Several days ago, Acumen Fund hosted its Investor Gathering, an annual event – part open house, part state of the union – that gives investors a comprehensive view of what Acumen Fund has been doing over the past year and the ways it aims to grow in the next. With staff and investees coming in from Pakistan, India, and East Africa, and with over a hundred and fifty partners from 16 countries in attendance, the IG is Acumen’s largest yearly event.
Opening at Acumen Fund’s New York offices, the morning featured several deep dive sessions, intended to brief partners on topics central to Acumen Fund’s work. The sessions were led by staff andinvestees and focused on the following four verticals:
- recruiting and retaining top talent;
- managing enterprises in the water and sanitation sector;
- the growing health portfolio, and
- insights into Pakistan based on Acumen’s longstanding operations and partnerships in the region
These sessions laid out in detail many of Acumen Fund’s most notable accomplishments while outlining specific challenges that lay ahead. These sessions also provided investors an opportunity to ask questions, to offer suggestions, and to learn more about ways that their own particular expertise and experience can serve Acumen’s mission.
In one of the first deep dive sessions of the morning, Shaffi Mather of Dial 1298 for Ambulance , Scott Hillstrom of the Sustainable Healthcare Foundation and Dr. John Sargent of BroadReach Healthcare discussed the challenges and rewards involved in providing health care services to low-income customers in the developing world. Joined by Acumen Fund’s Biju Mohandas and Omer Imtiazuddin, some of the major themes that emerged in the session were the importance of both low prices and quality control in offered services, the necessity of engaging a largely new customer base through community outreach efforts, and the critical need to establish positive relationships with government agencies.
Speaking on behalf of Acumen Fund, Biju and Omer also discussed the importance of having trust in the entrepreneurs and enterprises in which Acumen invests given the constantly changing business models that these businesses adopt in the face of rapidly evolving markets.
In a parallel session, D.light Design co-founder and CEO Sam Goldman joined Acumen Fund’s Director of Talent, Harry Dellane, and India Director Varun Sahni to discuss the difficulty of recruiting top talent to the social entrepreneurial sector. While each noted the real wealth of young, inexperienced people eager to work in organizations like Acumen Fund and D.light, they also agreed that it is incredibly difficult to utilize them effectively.
On the other hand, the cut in compensation that senior recruits face in joining the sector is such that many are reluctant to make a move. But all agreed that the value proposition of working in the world of social entrepreneurship, of making a change in the world, was so important that many top people can be convinced to join.
Speaking about the opportunities and difficulties of working in Pakistan later in the morning, Acumen Pakistan Director Aun Rahman was joined by Dr. Ishrat Hussain and 2010 Fellows Muhammad Zahoor and Asim Hussnain. While there is and has been steady economic growth in Pakistan every year since 1951, at a rate uncommon in the developing world, a history of political unrest, marked by successive waves of military dictatorship, has weakened the country.
The assembled group agreed that Acumen Fund has a real chance to effect long-lasting change in Pakistan by working to develop a stronger civil society through the development of sustainable enterprises. Muhammad and Asim spoke persuasively about their personal encounters with militant groups, and their impression that militants’ (waning) popularity is largely tied to the goods and services that they provide.
In one of the last morning sessions, Acumen Fund’s Sangeeta Chowdhry and Marc Manara joined David Kuria of Ecotact and Sanjay Bhatnager of Water Health International to discuss water and sanitation issues. One of the key themes that emerged from this session is that while water and basic sanitation seem like essential services, in providing them to low-income people, there is still an incredible need for innovative and effective marketing. At the same time, government involvement has been to seen to play a major role in providing services, and cooperative models have been needed.
After the morning sessions, investors and staff moved to the nearby Rubin Museum of Art, at which Acumen Fund Partner and museum founder Donald and Shelley Rubin had generously agreed to host the day’s proceedings. Following warm introductory comments by board chair Margo Alexander and by Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz, keynote speaker Arif Naqvi, Founder and CEO of Abraaj Capital, took to the podium to deliver his keynote address.
In a speech by turns playful and serious, Naqvi stressed his faith in patient capital and in Acumen Fund. Highlighting the watershed quality of the current moment, Naqvi discussed the ways that entrepreneurship, patient capital, and strong leadership are and will be central to the coming waves of global development. Naqvi also spoke of the potential – even the necessity – for individuals to act as agents of this positive change, a core value that he shares with Acumen.
After discussing several key historical precedents for the current economic climate, including the European recession of 1870, and thanking Acumen for its groundbreaking work in Pakistan, Naqvi introduced an innovative trope that would play a significant role throughout the rest of the day: empathetic evolution.
Characterized as a way of looking at and experimenting with different, innovative means of helping others, to act as the catalyst not only of economies but of behavior, empathetic evolution elegantly captures precisely what it is that Acumen does so well. It also subtly focuses attention on Acumen’s own progressive quality, that like the developing economies in which it is working, Acumen itself is constantly evolving.
Following Naqvi’s keynote, Novogratz delivered her own address, titled, with tongue firmly in cheek, the state of the union. Reinforcing and advancing many of the points earlier made by Naqvi and Margo Alexander, Jacqueline noted that this has been a year marked by hope and turbulence. Jacqueline spoke passionately about Acumen Fund’s work and of the power of empathetic evolution in describing the ways that it and the world are developing. When Acumen began its operations, she noted, the sector was small, with Acumen almost alone in the field. Now, there are more involved, with increased noise in the field, different approaches constantly being introduced and advocated for.
But Acumen Fund has never been stronger and patient capital is working. By continuing to focus on investing in leaders and talent, the core of our work remains, she said, in patient capital, management support, and the measuring of social and financial returns. Finally, Jacqueline closed her comments by noting that current economic climate, while challenging for all, also presents a tremendous opportunity. Seizing on the urgency of this unique historical moment, Acumen Fund has the opportunity to think big, to put its stamp on the world.
The following panels highlighted various aspects of Acumen’s operations and its plans to scale through new investments. Chief Investment Officer Brian Trelstad spoke of Acumen Fund’s work in relation to the changing field of social entrepreneurship. He also concentrated his comments on the ways in which Acumen is growing its operations though at the same time improving its efficiency and effectiveness.
Raj Kundra, Director of Capital Markets, outlined “due diligence,” the rigorous process Acumen undertakes before committing to an investment, at one point even joking that “investments are a marriage.” And Ann MacDougall, Chief Management Officer, discussed the stringent ethics policies that Acumen maintains, noting that Acumen takes a stand on corruption in all of its operations, refusing to compromise in any case.
Before Jacqueline once more took the stage to summarize and reinforce key takeaways of the day, this year’s class of Acumen Fund Fellows shared with the audience their own life stories, moments of hardship and challenges that had lead them to pursue a career in social entrepreneurship. Speaking in many languages – generously translated – the Fellows gave those of us in the audience a sense of who they were, their incredible passion, and the intensity of their moral imagination.
And throughout the day we learned that patient capital is really working, that Acumen is continuing to improve its operations, and grow in ways that help more and more people, evolving it and the world empathetically.
I have just stumbled on this site, I like alot I shall become a follower for real. Good work
Now that I’ve attended my fourth consecutive Investor Gathering for Acumen Fund and know how diligently the Acumen team works to make this event educational and exciting, I was not expecting to be shocked by anything at the 2009 Gathering. Yet my ears perked up when I heard that four letter word which had been quietly spoken at previous Investor Gatherings, typically in the warmup, rarely as the main event. Now here was Jacqueline, on stage at the Rubin Museum in front of her Acumen colleagues, friends and supporters, speaking boldly and loudly to the group and uttering for all to hear that very four letter word— JOBS! Certainly Jacqueline has talked about JOBS before, especially in the context of A to Z Textiles, but the antecedent was always hundreds or thousands. But here was Jacqueline talking about JOBS, tens and tens of thousands of jobs being created by the very entrepreneurs that Acumen diligently finds and supports. I learned that many of the investments in Acumen’s portfolio have the potential to create substantial numbers of new jobs. As these innovative businesses scale up to serve more and more customers, increased hiring and job training will naturally follow.
While I am sure that Brian will be tasked with the job of devising a metric for Acumen’s investment portfolio to measure job creation and its benefits to both the worker’s family, immediate and extended, and his or her community, until then I am confident that my Acumen contributions are working twice as hard!