I come from the world of impact, and now I'm coming into this world of impact investing. and so ⁓ having engaged in this field now academically as well as professionally, you know, I've worked in a few impact investing projects. ⁓ I had a stint in a climate tech venture capital fund. the thing that I kept seeing over and over was how this field. As exciting and as wonderfully young and optimistic as it is, is really lacking in a sense of empirical visibility. ⁓ it's growing very, very fast, and it doesn't really have a lot of evidence based to ⁓ to to for researchers and for the field itself to be able to examine itself critically. And so, you know. I just happened upon an introduction with Eric and we instantly hit it off and we both felt like, ⁓ man, there is so much that we can learn about how people get into this world. I myself am an example. Eric himself is an example. Sounds like you are too, Lucas. Everybody seems to have these interesting, winding, serendipitous paths. And while it's fun to hear these serendipitous stories, like this can't be the strategy of how we recruit ⁓ people into ⁓ into this you know very quickly growing field. yeah ⁓ so we ended up doing this survey. ⁓ this is very much in the spirit of a first inquiry. we kind of designed it to be as exploratory as possible and we're trying our best to juxtapose it with other fantastic work yeah than done that looks more at traditional candidates. So we're focusing a little bit more on non-traditional candidates who are, you know, mission proximate but pipeline distant. That's how we love to frame that. yeah, and we're finding over and over again, as we'll describe in the results as well, that unlike a lot of the other fields where it's difficult to climb the ladder, this seems to be a field where a lot of people who want to break in, who are already trying to break in, can't even see the ladder. The ladder is invisible. Well, I I love that phrase, mission proximate but pipeline distant. It it makes me think actually of a portfolio company of the firm ⁓ where I work, building ventures, which I lightly referenced earlier called Skillet, which is trying to kind of expand the aperture for folks in the skilled trades ⁓ who might not be a fit on paper given their credentials for a certain role, but who have the requisite skills to fulfill a certain role. So I think similarly we're thinking about how do we kind of expand the aperture of who could be a good fit in impact investing career. But I I love that both of your journeys really center kind of the mission drivers for yourself. I know that was true for me. ⁓ for me it was attending a ⁓ basically a a meeting in a library focused on ⁓ a book written on the solidarity economy that led me to find a tribe of people passionate about that issue who I later learned were lenders to local worker owned cooperatives in Washington DC. So I think for each of us there was this kind of mission driver that led us into the ⁓ a piece of the work and has now moved us into ⁓ investing roles or or Jason. well Lucas One thing, and we're gonna hop right into the research just ⁓ when you guys were both talking, ⁓ this other motivation of why this where we're here is, you know, because I've had the privilege of these conversations over the last decade, is just I felt there's so much talent. And like you were saying, there's some you know, the earned secret or that there's so much talent that wants to break in and contribute ⁓ to the field. And I was trying to think ⁓ about other labor markets or other other paths. ⁓ where there's such a mismatch of an overwhelming supply, in my opinion, like an overwhelming supply of talent and demand trying to get into these roles that is not f primarily financially driven. So, yes, there are obviously labor markets or areas where people can't get jobs. And ⁓ you know, f when you look at the ones that are more socially motivated, like nonprofits or maybe working in the public sector. Obviously, I don't haven't studied those to great depth, but I'm like, there's a lot of job openings like in the public sector, like at least on the job boards where I live in New York, where like, you know, people can go apply. Like there are openings, like there are pathways. Even for elected officials, like there is a path to try to run to become an elected official. And I know from my friends and my time working at nonprofits, there's there's definitely no shortage of of need. So I I'm just really fascinated by this kind of disconnect between the amount of demand and talent that's like dying to to contribute and get involved. And how I don't know where else that really exists when you strip out that like financial monetary consideration. And I doing the aggregate data and then starting the inquiry, I think is how we can start to create structural solutions. But let's go into the let's go into the research. So so to that point on the demand, ⁓ you put this survey out into the world and what did you learn about the level of interest from folks, you know, to pursue impact investing careers? Yeah, this is yeah, Yeah, the first thing I just want to say, you know, for people, thanks folks for being on and and being interested. Like if you have a question and you have some interesting people around you, ⁓ just go do it. ⁓ you know, Shuvam kind of referenced this, but as you know, Shuvam did and I and I met each other a couple of months ago. ⁓ and it was quite serendipitous and And we we took a couple weeks to develop the research ⁓ inquiry and then we put it out for a couple weeks. ⁓ and over 250 people replied. And as far as I know, ⁓ this is the first kind of research inquiry at this level of its kind. ⁓ again, needs certainly needs needs follow on. There's there's more to investigate for sure, but ⁓ we were really overwhelmed and surprised by, you know, basically putting out on LinkedIn, sending it out to a variety of very gracious connectors and supporters. ⁓ we got a ton of inbound, both email, direct message, like just tons of inbound of people saying, I've experienced this myself. ⁓ this is I, you know, I feel the same way as well. And it just what really stood out to me was we really, like, I think 70% of respondents like found it on LinkedIn. So it wasn't based on like them being friends with me. ⁓ for folks that are on this call that were respondents, ⁓ we didn't even collect your email. So it was fully anonymous. ⁓ and there was no incentive around this. ⁓ like we don't know who responded, there was no raffle. Like I told some of my economist friends being like, Hey, there was no incentive or raffle, and they're like, I can't believe you got this many people to reply ⁓ for this anonymous kind of 15 minute survey. And Yeah, I mean, you know, Siobam's gonna go into more of the some of the nuts and bolts, but like to me, just that signal of we were hoping we'd get like, you know, a hundred after a couple of months and to basically shut the survey down at, you know, two hundred and fifty, which was above our goal in a couple of weeks, ⁓ was was just like a demonstration in and of itself. So so over two hundred and fifty people applied or replied to the survey. And then Siobam, tell us more about who replied. You know, what what's the sort of psychographic of this group? Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ I'll I'll also quickly echo what Eric said that even, you know, our kind of first very primary research question was to see if there is this hidden demand for impact investing careers. And I think one of the first evidence we got before we even started to really collect evidence was the fact that people are filling out these surveys, which means people are on LinkedIn, which means people are engaging in these networks. There's definitely people wanting to break in. ⁓ who are these people? ⁓ well, it's ⁓ You know, speaking for myself here, it is a surprisingly experienced group. ⁓ and surprisingly well credentialed group too. ⁓ about sixty-seven percent of our respondents had at least five years of full-time work experience. Now, how relevant is this full-time work experience, of course, depends on the exact area within impact investing that they may be trying to break in on, right? Not everybody has direct underwriting or finance experience. But as you both know, As the field grows, we need more than underwriters. We need portfolio people, we need operations people, et cetera, et cetera. over forty percent, just over forty percent, actually had ten years or more of experience. So these are, you know, these are not very recent college grads who are kind of responding in frustration out of early career confusion. These are folks who have been working actively and are trying to break into this space. another another ⁓ Another statistic that I love to that I that I think brings a lot of nuance to this is just over half of the candidates had a master's degree. ⁓ now I'm saying a master because it could mean NMS, it could mean an MA, it could mean an MBA. But nonetheless, this is a surprisingly well-credentialed and well, you know, experienced group. and then to go to our primary question, so what did we find? Well, we found there's interest. ⁓ we kind of knew we would find there's interest, but it was pretty overwhelming when you think about the numbers. 90.6% of the respondents reported high interest in pursuing impact investing careers directly, in those words. ⁓ something like 75% had actually already applied to at least one impact investing career, ⁓ at least one impact investing role or some adjacent role that is, you know, that can be loosely defined into this world. As we started with our working definitions in the beginning. And so, you know, just right off the bat, like the very first piece of evidence we're getting is that non-traditional does not mean underqualified. These are people who likely already have transferable skills right now, even before whatever onboarding and training happens when they do get the job. and these aren't people who are admiring the field from a distance and kind of just hanging out on LinkedIn filling surveys. Like these are people who are actively applying. These are people who are filling out forms and tailoring resumes. So in this pool, we have highly qualified, highly motivated folks with an interest in breaking into impact investing, presumably many of whom have not yet been successful in doing that. So what's what's the blocker? Where are people getting stuck? Yeah, so ⁓ I think we we asked we asked everybody to kind of fill out and share what their perceived blockers were. And in our head, you know, some of the options we put out were the sense of belonging, just kind of unclear pathways, ⁓ just really how to get the first job, let alone how to develop a career. Like I think that's actually another line of inquiry ⁓ around the research of not just How I break in? How do I get my first job? How do I how do I pivot my career? How do I pivot ⁓ companies? It's like how do I what is that ladder? What is that equivalent of kind of like climbing the ladder? Like what does that path look like ⁓ for the long term? But we asked about belonging, ⁓ pathways to to work, ⁓ and and like entryways. ⁓ and there there was a good range of of well, a lot of people selecting a lot of blockers. ⁓ but but Shuvam, which one stood out the most? Yeah. so ⁓ probably a good good way to start this is to say these are perceived blockers, right? This is a self-reported survey. So what we're what we're what we're learning from our respondents is what their experience is, which is subjective, but nonetheless, ⁓ you know, it really does inform somebody's experience in wanting to break into a new market. we found ⁓ this idea generally of low belonging and ⁓ by the way, the w when I say belonging, we're talking about it's a composite variable that encompasses a few different survey questions that are generally around framed around, you know, ⁓ words such as like people like me generally don't enter the field or I don't see mentors like myself in the field with my background. So this is kind of what we're talking about when we say belonging. ⁓ There is a fear of low perceived qualification, which is surprising because the last thing I said was that there is surprisingly high qualification, at least on paper, people are well credentialed. ⁓ and definitely the entry route problem is real. how do I break in is really a bigger question than say how do I get promoted or how do I move laterally across different organizations that are already operating in this space. sixty-seven percent of the respondents did not feel that people with their background typically entered the field. something like ⁓ close to 50% of the respondents said they couldn't they couldn't figure out how to navigate it despite having networking calls, despite talking to folks who would be able to guide them. ⁓ and so overall, I would say the strongest obstacle here is actually not technical readiness. It's really whether people can imagine themselves as members of the field. Which is a very interesting finding for sure. And I think it's I mean, I am a forever optimist with regard to the growth and impact investing. And I think this is quite an interesting, actionable insight that I think the field and employers can really take interesting action on, even you know, especially if more research in the future keeps keeps ⁓ keeps showing this. ⁓ there is less of a question of what kind of background is legitimate and more of a question about how you how the field just feels closed in practice, despite your applying to these ⁓ tease positions. Well, Lucas, actually, because I feel like we and I you and I have talked about this just over the years on the podcast, but just personally, because we're we're both kind of like, you know, coaches, peer coaches to each other. you know, this piece about belonging and like who you know and like your network and everything. And you and I have talked about, or I'll speak for myself, like imposter syndrome or like who who am I? And like I I don't have all these credentials and everything. And when I think about like belonging and and and what ⁓ what it was like, you know, back in the day and and stuff. ⁓ I really think about like inequity a lot. I really think about like class and access and just like feeling like you belong in certain rooms and, you know, with without more clear defined kind of pathways to I need this credential, I need to go to this school, or I need to have this experience, or even more curated and deliberate ⁓ spaces that then will be validated in the labor market. Like without those things, I feel like the kind of rules become like unwritten rules. And it's based on like who you know, who's gonna refer you. And that gets us back into this inequitable kind of ⁓ you know, luck and chance and and, you know, connection. Well, I kind of want to break apart what you said into two two pieces, because there's, you know, imposter syndrome and how that shows up in getting a job. And then there's sort of the lack of representation you might see around you, lack lack of mentorship, and how that impacts your ability to stay in a job. So maybe I'll I'll I'll park the points about staying in a job for a second and just say, and this is somewhat anecdotal, but I think I know a lot of people of color, a lot of women who and again, this is anecdotal, but who won't apply for a job when they don't feel they have a hundred percent of the qualification for that job. Yeah. And if they don't see someone they know in that job. And I know a lot of White men who don't have that same hang up. So I think that that is when we when we talk about this non-traditional group being quite well qualified but still struggling to break in, that I think is an important piece to weave in. Again, this is not empirically backed, but it feels it like to not say that would be non-dressing the elephant in the room when talking about non-traditional candidates breaking into what has been largely a white, largely male space. ⁓ but I guess I I want to sort of move to a slightly different question, which is. You know, ⁓ let's talk about kind of this this point about skills transferability. So, you know, you have folks who have and I love the point you made, Siobhan, which is that impact investing is a broad tent. Not everyone needs to necessarily have experience working in a startup because they want to work in Impact VC. For some folks, it might be working in international development is quite relevant to the focus of the fund that they hope to go work for. So I guess what what did you learn from the data ⁓ around this kind of skills transferability idea? What what did that kind of help us understand? Yeah, ⁓ I'd love to. I completely agree with you. a lot of the problems that you just described, right, around mentorship, around belonging, a lot of these problems, I think this this very specific finding that we have, that we're kind of conceptually we're synthesizing it and we're calling it the skills transferability paradox. Because we just felt like this is a finding that deserves ⁓ this is a finding that deserves a name of its own and hopefully we'll spur Interesting interesting follow-on research in the future too. ⁓ this is a potential solve for that feeling of belonging. maybe you feel like the spaces that you've occupied, the kind of training you've had, the kind of exposure you had, oftentimes these things even manifest in little things like language, right? If you worked in finance, you're just saying things like burn rate or ib da comfortably. Whereas if you haven't, you know what these things mean. You're just you just you don't have the jargon for it. You don't have that feeling of belonging. and so I think this skills transferability paradox is a really interesting finding where a lot of respondents You know, despite the imposter syndrome, despite the weak belonging, are actively reporting, feeling like they have some skill that's relevant and that's transferable already. It's kind of like a tragic finding, really. ⁓ because what what this is clearly telling us is that there is ⁓ there is a lack of clear or even socially accessible route into the field. For many people, the issue is not a lack of skill. In fact, ⁓ you know, one of my one of my professors and mentors often who also operates in impact investing often says, You can teach the investing to an impact person, but it's really hard to teach the impact to the investing person. And so, in some sense, you could say that these non-traditional candidates who are very mission proximate often do come with these meta skills of getting into a world very quickly, learning its language very quickly, ⁓ you know, ⁓ We talked about venture capital earlier. Like what is that job, if not just finding a startup interesting, getting in and in the process of diligence, becoming a mini expert in that world and then making a decision, right? ⁓ and so I think interestingly, like there is uncertainty around things such as where do skills actually fit? How can we translate them into the language of investment? How can we credibly demonstrate readiness? Again, my personal subjective opinion on this is mentorship is the answer. Training is the answer. If skills are already there, we just need to repack Eric, anything you want to add on that before we move on to another area? Yeah, I feel like ⁓ I I really do agree with this paradox being like very tragic of ⁓ and it just goes back to my previous point around there being talent and capability. It just there seems to be a bottleneck of ⁓ to me I find that it makes me sound like a like a like a plunder or something. Like it makes me sound like I'm I'm excited to unclog kind of like the blockages. Like ⁓ just not only with this, but just generally and in work, like I kind of see a blockage. ⁓ as an opportunity, like if you're able to unstick that or unclog that. Like that blockage wouldn't exist if people were not interested or people were not capable or people were not seeking this out. But if we really, Lucas, to what you said up at the top, like we're specifically talking about a field that talks about and v ⁓ values like impact proximate experience or at least understanding of what like impact and social metrics are. So like what I think the challenge is is like the fields A there's not enough job b you know, big secret. ⁓ there's not enough jobs or or or ways for people to get that started. I think there's ⁓ not to turn it into kind of like investment language, but I feel like there's almost like a mispricing or ⁓ undervaluing and an inability to kind of translate the the kind of talent or skill set that Chuvam is mentioning, and then how does it actually translate into ⁓ being hired as an intern, as an apprentice. ⁓ so it's it's this disconnect. And I think that's what the disconnect, which is very tragic, is I don't think you would talk to any employer that works in this space and say like, we don't care about impact experience. Nobody's gonna say that. But there has to be an inflection point or this kind of switch where it's like we care about it enough to hire you instead of someone with a different, more traditional background. And I think that's the real nut to crack. ⁓ And I honestly I think there just needs to be a a rewiring, kind of like a rewiring or new regime in terms of how we approach talent. And then we're gonna need employers that also wanna kind of ⁓ take that step to do that. And the last thing, Lucas, is just like, you know, and you and I I feel like you and I talked about this too, because we talk about investing and traditional investing a lot, is just like no one gets hired for fired for buying IBM, ⁓ no one got in trouble for buying you know mortgage-backed securities during the great financial crisis. Like no one gets hired fired for hiring someone from like an Ivy Leap elite MBA program either. And, you know, you think about how the incentives or the risk is is higher to be like, I'm gonna do the quote unquote non-traditional route. But of all of the types of employers out there, especially the ones that are asset owners in the impact first investing space, like who are who is capable of taking another chance or re rewriting what the talent profile is? It's probably them. Yeah, and and I would argue that, you know, the the risk of hiring a c a non traditional candidate is different in different roles. Like if you if you need a CFO, you need a CS for sure. For sure. If you're if you're working at a large foundation and you need someone to lead a new practice focused on economic inequality, someone who's, you know, led programs at nonprofits might be a great fit, even if they haven't been a grant maker before. So so there's a there's a difference in that in that risk assessment. ⁓ but but I I agree. I agree with everything I heard you say there. ⁓ so I guess I wanna move it kind of to another place, which is to talk about some of the specific responses that you got that were little bit more personal. These have been anonymized, but maybe you can share some kind of anecdotes that you got from respondents. Shribam, you want to go first? Yeah, sure. where to begin? We ⁓ we were very lucky to have a really nice, really rich ⁓ set of qualitative results to come with all the more traditional quantitative survey that we talked about. ⁓ a lot of people gave us a lot of very, very interesting perspectives into their unique individual issues, which I have no doubt extends to others as well. a few things that were mentioned. ⁓ the big one that ka came up a few times and is sadly only going to come up more and more as we head towards the future is AI. AI is fundamentally changing the way hiring works. ⁓ not only with regard to the procedural operations of how you're putting out a job and how you're sifting through resumes, but also folks on the other side are now using AI to, you know, tailor resumes and tailor cover letters. And so there's a homogenization that's happening. There's a flattening of your distinct identity, your, as you said, your learned secrets or your lived experience. And so there's a lot of concern around that. ⁓ There's some about ⁓ you know, there's a few folks who reported that they are able to navigate the field, but they're not able to understand where they fall in the ladder of things. And I think a big part of that is because the field itself is growing and the field itself is finding out. How it's going to structure careers, right? A lot of your more traditional finance roles look like you get out of college, analyst, couple of years, maybe an MBA, associate, principal, partner, or some version of that. We don't quite have that in our world. And so it's a little bit harder to navigate. So there was a little bit of reportage around, all right, cool, I'm trying to make this career pivot, but who am I? Where am I? You know, what do I apply to? Where am I overqualified and where am I underqualified? ⁓ I'll let Eric. I'll let Eric ⁓ share a few more. Yeah, I mean for me, like there's two there's a you know, we got a lot of we got a lot of these kind of unstructured comments. I appreciate them a lot. ⁓ just two that stand out that kind of layer on top of each other. Is a couple people wrote about, you know, essentially what is the core body of knowledge ⁓ that I need to know to be credential, ⁓ to get a job in the space. So there are there are a lot of ⁓ I mean, I teach in education at universities, like so there's a path to get education on that. There's a a lot of programs and cohorts that that teach and and are around impact investing. But I think what the person when they come back to really this deliberate like proper noun common of core body of knowledge, like other industries, other labor markets have those. ⁓ or like credentialing mechanisms like the bar exam, ⁓ or passing like the MCAT, or like there are actual Things that are not just about learning information and then having, you know, a body of knowledge, but having a core body of knowledge that will be accepted by employers. And I feel like there was some comments around like what is that, you know, universally accepted or broadly accepted in terms of getting hired, core body of knowledge? What is that training ground? ⁓ getting that buy-in broadly from from those who are hiring. And then the second one, which is something that I've thought about. a lot ⁓ and I think about a lot ⁓ in the forward looking space the future is someone remarked that ⁓ it's as the years as impact investing exists more and this kind of concept of double triple bottom line and like you can invest for good and again we had talked at the at the top that there are different ways people define that. More people that have more of a traditional finance background. So you know not our survey but more of a traditional finance background. ⁓ there will be more of that talent that will gravitate towards the kind of impact or finance, socially finance space. So if we talk about there not being enough jobs, but just I think it's pretty fair to reason that year after year after year, like as more and more traditional candidates are aware of this field, ⁓ there's probably going to continue to be more ⁓ talent. that seeks jobs in that space, which will then make it more competitive and more challenging for non-traditional folks. So, you know, we we might touch on this later, but like I'll just say it now that I I'm just imagining like let's follow this logical chain down the line. Like if the la if the jobs, the amount of jobs don't change or grow, and the way that we kind of evaluate talent doesn't change in 10, 20, 30, 40 years, all those things are held equal and we continue the traditional path. And more traditional people want to work in these roles. What is that labor market gonna look like? Who who is gonna make up all of those roles? And and what is it gonna be like for the people that are on this call or the people that filled out the survey in 30 years from now, if we say steady state? Yeah, it it is important. I'd love that you called this out, Eric. It's really important to note that this is an incredibly competitive section of the labor market, right? Some of these impact investing jobs are high paying, allowing you to do something that you can wake up and feel great about in the morning. And so it's a very competitive space. So it makes sense that, you know, all these things matter. The the positioning of your skills, as we've discussed, your requisite qualifications and experience. One thing though that I I'll highlight is a potential, you know, thing that could unblock this journey for some folks is to really think about for the piece of the impact investing umbrella that you want to work under, where is the money flowing and what kind of What's the underlying kind of engine of growth that's being funded? And perhaps you could work at that level and build the requisite experience that will then make you a really good investor in those kinds of engines. So to be more specific, what I mean is if you have an interest in ⁓ working at JP Morgan and helping them write 10, 20 million dollar checks into large CDFIs, it would be great if you had worked within a CDFI. If you want to work in impact venture capital or in impact private equity. where they're investing directly into startups at either the early stage or slightly more mature stage. It would be great if you had worked within a startup and seen firsthand what it is to, you know, work in the operation side or the sales side. And so ⁓ think about, you know, these kind of engines of growth that are receiving this impact investment and whether you could find a job in one at that layer as a way to potentially move up is one one potential way to unblock the journey for folks. But I'll open it up to you, Shabam and Eric, with other ideas and then yeah, we'll sort of focus on this for a second. How if the demand is there and the pathways are blocked, what might some solutions look like? ⁓ okay, I can get it started with a few. ⁓ I definitely agree with you on that. ⁓ also just to echo the the the thought of the skills transferability paradox, one no brainer that comes to mind immediately is employers be a little bit more open minded across across industries. And maybe when you're interviewing or when you're, you know, testing candidates as potential as potential members of your team, test for skills as opposed to testing for credentials. You know, it's a little bit more bandwidth intensive, it's true. But as Eric very correctly pointed out, the the the question is a big one. Like this is a very small but very, very fast growing field. And these questions are going to like these small practices in hiring are going to determine what the field looks like. Do we want it to repeat the patterns of traditional finance or do we want to retain the impact with an impact investing twenty five years down the line, right? ⁓ Mentorship and advisors, that's another thing you mentioned, is a big part of the solve for sure. one final thing I'll quickly mention here. ⁓ maybe this is maybe this is my own thinking and habits being reflected as a researcher. ⁓ we need more research. it's extremely exciting that Eric and I were the first to do this specific work ⁓ for the non non-traditional ⁓ population. But it's also kind of crazy that nobody has looked into this with a level of, you know, with a level of like empirical visibility and just this desire to be very, very unbiased and use the scientific method to examine the field critically. The more we know, the more we're going to be able to put numbers to the problems. We all feel intrinsically, we know in our bones that there's a lot of hiring issues. But once we're able to put numbers to them, I think that's when we're going to be able to effectively communicate to the actual decision makers about ⁓ looking for souls. Yeah, and I mean, you know, Lucas is like, you know, business school one on ones, like what gets measured gets managed kind of thing. ⁓ and like we just kind of felt ⁓ me having coffees or or Zooms or meeting up with people around the country and hearing about it one off, like that wasn't gonna it's not a measurable thing. It's not something that can be managed or it's not data that you can diagnose a problem around, except for me, you know, talking to you about it. I I really think I I really think to go off of Shou Vom's point, I really think there needs to be more robust research. I think that again, like I mentioned, we just I got some of Shouvam's time, I volunteered my time, we just sprinted and did a couple weeks of this, just kind of bootstrapped it a lot. ⁓ and we know it's the first inquiry as Shuvom said, but this could absolutely be done at a larger scale. ⁓ I think that there's a huge bias of it going off of LinkedIn. ⁓ so there's a certain self selection or people that would even be exposed to it. I mean, from my my time at Transfer Finance, like I would love for this to you know, the demand side, this disaggregate, kind of hidden, invisible demand side, not people that track into like MBA programs. I feel like it could be many, many, many multiples larger. ⁓ we can capture a ton more demand ⁓ out there, just people that aren't living on LinkedIn. ⁓ so I think there's there's room definitely for expanding this side of the research that we're building on. I really think that there should be an employer side, a kind of a complementary kind of employer side research. Really getting to understand. ⁓ and we would need to design this and really do this. There'd be a lot of interviews to it, but like really figure out what are the blockers for them to hire. ⁓ a lot of it's gonna be like budget or headcount, or like we don't have the skill set ⁓ to train someone or our team's not big enough. But we have to measure it. It it's not just good enough for it to be, you know, my intuition. So I really think there's employer side research. Yeah, no, I I think that's right. I mean, we had Ben Thornley from Tide Line on this season. and you know, it maybe the the charge should be on us to work with intermediaries like Tide Line who can ask a wide swath of investment professionals where are you struggling in hiring and why. I I have a I have a hunch that it is what you said, Eric. I think a lot of impact investment firms are somewhat boutique. And they seek to hire folks who've already been trained elsewhere and can come and apply that training with an impact angle at their organization, but they themselves don't want to train someone from from whole cloth in in what it is to underwrite a deal. But Lucas, as as you know though, as you know, there's so many field building institutions, like institutions that want to build the field. And like the white papers are important. I mean, we just kind of put out research that like we're we're part of it too, like the data and the na analysis. But like some of building the field is literally just building the people. Like just getting the people that like two, five, ten years later, are like gonna be the new directors, the new principals, the new kind of ⁓ committee chairs. Like some of it is not just the analysis, some of it is like literally like we're gonna do the work to like build up these humans and this group of humans to actually do it. And we need to keep growing that. So that goes in. My second point of the the help is just ⁓ there just there just needs to be more jobs, and I think there needs to be different so you need the employer side buy in. And I think hiring an FTE is a lot of work and it's very it's very involved and it's a big commitment. I think there needs to be apprenticeship programs, there need to be rotational programs like at banks and at asset managers, where you spend three years and you do a year in this department, a year in that department. If folks are interested in these conversations, we are going to have a part two in September where we'll have guests on that will speak about this. But like there need to not just be more FTE jobs, there need to be more places for people to get reps. That are easier for the employer to say yes to. But very critically, I think the employers need to say, if you go through this training or whatever it is, like you will have a seat to get some reps in, which is not the same thing as take this class and like hopefully someone will value that I took this class. Yeah, I think there's there's a lot in what you said. I want to maybe offer two final thoughts on this point before we move to audience QA. ⁓ the first is I agree with you that we do need and those programs do exist that are seeking to develop folks so that they can go out and work in this field. I mentioned kind of quickly that I I found my way into this work through a book group meeting. But what really happened is at that book group meeting, I met someone who ⁓ gave me the opportunity to participate in a training program to learn how to become a loan officer that was put on by a group at the time that was called the Working World, now it's called the Seed Commons, but they invested in my under in me and a group of folks. And our understanding of how to underwrite deals. So those programs do exist. They're out there and we need more of them. ⁓ I will offer, you know, ⁓ my kind of recommendation to folks who are feeling blocked as they try to break an impact investing is finding great investment opportunities requires networks. That's how you hear about the affordable housing project. It's how you hear about the great startup. It's how you hear about the thing that needs to be funded is by having a lot of surface area that you have access to. ⁓ So build yours is my advice. And I don't say that to be trite, specifically build a personal cabinet. So this is a framing that I got from a group called ⁓ Sandwina, which is a coaching organization that was brought in to work with a group called All Rays, which is focused on gender equity and venture capital and underrepresented talent broadly in venture capital. And they gave this framing of ⁓ build a personal cabinet, make sure that you have mentors, advisors, coaches, and sponsors, and understand how each of those is distinct from the other. So a mentor provides experienced guidance and wisdom in navigating the landscape of the field that you're in. That person has the time to meet with you and give you that guidance and that wisdom. An advisor is someone who has subject matter expertise in the field in which you want to operate. So when I think about your story, Shivam, of working in international development, and that's someone who has done work in Nepal, who has done work in an area that you care about and can tell you, help you understand how to do something specific, like. invest in healthcare at the early stage in venture capital. A coach is someone who provides structured support in developing specific skills. ⁓ so that's how you sort of work on your growth edges, different from a mentor. A mentor is giving you their guidance and their wisdom. A coach is ⁓ much more structured and helping you develop. ⁓ and a sponsor is someone who kind of speaks your name in a room that when you're not in it. So a sponsor might not have the time to be your mentor, but they can maybe recommend you for a position. by using their social capital. So think about someone who's later in their career who can be a great sponsor for you, even if they don't have the time to meet with you quarterly to mentor you. ⁓ so that that's my strong advice is think about building your personal cabinet. ⁓ so with that, I think we're coming to a close. Thanks to folks that have stuck with us. We still have about 30 folks who are here ⁓ hoping to kind of chime in with questions and I want to get to those. ⁓ but I want to as a quick closing question ask you Siobam and Eric in one sentence, what's the main idea that you hope the audience will leave with today? okay, I'll ⁓ I'll just echo the skills transferability finding again and say the one thing if there's if there's one takeaway from this, it would be lovely if it's not only employers and folks who are actually hiring, but generally for folks who are active in the field to understand that there are skills, there are people with skills we need already, whether that's finance or whether that's portfolio or whether that's operations or whether that's just running an office. There are people with skills who are trying to break in, and we should be a little bit more open-minded about the kind of credentials that we're looking for. Yeah, and I'll actually Lucas, I'm just gonna do the quick before I say my comment, I'm gonna do the a little of the housekeeping thing because I think I've answered most of the questions in the chat. but just like I wanna say thanks everyone for for coming. ⁓ we have a three pager that kind of adds more of the statistics and the analysis that we will share with everyone that has registered. ⁓ this will be recorded, it'll be put on our s impacted substack ⁓ and it'll be shared. And if you're interested in kind of more of the employer side, the part two piece, we are going to have a session on September 28th, ⁓ similarly like this, with two with two other guests. So look out on your emails for those. Please find us on LinkedIn if you'd like to connect ⁓ or any of those next steps really stood out to you. ⁓ I will say my one sentence or one comment, ⁓ which is kind of adding something new, a different perspective, ⁓ building on the research is. I really, you know, beyond beyond the obvious is that these kind of entryways and these career pathways need to be more legible. I think that if they are illegible, ⁓ it it leads to more inequity. ⁓ it's it's hard for folks that don't have connections and don't understand the unspoken rules of how to how to get places, how to get things. ⁓ if there aren't clear rules or clear pathways, it's very difficult for someone that is not connected to do that. So I think that the legibility is critical. ⁓ everything cannot be left to chance and good luck and good fortune. There's a ton of room for bias in that. So I think if if the field wants to be more equitable in terms of the talent that it supports, and if it also believes in that kind of mission proxim proximity will add to the success of their programming and their investments, we have to figure this out. We absolutely have to figure this out and make it legible. And the the thing that I wanted to add secondarily on that is I think it should be I think it should be easy for people to invest for impact in their community or for the issues they care about. So this is not the same thing as a professional career pathway. I just think it should be easier for people to participate in ways that money moves around and how it's invested. So it's and for more impactful aims. So Lucas, you know, starting with your career with the Ujima fund, this is what you did. You did ⁓ big neighborhood assemblies, you did big groups and like it was a lot of work. It was a lot of work and it was really like a shining star for for a lot of folks around the country. How is that more democratized? Like how are there more pathways for not people that are join, you know, giving up, you know, their lunch hour to to join us here or that they're applying to jobs, but how is it just more generally more accessible for people to be able to influence capital, to inform how money is invested ⁓ locally or in their state? And I really think that. If you can help solve some of this legibility and career pathways for job seekers like the folks on the call, I think there are clear ancillary and downstream benefits that it can be translated and kind of shared more broadly and hopefully democratized ⁓ for a broader audience as well. Well said. Well, I'll I'll just add one thing, which I know we touched on, but it came in from the QA, which was a a point that we had a listener, Lena Dente coming in listening in from Europe, who asked, you know, this data SKUs. the US, I gather, and and you know, what can you say about kind of the global impact investing field? To which I'll just say, you know, this is a global field that is growing ⁓ more quickly in in Europe and in Asia than it is in the US at this exact moment, I I would venture to guess. ⁓ and I say that because groups like, you know, Japan's pension fund, the largest in the world, ⁓ now have an impact mandate. You th this is a field that will need more practitioners who have a global lens. ⁓ And yeah, I I'll also ⁓ underscore something that Eric pointed out a moment ago, which is that part two will be ⁓ on September twenty eighth to talk about kind of next steps in this conversation. ⁓ thanks folks for joining. Thanks, Eric. Thanks, Siobam. ⁓ yeah, this has been great. Thank you, everybody. Have a great day. Thanks, everybody. Thank you both.