My guest today is Nick O’Donohoe CMG – former CEO of British International Investment, co-founder of Big Society Capital, and one of the early figures to frame impact investing as a financial discipline.Nick spent nearly three decades in global banking – first at Goldman Sachs, then at JPMorgan, where he rose to become Global Head of Research.When the crisis hit in 2008, Nick left JPMorgan to explore whether finance could be used to serve people who had never been served by it at all.That search took him to Bellagio, where the Rockefeller Foundation had gathered a small group of investors, philanthropists, and bankers to explore a new idea – something that would eventually become known as impact investing.Nick brought a small research team – and the ability to put JPMorgan’s name on something. He offered to write a report explaining what impact investing could be: who it was for, how it might work, and why it mattered.That report – Impact Investments: An Emerging Asset Class – was the first of its kind. It gave the idea a name, a structure, and a platform. For the first time, the field became legible – to banks, to investors, and to the wider world.A few years later, he left banking to co-found Big Society Capital (now known as Better Society Capital) with Sir Ronald Cohen. Their mission was to use dormant assets to back the UK’s social sector.Big Society Capital backed early-stage social enterprises, co-founded intermediaries, and pushed for legal structures that could attract blended capital.In 2017, Nick became CEO of CDC Group – later British International Investment – the UK’s development finance institution. His mandate: deploy billions in public capital into emerging markets, while balancing risk, return, and development goals.Under his leadership, BII invested in solar and wind, hospitals, digital connectivity, agribusiness, and venture capital. Most of that capital flowed into Africa, South Asia, and parts of the Caribbean.He also launched the Catalyst Portfolio – where expected returns were zero or even negative. He introduced an Impact Score to measure social and environmental outcomes with the same rigor as financial ones.During his time at BII, over 60% of the portfolio went into African countries. He believes capital needs to be structured differently to reach the people and places that need it most. That’s where development finance has to step in – to fill the gaps the market won’t touch on its own.Now Nick is about to start as a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he’ll be focused on what comes next.If I had to sum up our conversation in one word, it would be risk – financial, political, and moral. But we talked about much more.Tune in to hear from Nick O’Donohoe firsthand.—Connect with SRI360°:Sign up for the free weekly email updateVisit the SRI360° PODCASTVisit the SRI360° WEBSITEFollow SRI360° on XFollow SRI360° on FACEBOOK—Additional Resources:- Nick O’Donohoe CMG LinkedIn- British International Investment website- Impact Investments: An Emerging Asset Class

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