Working towards a workshop – what do I bring to the audience

In my rounds of coffee chats and catch-ups, it is clear that there is some interest in my work in the US on impact and responsible investing. I spent more than 5 years trying to really understand and then build a business in this area so I know the opportunities and challenges well. However, talking about a finance topic in New York seems easier given that the city is a global finance hub. Most people are somewhat involved so they work to integrate new information on the topic. Most people in Brisbane are not highly connected to the capital markets so a discussion on impact investing needs to be orientated towards the challenges and opportunities that come with understanding an area of finance that they may not necessarily be directly engaged with.

The value, therefore, is how a participant might integrate the processes and thinking of impact investing into their own work. For example, I find it useful to think about intentionality (i.e. does the investment intend to create social and environmental impact from the beginning?) and materiality (i.e. does the social and environmental impact materially affect the financial return either positively or negatively?). However, this framework does have a requirement that the person’s aim is to generate a financial outcome which is not necessarily the case for my audience. How, therefore, do I frame this type of thinking for use by my audience?

Maybe its about teaching the basics of investment analysis through the lens of impact investing. The idea of research and thesis generation through topics that they understand which, in this case, might be environmental and social issues. Its less about finding novel impact investments but more about grounding the audience in the concepts of risk, timeliness and trend identification. A 101 of investing through the lens of impact investing because it is easier for my likely audience to understand.