Enlightening conversation with Daniela Barone Soares, the visionary CEO of Snowball Impact Investment. Discover how Snowball is reshaping the landscape of finance to foster prosperity for people and the planet.
• Redefining Investment: Learn how every investment impacts the world, and why recognizing this is crucial for sustainable finance.
• Snowball's Unique Approach: Explore Snowball's innovative, diversified global fund that focuses on solving critical environmental and social issues through profitable, mission-driven companies.
• Beyond Financial Returns: Understand Snowball's commitment to non-extractive fee models and its recognition as a top B Corp for governance.
• Impactful Investments: Hear about Snowball's strategy for selecting impactful investments, exemplified by the transformative work of eFishery in Indonesia.
• Measuring Impact: Delve into the complexities and methodologies behind quantifying social and environmental impact in investment portfolios.
• The Future of Investing: Daniela shares her vision for democratizing impact investing and the urgency of aligning financial decisions with the SDGs by 2030.
Embrace the power of your investments for change. Discover how impactful investing can be the key to a sustainable future.
Don't Miss This Episode: Tune in to gain valuable insights into the dynamic world of impact investing and how it's shaping our future.
Extended Notes:
The conversation revolves around impact investing, how it quantifies returns, allocates resources, and identifies promising investments.
Daniela explains Snowball's mission to leverage finance for the prosperity of people and the planet. She highlights that every investment inherently has an impact, often overlooked in traditional financial systems.
Snowball stands out by offering a globally diversified, multi-asset fund of funds, encompassing 1,400 impact companies. These companies focus on areas like circular economy, food and agriculture technology, education, and sustainable forestry, aiming to solve major environmental and social issues profitably.
Daniela emphasizes Snowball's organizational structure as unique. Being owned by non-profit entities, it embeds its mission into its legal framework, resulting in recognition as a top 5% B Corp globally for governance. The company follows a non-extractive fee and profit model, benefiting investors as the fund grows, and boasts a diverse team in terms of gender, ethnicity, and social background.
Daniela’s background, a blend of commercial and non-profit experience, including a Harvard MBA, positions her uniquely in leading Snowball. She discusses her journey from mainstream banking and private equity to the nonprofit sector and eventually to Snowball, driven by her passion for equitable justice and impact.
The podcast delves into Snowball's investment approach, emphasizing long-term, high-conviction investments based on key trends and rigorous research. Daniela illustrates this with the example of eFishery, an Indonesian company providing smart fish feeders for sustainable aquaculture, showcasing environmental and social impacts.
Discussing impact measurement, Daniela acknowledges the challenges in aggregating diverse impacts. Snowball uses standardized frameworks like the Impact Management Project and a bullseye score to evaluate and communicate impact intensity.
Snowball aims to democratize impact investing, making it accessible to a broader public. Daniela envisions this as crucial for addressing global challenges and aligning with the SDGs by 2030. She urges investors to recognize the power of their investments for change and to price in future risks and opportunities.
The podcast ends with Daniela encouraging listeners to explore impact investing and start even with small steps, highlighting the significant potential for positive change through informed and value-driven investment decisions.
About Daniela Barone Soares
Daniela is a leader known for driving change at the intersection of the commercial and impact worlds, from strategy development through operating execution with almost 20 years of board level experience.
Daniela is the CEO of Snowball Impact Investment, a diversified investment fund that creates positive outcomes for people and planet whilst generating competitive financial returns. She is also a non-executive director at InterContinental Hotels Group Plc and a trustee of the Institute for the Future of Work.
Among her various accolades are Fifty Most Influential in Sustainable Finance (2023 - Financial News), top 100 women in engineering (2019 - Financial Times), “20 People who are Changing Brazil and the World for the Better" (2017- Istoé Dinheiro) and 100 people who make Britain a better place (2008 – Independent on Sunday “Happy List”).
Daniela holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BSc in Economics from Unicamp, Brazil.