Village Capital Partner: Up Energy
Location: Uganda
Andrew is a second year MPA student at MIIS. He has been fortunate enough to study abroad in Italy, Tunisia, and Egypt. Andrew has traveled throughout Northern and Western Europe in addition to Russia and Kenya. He hopes to find a career abroad and use the Arabic language skills that he has been developing over the past few years. Andrew has worked in micro-finance, public health, and emergency management positions.
Location: Sao Paolo, Brazil
Village Capital Partner: Pipa
Blog: http://blogs.miis.edu/fms2013riodejaneiro/
A San Francisco Bay Area native, Arianne Renee Dilts is an environmental researcher with extensive international and multi-cultural experience and a commitment to facilitating sustainable development through localized solutions. She graduated from Franklin College in Switzerland in 2010 with a B.A. in Environmental Studies, and she is now pursuing a joint-program degree for an M.A. in International Environmental Policy and an MBA in International Business Administration at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. During her years abroad, Arianne visited over 20 countries across the globe, conducting studies in Central and South America, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Her professional portfolio includes a range of research, volunteer and practical experience opportunities that have engaged her at different organizational levels: from multi-national institutions like UNESCO Iraq, to local community-led non-profits like the Bay Islands Conservation Association in Honduras and the Mangrove Association in El Salvador. Her studies and experiences have allowed her to analyze best practices of sustainability and, most recently, explore the potential role of business in providing a solution for sustainability and development. In addition to a passion for learning foreign languages, Arianne enjoys playing the piano, exploring cultural dance forms, solving logic puzzles, and spending time outdoors.
Mallory White
Location: India
Village Capital Partner: First Cut
Since graduating from Middlebury College in 2010, Mallory has worked as an associate with a grant-making foundation, served on the board of directors of a community organization, and worked as an internal consultant for a national nonprofit. These experiences have led her to believe that the best way to positively impact a community is through empowered leadership. For example, the foundation she worked for allocated grants to regional councils, comprised of leaders from that region of the state of Colorado, for them to decide which organizations from their communities should receive funding. Mallory facilitated grant-making decisions for the council from the Northeast region of Colorado and helped it launch a project that gave seed funding to local entrepreneurs with the best business plans. In its first year, the program allowed ten businesses to open that are still succeeding today and has solidified her belief in social investment. She grew up in Colorado and was currently working in Denver, though she has spent a considerable amount of time abroad. In high school, she studied in Costa Rica, Ireland, and Spain. While at Middlebury, she double-majored in history and Spanish and had the opportunity to study in Chile. While there, she assisted an educational government organization in promoting their mission as their social media coordinator. This experience gave her a unique insight into working in the public sector abroad and the many challenges the sector faces. Mallory also had the opportunity to visit neighboring countries of Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. She enjoyed the challenge of taking on a new language, navigating cultural expectations, and embracing the nuances of everyday life in a foreign country. She learned how she reacts to adversity, how to connect with people from a different background, and how to understand and accept an outside perspective of her own culture.
Location: Redwood City, CA (Remote)
Village Capital Partner: The Civic Accelerator and Chilton Capital
Kate is a business consultant and entrepreneur. For the past 14 years, she has worked with a variety of organizations — from sole proprietorships to major nonprofit medical institutions — developing organizational strategy, providing financial oversight, raising funds, and conveying value through compelling communications. With a BS in Business Administration from American University, and specializations in finance, international economics and international development, she has had a lifelong desire to work at the intersection of business and public good. Her community involvements include time on the board of the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce, as chair of the LAJCC Foundation, and she is currently serving as a court-appointed special advocate (CASA) for Santa Clara County foster youth. In October/November 2009, she volunteered in Ghana with Women in Progress, a grassroots micro-business development organization. Throughout 2010-2011, she and her husband traveled full-time, residing for two-plus months each in Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia and Thailand, while she simultaneously developed and launched a training program to help solopreneurs envision and bring to life their ideal businesses. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling (24 countries and counting!), hiking and creative outlets, particularly photography and painting.
Location: Boulder, CO/ Remote
Village Capital Placement Partner: Campbell Law Group
Marsha is a veteran business writer building a CSR consultancy. Her first career was in journalism, based in Asia. Following this, Marsha’s second career was in corporate/government communications. Currently, she works in fine tuning CSR initiatives to be based on long-term investment models.
Assignment: Market Knowledge Insights, FATE Foundation and Lofty Inc. Lagos, Nigeria
Degree Program: Master of Public Administration
From: Reno, NV
Languages: English and French
Assignment: V-Shesh, First Light Ventures of Gray Ghost Ventures
Location: Chennai, India
Degree Program: Master of Business Administration
From: Taiwan & San Diego, CA
Languages: English, Mandrin, Spanish, Taiwanese
Assignment: LoftyInc PLC.
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Degree Program: Master of Public Administration
From: Kpadapé, Togo
Languages: French, English, Ewe
Assignment: Lofty Inc.
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Degree Program: Master of Arts in International Policy Studies
From: Monterey, CA
Languages: English, French
Have you ever talked with someone looking to get into impact investing as a career–and didn’t have any answers on where to go? Over the past three years, the Frontier Market Scouts program, which was launched in 2011 in partnership with Village Capital and Sanghata Global, has been an invaluable launchpad for professionals aspiring to enter the impact investment world–we’ve trained and placed over 75 professionals with investors and start-up ventures in emerging markets over the last three years.
From a professional standpoint at Village Capital, the Frontier Market Scouts have been critical to Village Capital’s sourcing engine: they have recruited over 5,000 unique enterprises to apply to programs in the past 24 months, largely led by Scouts on the ground. Scouts come from top graduate programs and professional firms such as Goldman Sachs, Cambridge & Associates, TDBank, and Deloitte; placements globally have included firms as wide-ranging as Invested Development (Kenya); Unitus Seed Fund (India); Artemisia (Brazil); Transist (China); and New Ventures (Mexico).
FMS and Village Capital are excited to announce that this summer, we will be launching the first US-based Scout placements, in partnership with the Sorenson Center for Global Impact Investing, based at the University of Utah. Scouts will undergo a two-week practitioner-led training in Salt Lake City at the Sorenson Center for Global Impact Investing (formerly known as the University Impact Fund); at the end of the training, they will be placed with impact investors and startup enterprises across the U.S. The program–including curriculum and placements–will be operated in partnership with MIIS.
How you can get involved:
1. Do you know a talented person looking to break into impact investing as a profession? Please forward this e-mail to them: we’ve found the Scouts program to be an excellent career on-ramp. Applications are due May 7th, and the training begins in Salt Lake on May 28th; application can be found at: http://www.miis.edu/academics/short/frontier-market-scouts/apply/application
2. Are you based in the U.S., and do you need short-term project help? Please fill out the short partner form (http://www.miis.edu/academics/short/frontier-market-scouts/partners/partnerform) if you’d like to have a Scout work with you. Scout placements last three-to-six months, starting in mid-June and ending in mid-December. Scouts have been able to add value in deal sourcing, diligence, operational assistance, and sales/business development. You’ll have the opportunity to interview potential placements directly, and we will ask placement partners to contribute a small stipend.
Location: Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Village Capital Partner: CIIE
Parita has seven years of full-time professional experience working on program development, effective grantmaking, strategic nonprofit planning, and organization and financial management for several community-focused organizations in New York and Boston. Directly prior to the Frontier Market Scouts program, in an effort to further her knowledge on the social change strategies being employed by the corporate sector, she joined the corporate social engagement team of a philanthropic consulting firm and developed recommendations and implemented social impact programs adopted by corporate giving and community involvement departments of leading Fortune 100 companies. She is thrilled to be able to combine her professional experience with her academic interests and join the multi-sector team formed by Sanghata Global to advise on the development of a 125 square mile area, which includes the Jim Corbett Tiger Sanctuary, in Nainital, a popular hill station in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Parita is looking forward to working alongside private investors and community stakeholders to ensure environmental, social, and legal safeguards are in place during the planning and implementation phase of this ecotourism project. Parita completed coursework in urban sociology of Eastern Europe and the politics of EU enlargement at Corvinus University of Budapest, and holds a BA in Public Policy and Social Change, focusing on comparative and international policy, with minors in business and law from Bentley University.
Location: Ahmedabad, Gujarat , India
Village Capital Partner: CIIE
Jennifer Clessas is a recent graduate from Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), completing a Master’s degree in Public Administration and beginning her work as a development practitioner. While at MIIS she participated in the Development Project
Management Institute and Frontier Market Scouts trainings. She has a background in International Economics and worked as an administrator at an International school in San Diego before changing careers. She was the student body treasurer at MIIS and president and coach of the MIIS women’s soccer team. Jennifer has studied, lived and worked in parts of Europe and South America, most recently completing an FMS placement in Bogotá, Colombia. She enjoys cooking, reading and spending time with her adorable cat named Gus.
Be sure to check out Jen’s blog!
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Village Capital Partner: Invested Development
Sarah is 23 years old and from Denver, Colorado. She recently graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Economics modified with Engineering, with a concentration in Developing Economics and Finance. At Dartmouth, Sarah was a member of the Varsity Women’s Soccer team for two years, where she learned of an amazing organization called GrassrootSoccer (“GRS”), a global non-profit that uses soccer as a means of engaging youth and providing them with the knowledge and life-skills to live HIV free. Sarah had the opportunity to complete two separate internships with GRS in Khayelitsha and Port Elizabeth, South Africa, where she developed a passion for social entrepreneurship and international development. Since graduating college, she has been working for an investment consulting firm in Boston, which provides consulting and investment oversight services to a wide array of foundation, institutional, sovereign and private family clients. This experience has shown her the power and importance of investing and has given her valuable knowledge of investing in a wide range of asset classes and markets. Sarah has grown committed to pursuing a career in impact investing because she believes that finding creative ways of engaging private markets to solve social problems historically addressed through philanthropy will ultimately deliver more powerful, sustainable solutions. Sarah hopes to use the Frontier Market Scouts program to launch a career in the impact investing space.
Location: London, England
Village Capital Partner: Sanghata Global
Ray is a young professional greatly passionate in international development, having volunteered at a maternal clinic and an internal displaced persons camp in Kenya, planned and staged an exhibition on US-China relations at the grass root level, and provided environmental business solutions to government agencies. Originally hailing from southwestern China—Yunnan province, she is thrilled to engage in the impact investing space to come up with creative inspirations for public-private-partnerships opportunities in international development. Ray graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell College, with double majors in Economics and Psychology, and an Art History minor. With her “double vision,” she hopes to capture the splendor, passion and hope of her journey.
In their article, “Scouting the Sweet Spot Between Purpose and Profit”, Carolyn Taylor Meyer and Yuwei Shi highlight the important impact Frontier Market Scouts have had around the world. The mission of Frontier Market scouts is to unlock economic opportunity by supporting and scaling the efforts of enterprising individuals in poverty-stricken societies, while gaining career defining and life changing experiences at the intersection of ideas, people and places between purpose and profit. Various scout experiences are highlighted throughout the article which demonstrate the success of the FMS program; both in attaining life changing experiences for the scouts as well as enabling social entrepreneurs to achieve their vision for improving their communities.