If you are interested in social enterprises, impact investing, start-ups, Asia, empowerment, and stories of unreasonable people committed to make the world a better place, then you may decide to read on.


I will explore the intersection of many different worlds that typically don’t intersect. At this intersection where traditional finance meets non-profit, start-up meets government, Silicon Valley meets Dhaka, there is a new type of ecosystem being built. I have found beauty in such contrasts, where in one conference room, the lady to my left may be a Goldman Sachs executive, to my right, an Indian market weaver, across the table, a member of the Singapore ministry.


This all occurs in a city called Singapore, which I have found to be quite a surprising intersection of many different worlds itself. Often referred to as the “benevolent dictatorship”, one might wonder whether Singapore might just be the ideal place to build a “benevolent capital markets”, a capital markets organized for the purpose of doing good.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

One woman’s vision becomes the battle cry of an army of volunteers

What is so incredible about IIX’s own founding history, is that it’s a story of how one innovator took a concept, got key partners on board, and got to this point of launching the first private placement platform in Asia dedicated to connecting social enterprises with impact investors...all in 2 years time.

IIX’s founder, Prof. Durreen Shahnaz, is a former investment banker and social entrepreneur from Bangladesh. Her brainchild, the creation of a capital marketplace for social good, comes from two decades of experience at Morgan Stanley and Grameen Bank, where market connectivity was lacking. Her experience founding and building OneNest, an online global wholesale marketplace for handmade goods, led her to realize a need for a marketplace where investors can play a role in helping to grow companies with a social and environmental mission. After selling OneNest, Durreen began teaching Social Innovation at LKY School at National University of Singapore, and it is at this time when one article written and one phone call later changed the course of her, and many other people’s, course in life. The Rockefeller Foundation came across Durreen’s editorial on the topic of social stock exchanges and became the first organization to support the creation of Asia’s first social stock exchange. This was two years ago.

Since the early days, the team has turned into an army of ex-i-bankers, ex-lawyers, ex-marketers, who have all traded in annual bonus for the possibility to creating something truly amazing; and it is that possibility that continues to attract top talent willing to work for peanuts...
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