I don’t do many talks because I find most conferences a bit boring but every now and then I get invitations that are too good to refuse. This week I’ve been in beautiful Mexico at the FLII conference for impact investors in Merida, Yucatan.
It’s my first time in Mexico and I’ve found it really interesting to learn what’s going on here. The economy is beginning to bloom partly as a result of manufacturing becoming more expensive in China but also because a generation of young Mexicans educated around the world have begun to return (this Time article from last week goes into some of the political changes).
FLII was interesting just for the contrast with the impact investing community in Europe. There are similarities of course but I’ve never been to any events in Europe with quite the same energy or warmth. It was also great to meet people from Smart Impact in Mexico and Pipa in Brasil. Both do similar things to BGV but with important local differences. In my main presentation I talked about some of the ventures we’ve supported and then 10 principles for early stage impact investing which we try to hold ourselves to. The slides are here and if the talk video gets posted I’ll link to it.
My heartfelt thanks to the teams at CO_, New Ventures and Picnic for inviting me. It’s been an amazing week.
