Ag Faceoff: For-profit or Nonprofit, Which Wins the Social ROI Contest?

Speaker(s):

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  Richard Fahey

  Chief Operating Officer, Skoll Foundation

  Richard Fahey is Chief Operating Officer of the Skoll Foundation where he contributes to the fulfillment of the Foundation’s mission to drive large-scale change by investing in, connecting, and celebrating social entrepreneurs and the innovators who help them solve the world’s most pressing problems. As COO, Richard leads the Skoll Foundation’s finance, impact measurement, technology, and other business management functions. He is the key executive staff interface between the Investment Committee and the Capricorn Investment Group which manages the Foundation’s endowment. Richard works closely with the Foundation’s investment manager to align the Foundation’s investment capital with its mission. Prior to joining Skoll, Richard spent nearly 25 years with the Hewlett-Packard Company in a variety of senior operations, infrastructure, finance policy, and controller positions. He earned his B.A. at Georgetown University in Economics and History, and his M.B.A at the University of Chicago.

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  Ion Yadigaroglu

  Managing Principal, Capricorn Investment Group

  Ion Yadigaroglu has been Managing Partner at Capricorn Investment Group since 2004, and is an early investor in iconic technology companies including Tesla, SpaceX, Planet, QuantumScape and Saildrone. Capricorn was born from the desire to demonstrate the huge investment potential that resides in breakthrough commercial solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, and as such is one of the original impact investors. Prior to Capricorn, Ion was a Director with Koch Industries, executing a range of acquisitions and investments. Prior to Koch, he was a founder and Chief Executive Officer at Bivio, a software startup in Colorado, and the second employee of Olsen & Associates, a foreign exchange analytics company. Ion was a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University and holds a Masters in Physics from Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich in Switzerland and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Stanford University.

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• 
  Willy Foote

  Founder and CEO, Root Capital

  Willy Foote is founder and CEO of Root Capital, a nonprofit impact investor that offers farmers around the world a path to prosperity by investing in the agricultural businesses that serve as engines of impact in their communities. Root Capital provides these businesses with the capital, training, and access to markets they need in order to grow, thrive, and create opportunities for thousands of farmers at a time. Since its founding in 1999, Root Capital has provided more than $1 billion in loans to 630 agricultural businesses in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Together, these businesses have generated more than $6 billion in revenue, 80 percent of which has been paid directly to the 1.2 million smallholder farmers whose crops they collect and market. Foote is a Skoll Entrepreneur and an Ashoka Global Fellow. He was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2008, one of Forbes’ “Impact 30” in 2011, and was a 2012 Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. He served for nearly a decade on the Executive Committee of the Aspen Network for Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE), and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). Foote holds an MS in development economics from the London School of Economics and a BA from Yale University.

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• 
  Andrew Youn

  CEO, One Acre Fund

  Andrew Youn started One Acre Fund in 2006. One Acre Fund only serves smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa – and provides farm inputs, finance, and training that helps farmers to succeed. One Acre Fund has 8,000 staff who serve 1.2m families per year, plus 1.5 million more families via partnership. The organization will double in size in the next five years, and aims to be the most impactful distribution network for life-improving goods in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. Andrew graduated from Yale, is a former management consultant at Oliver Wyman, and received his MBA from Kellogg School of Management.

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  Alan Chang

  Partner and Managing Director, Capricorn Investment Group

  Alan Chang is Partner and Managing Director at Capricorn. Alan oversees Capricorn’s multi-asset class portfolio of investments in Asia and emerging markets as well Capricorn’s global venture portfolio. Prior to Capricorn, Alan worked at DFJ New England with early-stage venture investments and at Montgomery Securities (now Banc of America Securities) advising technology companies on corporate finance. Alan is a CFA charter holder and received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S.E. from Duke University, graduating cum laude with a triple major in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Art History.

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