March 2024 – Women and Impact Investing

The UN identified the need to invest in women in two of its Sustainable Development Goals. Goal 5 (gender equality) and Goal 8 (decent work and economic growth) both pay particular attention to creating opportunity for female entrepreneurs. There is immense opportunity for sustainable investors and capital providers to meet the needs of women business owners who are in need of financing to support and grow their businesses.

Public equity investors have a unique opportunity to motivate companies to design for gender diversity and create genuinely inclusive systems within their organizations and throughout their value chains. Determined to equip investors with the tools to activate their voice, my financial firm developed Investor Guidance for Prioritizing Gender in 2022. The guidance supplies engaged investors with critical questions and essential tactics for motivating companies to adopt gender-specific approaches using an integrated, full value chain approach.

“As we celebrate Women’s History Month, it is again a time of reflection. We delight in the pockets of progress but reiterate that there is certainly no room for complacency. The World Bank estimated that there are over 2 billion women who are without equal economic opportunity. Though in the US, numbers feel more optimistic. American women contribute more than $7 trillion to US GDP each year. In addition, they control $10 trillion in assets, a number that is expected to grow to $30 trillion over the next decade.”