Impact Investing: From Insight to Impact

Julian Kölbel is assistant professor of sustainable finance at the University of St. Gallen, School of Finance and Center for Financial Services Innovation. He is also a research affiliate at MIT Sloan, where he is a co-founder of the Aggregate Confusion Project, and faculty member of the Swiss Finance Institute. His research covers the real-world impact of sustainable investing, analysis of environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics, and investor preferences for sustainability. Julian has studied at ETH Zurich and the University of Oxford. Next to his academic work, he serves on the investment committee of the Swiss pension fund Abendrot.

Markus Schmid is Full Professor of Corporate Finance at the University of St.Gallen, Academic Director of the FSI-HSG, member of the School of Finance and Managing Director of the Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance (SBF-HSG). He is also a Faculty Member of the Swiss Finance Institute (SFI) and Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) in Brussels. He studied economics, specialising in corporate finance, financial market theory and international economic relations at the University of Basel, where he also completed his doctorate in 2004 with a dissertation on executive compensation and corporate governance.

Florian is an Assistant Professor of Sustainable Finance at Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE and Goethe University Frankfurt. He is also a Research Affiliate at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He explores the real-world impact of sustainable investing and how investors integrate impact into their decision-making. His work has been published in the Review of Financial Studies. Florian also serves as a member of the board of directors of ESG-AM, a Zurich-based asset manager focused on impact and sustainability. Before starting his academic career, Florian served in the executive management of South Pole, a market leader in corporate sustainability services. From previous positions at myclimate, ProNatura, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, he brings a broad understanding of environmental systems and climate policy. He holds an MSc in Environmental Science from ETH Zurich and a CAS in Strategic Management from the University of St. Gallen.

Bjoern Struewer is the founder and Co-CEO at Roots of Impact, the pioneer, expert and enabler for Impact-Linked Finance. This innovative investment practice embeds rewards for positive impact into investments for enterprises that bring about meaningful change.

After leaving the banking industry in the role of Managing Director, Bjoern started working closely with catalytic funders and impact investors across the globe to finance high-performing enterprises with better terms for better impact. Bjoern and his team manage their own funds and empower other Impact-Linked Finance practitioners to master this rapidly growing practice.

In addition to his role at Roots of Impact, Bjoern leads the Initiative for Blended Finance at University of Zurich, is Co-Chair of the Impact-Linked Finance Fund and Co-Founder of the Financing Agency for Social Entrepreneurship (FASE). A strong advocate of unlocking the potential of business and finance for positive impact, Bjoern recognizes that every business and every investment has an impact.

Peter Wuffli is the Founder and Chairman of elea Foundation for Ethics in Globalization. elea is a philanthropic impact investor with the purpose to fight absolute poverty with entrepreneurial means. eleas investments – across Africa, Asia, and Latin America – are centered around agricultural value chains, last-mile retail and services, employable skills, and climate and livelihoods.

In addition, Peter is Honorary Chairman of IMD and a member of the Advisory Board of the elea Center for Social Innovation at IMD. He also serves on the Board of Sygnum, a digital asset bank in Zurich and Singapore. Furthermore, he is an Honorary Senator of the University St. Gallen and the Vice Chairman of the Zurich Opera House.

Previously, Peter was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, the CEO of UBS Group, and the Chairman of Partners Group and IMD respectively. Peter earned a Ph.D. in economics from University of St. Gallen, based on a dissertation on Swiss Direct Investment in Mexico.

He regularly publishes articles and books on themes of globalization, ethics, impact investing and leadership. His latest books are: Inclusive Leadership – A Framework for the Global Era, Springer 2016, and The elea Way – A Learning Journey Toward Sustainable Impact (together with Vanina Farber), Routledge, 2021.

Nadia Nikolova is the CEO of responsAbility, one of the leading asset managers in impact investing. She brings over a decade of experience in private markets and impact investing. She joins responsAbility from Allianz Global Investors, where she was most recently Head of Direct Lending and spent more than a decade working in private markets across infrastructure debt, credit and real assets. In 2019, she established Allianz Global Investors’ sustainable and impact credit investment team. Since then, Nadia successfully scaled its blended finance strategy, led co-investments alongside development finance institutions, with two flagship funds and raised over EUR 4.5 billion in capital, including the launch of an impact private credit strategy focusing on small cap impact companies in Europe. Nadia began her career at Citigroup in London, working in infrastructure finance and credit restructuring.

Mac Zellem works at the intersection of public finance and impact investing, designing financial instruments that lower the cost of capital for essential public goods such as energy, transport, and health supply chains. He began his career as New Hampshire’s State Budget Director, managing multi-billion-dollar budgets and leading the state’s COVID-19 fiscal response. He later developed investment frameworks for energy regulators to assess whether utility capital structures serve the public interest. He is currently supporting a Gates Foundation initiative to design a working capital facility for health supply chains in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ingo is a pioneer in impact investing, with over 20 years of experience as investor and entrepreneur. As part of the team that launched LeapFrog, he served on its Investment Committee for over 15 years, deploying billions to scale businesses that now reach over 500 million people across Africa and Asia. Ingo also sits on the Investment Committee of Blue Orchard’s climate-focused PE fund and is a Venture Partner at Apis Partners, an impact-native PE investor with $2.5bn AuM. He has built and scaled businesses from early stage to exit, serving as CEO, COO, CFO across fintech and insurtech. Prior to that he led M&A and investments at Swiss Re, GE and Softbank. Ingo currently serves on the boards of several growth companies and is a founding board member of the Swiss Platform for Impact Investing.