Impact Investing Platform, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2013

Enhancing Impact Investing in Brazil

Following the successful launch event of the São Paulo based Impact Investing Platform this second conference in the series took place on August 28th in São Paulo Brazil. The event was organized by the Univeristy of St. Gallen's Sao Paulo Hub Office in partnership with Insper and the Sustainability Committee of the Swiss-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce. With more than twice the number of participants of the last event, this conference brought together a who's who of the very vibrant Brazilian social entrepreneurship and impact investing scene.

On the 28th of August 2013 this conference brought together around 200 of the main actors in the Brazilian impact investing market including representatives of impact investing funds, family offices, entrepreneurs, accelerators and academia to discuss the current state of affairs on this young topic that is fast gaining momentum. The event took place in the Steffi and Max Perlman Auditorium at Insper, one of Brazil's leading business schools.

Following the welcome addresses by Angelica Rotondaro (University of St. Gallen São Paulo Hub Office), Claudio Haddad (Insper), Juergen Bruecker (University of St.Gallen) and Stephan Buser (Swiss Chamber of Commerce Brazil) the program continued with a series of presentations. These were:

Microcredit and Impact Investing - the case of Banco Palmas (Joaquim de Melo)
The why the how and the what in impact investing (Ernst von Kimakowitz)
The Impact investing evaluation Center (Sergio Lazzarini, Insper)
The impact investing research center (Angelica Rotondaro, University of St. Gallen)

Next and before the coffee break was a panel discussion moderated by Sergio Lazzarini (Insper) on the role of family offices and accelerators in the impact investing market that saw presentations by:

IT3Capital - Challenges in the Impact Investing ecosystem from a family office perspective (Luiza de Camargo Nascimento)
Artemísia - Learning center and accelerator for social businesses (Renato Kiyama)
Pipa - Training programs for social entrepreneurs (Dhaval Chadha)

After the coffee break two presentations were highlighting the impact investing potential and concrete examples from the sectors of education and renewable energy:

Impact Investing in Education (Naercio Menezes, Insper)
The potential of Impact Investing in the case of renewable energy in Brazil (Estelle Tanner, University of St.Gallen)

This was followed by breakout sessions on three themes where a core group of experts led a discussion and participants were invited to join the conversation. The three topics were:

Sustainable Construction / Social Housing
Alternatives and access to funding and
Education

This densely packed afternoon providing great opportunities to learn, meet and interact ended with reporting back from the workshops, closing comments and a networking session in the lobby of the auditorium. Please find the conference program, links to some of the presentations and partnering organizations as well as a photo gallery from the event below.