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Making Market-Rate Impact Investments in the Global South: A Conversation with Three Leading Impact Investors
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The past few years have seen an explosion of interest in impact investing, including Egypt and across the global south. The Ford Foundation and others are making investments into market-rate funds that do not anticipate giving up financial return to pursue positive social impact. What does market-rate impact investing look like? Join us to hear the perspectives of leading impact investors and learn more about their experiences raising and deploying capital in MENA and around the world.
Speakers
Basil Moftah
General Partner
Global Ventures
Basil is an experienced company builder and general partner at Global Ventures, an international venture capital firm that backs global-minded founders, leading growth-stage companies that use technology to transform emerging markets and the world. Basil joined Global Ventures in June 2018. From initial idea to business scaling, his background makes him an ideal partner for founders at all stages. Basil has been an Advisor, Investor and Board Member with numerous global technology companies. These have included new ventures, such as the digital patent storage platform PatSnap, the intelligent product builder TARA.AI as well as Sparrho, Floranow and Elmenus. Basil started his career as a founding member of the Reuters Venture Capital group. Indeed, he was part of the team that took the group private. A successful fund, it invested in Netscape, Yahoo!, Verisign, Webex, and several other leading global companies. Basil then managed emerging markets for Reuters: A $600M business spanning Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Russia, India and China. He grew the business seamlessly and made numerous strategic acquisitions. His approach included buying Zawya, a trusted source of business and financial news. The company plays a critical role in providing insights into the Middle East. Basil subsequently scaled Zawya for significant growth. Basil's last role was at Thomson Reuters. At Thomson, Basil served as President of the Intellectual Property and Science business. He was responsible for developing the strategic proposition of the $1billion revenue business. His strategy worked in line with customer, market and competitive trends. Upon strategic execution, he prepared the division for sale to private equity which took place in 2016 for $3.55B.
A champion of diversity and inclusion, he was a founding advisor for Reach Mentoring. Reach is a successful program focusing on high-potential woman executives in the Middle East. Furthermore, he was the executive sponsor of diversity in the workplace programs at Thomson Reuters.
Basil holds a bachelors’ degree in Mechanical Engineering from the American University in Cairo. Basil earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Hossam Abou Moussa
Partner
Apis Partners
Hossam has played a leading role in a number of investments including the Commercial International Bank (the largest private sector bank in Egypt), Fawry (the leading digital transformation & E-payment platform in Egypt), Emerging Markets Payments (first pan-African payments platform with presence across Africa and in the Middle East), and GHL Systems (a leading payment service provider and one of the top merchant acquirers in the ASEAN region).
Prior to Apis Partners, Hossam was a Partner at Actis, where he led a team of investment professionals that focuses on investing in the Financial Services sector across Africa, South and Southeast Asia.
Hossam has spent all his 20+ years career investing in growth markets with more than a decade dedicated to financial services.
Prior to Apis Partners, Hossam was a Partner at Actis, where he led a team of investment professionals that focuses on investing in the Financial Services sector across Africa, South and Southeast Asia.
Hossam has spent all his 20+ years career investing in growth markets with more than a decade dedicated to financial services.
Margot Brandenburg
Senior Program Officer
Mission Investments
Margot Brandenburg is a senior program officer on the foundation’s Mission
Investments team, focused on building and strengthening the infrastructure of
the impact investment market—with an eye to shaping the broader capital markets. She has spent two decades working at the intersection of philanthropy, capital markets, and social and environmental justice. Prior to joining Ford, Margot served as founder and CEO of MyStrongHome, a benefit corporation delivering resilience finance services to homeowners across the
Southeast and Gulf Coast of the US. Before that, she helped design and lead the impact investing initiative at the Rockefeller Foundation. She co-authored the book The Power of Impact Investing with former RF president Judith Rodin. While at Rockefeller, she also focused on job creation and issues of economic security for low-wage workers. Margot began her career in international microfinance and has worked with several community development finance institutions in the US. She serves on the boards of the Workers Lab, Brooklyn Cooperative Credit Union, and the Woodcock Foundation, and as an adviser to the National Domestic Workers Alliance as well as the National Energy Improvement Fund. She received a master’s in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and holds an undergraduate degree from Stanford University.
Monica Brand Engel
Entrepreneur and Investor
Monica Brand Engel is an entrepreneur and investor, having launched various funds and products aimed at broadening financial inclusion. She is the co-founding partner of Quona Capital – venture firm focused on fintech for inclusion in emerging markets. Quona is the investment manager for the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund, the first global, third-party fintech fund for inclusion, and its successor, the Accion Quona Inclusion Fund. Monica spent her formative years in Silicon Valley, where she helped launch a $50 million multi-bank lending intermediary to finance small businesses. Monica also worked at Calvert Ventures and Anthuri Ventures – early stage equity vehicles based in Bethesda and Cape Town, respectively. While living in S Africa, Monica founded Anthuri Catalysts to prepare early stage companies for investment. Monica then joined Accion to set up a product innovation group and worked in Mexico with Gentera (née Compartamos) Bank, the largest microfinance institution in Latin America – which went public in 2007 (NSDQ: GENTERA:MM). She was the founding managing director of Accion’s Frontier Investments Group, the predecessor to Quona Capital.
Monica holds an MBA and MA Ed from Stanford University and a BA in economics from Williams College. She serves on the boards of Sokowatch, Yoco, Azimo, GloboKasNet, Tiaxa and Zoona; is a founding member of the EMPEA Impact Council; and chairs the Investor Representative Committee of LeapFrog Investments, the world’s first microinsurance fund. Previously, she served on the boards of Gentera (née Compartamos) Bank (IPO), Shubham Housing (sold to Premji Invest), AllLife, Paralife, and Pay Rent Builds Credit (accquired by MicroBilt). She’s half Peruvian and blessed with a fantastic husband and twins.