Impact Investing Pioneer Jean-Philippe de Schrevel on Bamboo Capital Partners, SDGs, NGOs and More (#010)

SRI360 | Socially Responsible Investing, ESG, Impact Investing, Sustainable Investing

Jean-Philippe de Schrevel is the Founder and Managing Partner at Bamboo Capital Partners, an impact investing platform which provides innovative financing solutions to businesses in emerging markets. He has dedicated most of his career to the development of the impact investing field, during which time he has launched eight investment funds and raised over $1 billion across a variety of asset classes and sectors.
Jean-Philippe spent the early years of his life in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, moving with his parents to Belgium at the age of seven and then going on to study Development Economics at the University of Namur. His early career began as a Junior Economist in Bucharest in the period just after the fall of Ceaușescu, after which he went on to McKinsey Brussels, which took him on engagements around various parts of the world. He became the CEO of a Microfinance foundation in Argentina for a year and then returned to Europe, where he continued to work in microfinance and came to work at Dexia Asset Management. Jean-Philippe co-founded BlueOrchard in 2001 and then went on to found Bamboo Capital Partners in 2007. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and is fluent in French, English, and Spanish.
Widely considered to be a global pioneer in the field of impact investing, Jean-Philippe has made it his life’s mission to help develop solutions to some of the most critical problems on our planet today. In this episode, Jean-Philippe shares how a trip to India as a 3rd year student in his twenties and witnessing some of the problems and suffering there shaped his future. He also discusses his Faith and how this has also played a crucial role in his mission.
In our discussion, Jean-Philippe tells us about Bamboo Capital Partners’ investment strategies and their five main Funds. We talk about Bamboo’s partnerships with various UN agencies and International NGO’s and the SDG500 Impact Investment platform. We hear Jean-Philippe’s true definition of impact investing and we discuss the role of technology in impact investing now and in the future.
Show notes: https://sri360.com/podcast/jean-philippe-de-schrevel
About the SRI 360° Podcast: The SRI 360° Podcast is focused exclusively on sustainable & responsible investing. In each episode, Scott Arnell interviews a world-class investor who is an accomplished practitioner from all asset classes. In my interviews, I cover everything from their early personal journeys—and what motivated and attracted them to commit their life energy to SRI—to insights on how they developed and executed their investment strategies and what challenges they face today. Each episode is a chance to go way below the surface with these impressive people and gain additional insights and useful lessons from professional investors.
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Kapitler

1. Impact Investing Pioneer Jean-Philippe de Schrevel on Bamboo Capital Partners, SDGs, NGOs and More (#010) (00:00:00)

2. Jean-Philippe’s childhood and student years and the trip to India that was to shape his future (00:01:49)

3. How Jean-Philippe came to co-found BlueOrchard in 2001 (00:06:26)

4. Jean-Philippe’s mission in developing impact investing and his deeply rooted faith, values and ambitions (00:12:00)

5. How Jean-Philippe came to found Bamboo Capital Partners while still at BlueOrchard (00:13:35)

6. Bamboo Capital Partners’ mission and what impact investing actually means (00:17:38)

7. The repositioning of Bamboo as a platform open to partnerships (00:22:26)

8. The SDG-500 funds that Bamboo Capital Partners manages (00:30:49)

9. How Bamboo Capital Partners make their investment decisions and what screening methods are used (00:38:36)

10. Jean-Philippe describes two sample investments that Bamboo Capital Partnerships have made (00:41:00)

11. How Jean-Philippe verifies and measures the impact of their investments (00:45:00)

12. Bamboo’s typical investor profile (00:50:58)

13. The role of technology in impact investing now and in the future (00:56:52)

14. The single most important challenge right now in the sustainable impact investment space (00:58:54)

15. Lessons learned from investments that didn’t work out as planned (01:00:50)

16. Advice for anyone looking to get into the impact investing space (01:05:30)