Tue 28 Nov 2023 - As a general election approaches in 2024, many in the UK are thinking about how private investment could be better deployed for public good. Blended finance offers a way for public and private investors to work together to deliver economic, environmental, and social goals, but it can be challenging to deliver effectively.
Meanwhile, the UK is losing out globally against its peers in the US and the European Union, which are using blended finance to catalyse private investment, particularly into climate finance.
Recent research by the London School of Economics explores how investors in the UK and elsewhere have navigated these challenges. It also looks at what could drive a more ambitious partnership between policymakers and the financial services industry to address the need to boost economic growth, address social inequality, and make the transition to net zero.
Please join us in this session where we welcome Sarah Gordon, Visiting Professor in Practice at the LSE and former founding Chief Executive of the Impact Investing Institute. The institute was launched in 2019 with a mission to make capital markets fairer and work better for people and the planet.
The webinar will be chaired by Gareth Mee, CFO at Legal & General Capital. Gareth and Sarah will explore some approaches that, for the next 5 to 10 years, could see a far greater percentage of pension and insurance assets, and other pools of capital, directed at productive investment for resilient and sustainable economic growth.
To learn more before the webinar, please see:
You can watch the recording of this webinar on the IFoA’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Watch recording.
Chair
Gareth is Chief Financial Officer of Legal & General Capital (LGC), the balance sheet investing arm of Legal & General, investing over £4 billion of direct investments in the UK and US. Gareth is also a Director on the Boards of L&G’s US commercial real estate venture with Ancora and its UK retirement villages business.
Prior to L&G, Gareth worked for 18 years at EY where he was latterly the partner responsible for the UK actuarial practice, global investment advisory practice, and the UK sustainable finance consulting practice. He has volunteered for the actuarial profession for many years including serving on the Life Insurance Board and chairing the Finance and Investment Board.
Sarah Gordon is a Visiting Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on climate and the environment. There she leads a research and advocacy project on mobilising private capital for economic, environmental, and social policy priorities.
Before starting this role in 2023, she was the founding Chief Executive of the Impact Investing Institute, which was launched in 2019, with a mission to make capital markets fairer and work better for people and the planet.
Previously, Sarah spent 18 years at the Financial Times, where she ran the paper’s corporate coverage during the 2008 to 2012 financial crisis and was Business Editor. Before journalism, she worked in fund management in the UK and the US, and at the UN Conference for Trade and Development in Geneva.
Sarah is a non-executive director of Social Finance, an advisor to the Big Issue Group, a member of the Leadership Council at Snowball Investment Management, and a speaker for Speakers for Schools. She is a regular speaker at events and roundtables with investors and policymakers, run by the Financial Times, the Economist, ESG Investor, government departments, political parties, and others.
Sarah has spent the latter part of her career building bridges between different parts of the investment chain, helping institutional and social investors, policymakers, and regulators work together more effectively to deliver positive outcomes for people and the environment.