Impact Investing Event for Institutional Investors
A half-day programme aims to empower investors to move from the theory to the practice of impact investing through in-depth keynote speeches from experienced impact investors and impact practitioners. During the InvestorConnect sessions, investors can explore a select group of impact strategies in public equity, public debt, private equity, private debt and real assets.
WHY ATTEND
Impact Investing Event for Institutional Investors
We believe in the power of impact investing and the role financial actors play in solving the most pressing issues of our time. Join us on a deep-dive discussion about the relevance of catalysing capital to impact investments and the challenges encompassed in a long-term value creation vision and short-term profit and return maximisation whilst dealing with climate change.
OBJECTIVES
-
INFORM
-
-
The Seminar aims to allow institutional investors to share knowledge through discussions about the opportunities and challenges of impact investments in public and private markets.
-
-
CONNECT
-
Investors and fund managers will be able to reconnect with the industry peers, exchange best practices, learn from each other’s experiences, and share ideas on creating innovative and scalable solutions to generate impact in private and public markets.
-
-
DISCOVER
-
-
-
-
InvestorConnect sessions offer institutional asset owners an efficient way to discover a pre-screened group of scalable impact strategies of institutional quality, across multiple asset classes, impact themes and the SDGs. The dynamic system of 15-minute meetings set a comfortable space to ask relevant questions & create connections along the way.
-
-
-
WHO WILL ATTEND
● Public and Corporate Pension Funds and their Fiduciary Managers,
● Insurance Companies,
● Sovereign Wealth Funds,
● Family Offices,
● Foundations and Endowments,
● Wealth Managers/Private Banks,
● Development Finance Institutions,
● Faith-based Organisations.
BOOK YOUR SEAT AMONGST YOUR LOCAL IMPACT INVESTING PEERS!
A LIMITED NUMBER OF COMPLIMENTARY INVITES ARE AVAILABLE FOR INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS AND ASSET OWNERS.
1-DAY OF LEARNING & INSPIRATION
PRELIMINARY AGENDA 2024
Download the bilingual agenda here >>
8:30-9:00 Registration
09:00 - 10:00
Breakfast workshop | Impact measurement and management
The participants will understand how other organizations measure and manage their impact through case-study content .
Speakers: Phenix Capital Group
10:00 -10:30
Round table | An update on responsible investment policies in Canada
This presentation will highlight the latest news and research on stewardship and on the enabling environment for favourable policy on responsible investment.
- Speaker: UN PRI
10:30 - 11:45 Coffee Break
10:45 -12:00
Investor Connect session
This dynamic session, consisting of short 15-minute speed meetings, is designed to give asset owners an efficient way to learn about a selected group of impact strategies of institutional quality and take an opportunity to enquire for more details, whilst making connections with other asset owners along the way.
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch
13:00 - 13:15
Keynote | Are negative externalities inevitable?
Since every economic activity has an impact, how do you measure unintended consequences? What are the investors’ responsibilities? And how can we consider a better pricing of negative externalities? These are the difficult questions that the keynote speaker will try to answer, looking at how international regulations, sovereigns, and lobbies can be involved in the process.
13:15 -14:00
Investor Panel | Reaching climate objectives by 2030
How are investors and their managers able to stick to their targets? What are the tools available to validate data? How do they hold their partners accountable? Are less ambitious targets a solution? How will regulations go forward or change? And how does a climate strategy fit with fiduciary duty? In this panel, investors will address the many challenges they face when allocating to climate
- Speaker:
- Alexandra Chamberlin, Investment Manager , McConnell Foundation
- David Ung, Chairman of the Advisory Board, PRI Québec
- Rowe Price
- Moderator:
-
Jean-François Dumas, Director International Business Development), Finance Montréal
-
- Moderator:
14:00 - 14:20 Coffee Break
14:20- 15:20
Workshop | Gender lens investing
The participants will understand how other organizations approach gender lens investing.
Speaker:Phenix Capital Group
14:50 - 16:00 Closing & Networking
FEATURED SPEAKERS 2023
Eduard van Gelderen
Chief Investment Officer,
PSP Investments
Prior to joining PSP Investments, Eduard was senior managing director at the office of the chief investment officer of the University of California. As a member of the executive team, his primary responsibilities included overseeing the University’s retirement plan, heading up equity and real assets activities, and handling strategic partnerships in Europe. He also served as CEO of the Dutch financial service provider APG Asset Management and as deputy CIO of ING Investment Management.
Eduard is a certified financial risk manager and a chartered financial analyst and has served on several investment advisory boards. He holds a master’s degree in quantitative finance from Erasmus University Rotterdam and a post-graduate degree in asset liability management from Maastricht University in Limburg. He is currently a PhD candidate at the International School of Management in Paris. Eduard began his career as an investment banker in London and Amsterdam.
Geneviève Brown
Executive Director,
Global Affairs Canada
Since joining CIDA in 2003, Geneviève has held various positions working across Africa on donor coordination and harmonisation, institutional capacity assessments for budget support, and public financial management. She also worked at the Embassy of Canada in Dakar, Senegal.
Graham Singh
CEO,
Trinity Centres Foundation
Over the past 12 years, Graham has led four historic building and community renewal projects in the United Kingdom and Canada, including in his current role as Rector of the Anglican Diocese of Montreal’s recent church plant, St Jax Montreal.
Graham also acts as a consultant in the area of social impact investing, in the private wealth management sector. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics, Cambridge University (Ridley Hall / St Mellitus College), the University of Western Ontario and Asbury Theological Seminary and Oxford University’s Saïd Business School Impact Innovations Programme.
Jason Sukhram
Engagement Manager,
Quinn+Partners
Jason has advised several clients across industries in how to embed social impact considerations and metrics into their operational and investment strategies and reporting. Recently, he worked with a global real estate investor and developer to identify social impact indicators to measure and report on in delivering its ESG strategy priorities. He also led projects to help a Canadian cooperative bank clarify its impact thesis, and to support a large Canadian real estate investment manager embed social impact initiatives into their property management building standards.
Prior to joining Q+P, Jason spent nearly 5 years with MaRS Discovery District’s Centre for Impact Investing, where he advised clients across sectors on how to attract and deploy capital to intentionally and measurably improve outcomes for people and the planet, while generating financial returns. This included supporting large corporations with establishing impact funds, to helping financial institutions engage their clients in sustainable investing. At MaRS, he led systems change and market building initiatives to support the growth of the Canadian impact investing market. He also built and led MaRS’ impact measurement and management advisory practice, helping organizations collect and manage data that demonstrates the outcomes they contribute to.
Jason’s prior experiences include working to build and finance social enterprises in the developing world with the Clinton Foundation’s poverty alleviation initiative from New York and Colombia. He also co-authored a number of articles with a global health research group on scaling primary care programs in low- and middle-income countries and worked in technology portfolio management with BlackBerry.
Lars Boggild
Impact Investment Manager,
Vancity
Marie-Hélène Lafond
Senior Advisor, Dialogue and Public Affairs,
Fondaction
Narinder Dhami
Board Member,
Community Foundations of Canada
& Executive Lead,
New Power Labs
As a Managing Partner at Marigold Capital, a gender and social equity lens investment fund, she invests in underrepresented and overlooked founders. Across the last decade, Narinder designed and scaled two social ventures: as the Managing Director she built LEAP | Pecaut Centre for Social Impact, an innovator in venture philanthropy, and as the founding Executive Director of Rise Asset Development she built a microfund for individuals with a history of mental health and addiction challenges. Her work spans to the Global South where she helped grow the Première Agence de Microfinance across Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali and worked on the portfolio team with Acumen in Ghana and Nigeria.
Narinder has been recognized as a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader. She is a lecturer at Ryerson University and Narinder co-created the first course in microfinance and impact investing at the University of Toronto. Narinder currently serves on the board of Acumen Canada, The Circle and CAFIID.
Rosalie Vendette
Engagement Manager,
Quinn+Partners
Rosalie is an expert in responsible investment and sustainable finance and advises market leaders in retail and institutional investment management, pension plans, banks and insurers on pathways to integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in governance, risk management and value creation.
Rosalie currently serves around ten Canadian pension plans and investment managers. Many projects include completing an ESG maturity assessment, crafting an ESG action plan, desigining ESG and responsible investing policies and implementations tools, and supporting with communciations. Her particular area of expertise is proxy voting, and as such, she has contributed to proxy voting policies and implementation of associated processes for multiple asset managers and owners. She has also supported various lenders and insurers crafting ESG or impact strategies.
Before joining Quinn+Partners, Rosalie was the Head of Responsible Investment at Desjardins Group for a decade before leading her own ESG consulting business. She was involved in developing Quebec’s financial sector’s sustainable finance ambition and an upcoming ISO Standard on sustainable finance.
Rosalie frequently speaks at industry events, to media news outlets and convenes influential decision-makers to drive change in capital markets. She teaches sustainable finance at the Executive MBA HEC-McGill.
Stéphanie Émond
VP and Chief Impact Officer,
FinDev Canada
Prior to joining FinDev Canada, Stéphanie served as the Executive Director of FINCA Canada, a microfinance organization with the mission to alleviate poverty through lasting solutions that help people – women in particular – build assets, create jobs, and raise their standard of living. Before FINCA, she worked as a management consultant with Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton, on business and strategic planning, market analysis and marketing strategies, and for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA – now Global Affairs Canada) as an economic advisor focusing on private sector development and financial inclusion.
Prior to that, Stephanie worked with FINCA Peru, a Peruvian microfinance institution, and for Newad, a Canadian place-based media company, as Director of Marketing. She holds a MBA from HEC Montreal
Wren Laing
Investment Director Impact Investing,
McConnell Foundation
Gemma Roex
Impact Measurement and Management Specialist,
Phenix Capital Group
VENUE 2023
LE MOUNT STEPHEN
1440 Rue Drummond,
Montréal, Québec H3G 1V9
JOIN LEADING ORGANISATIONS AS A SPONSOR!
IMPACT FUND MANAGERS ARE WELCOME TO ENQUIRE ABOUT SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
GET IN THE MOOD TO MEET YOUR INDUSTRY PEERS!
High value, as the dynamic Phenix team with Sophie Robe, actively support alliances, connections and builds ongoing vital expansion opportunities for global Impact networks.”
WHAT OUR ATTENDEES SAY
WHAT IS IMPACT INVESTING
Whereas ESG investing looks to integrate environmental, social and governance factors when subject to an investment’s performance, impact investing goes a step further by seeking investments that contribute to measurable social and/or environmental impact.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF IMPACT INVESTMENTS
-
Intentionality: intent to achieve a social or environmental goal is clearly expressed and the investor identifies outcomes that will be pursued
-
Additionality: thesis or narrative describes how the investor’s actions will help achieve the goal and how the outcome would not have occurred without the investment
-
Measurement: impact measurement framework in place to assess the level of expected impact and monitor progress against the goal
SPECTRUM OF CAPITAL
Impact Seminar Series programme is focusing on the financial-first impact investments opportunities, offering experienced impact investors the stage to share best practices with their industry peers.
First published by Bridges Fund Management (2015), the Spectrum of Capital maps out different investment approaches, depending on investors’ desired risk, return and impact profile, and categorizing them in a range from traditional investment to philanthropy.
- Financial-First Impact Investments: select funds in specific sectors, impact themes, or in alignment to the SDGs. In this approach, there is no trade-off between return and impact, and thus all investments should achieve fully commercial risk-adjusted returns.
Impact-First Impact Investments: funds are selected to maximize impact over returns. These investments may target lower risk-adjusted returns to deliver greater impact.