Because one always wants to remember the first time – below is a transcript of my first live TV interview. I was asked to explain social enterprise, social investment and EngagedX in 2 minutes…
The Welfare State is dead – long live the Kinky State
I don’t mean the type of adulterous scooter socialism enjoyed by French President Francois Hollande – I mean an agile and nimble State that is deftly able to do more with less. Kinky like an inflection point in a trend line. Kinky as in ‘crinkled’ and ‘intertwined’ and ‘complex’ and ‘strikingly unconventional’. Kinky like talk about the rise of smart power in a multi-polar world – because this is the new practical reality, not because the laissez-faire types won the ideological debate about the size of the state. Quite the contrary, it’s dangerous to mistake coincidence for causality.
Open letter: Concerns about process in the land deal that is part of the ZhongRong Group’s proposal in Crystal Palace
– If you agree with this letter, then please sign the petition here –
Open Letter from
Residents in the Crystal Palace area
17 January 2014
Rt Hon Dame Tessa Jowell MP
Hon Jim Dowd MP
Hon Steve Reed MP
Hon Chuka Umunna MP
cc Mayor Boris Johnson
. Darren Johnson AM
CONCERNS ABOUT PROCESS IN THE LAND DEAL THAT IS PART OF THE ZHONGRONG GROUP’S PROPOSAL IN CRYSTAL PALACE
Dear Dame Tessa, Mr Dowd, Mr Reed and Mr Umunna,
We are writing to you, as residents in your respective constituencies, about our concerns regarding the land deal that is currently being negotiated as part of the ZhongRong Group’s (ZRG) proposal for a new Crystal Palace building. Specifically we are seeking your guidance about the appropriateness of the current process for the potential disposal of Metropolitan Open Land by a Local Authority to a private organisation for development.Read More »
A royal visit in pictures – hosting HRH the Duke of Gloucester in the Crystal Palace Subway
To prove that Royal Mail takes ROYAL MAIL very seriously: The Duke’s office kindly sent a letter of thanks to the Subway team. Any regular letter would have had practically no chance of finding us – but this one did because it was franked by the Buckingham Palace post office.Read More »
How to accelerate social investment – my interview/ podcast for Cambridge University, Judge Business School
Discussing the opportunities and challenges of bringing together finance and social investment. Social investment is still a small market segment but has tremendous potential. There are more investors who are looking for projects that can deliver both social impact and financial returns, while organisations that historically relied on grants look for alternative sources of funding without losing sight of their social purpose.
The fancy names aren’t helping – let’s call it investment and get on with doing it properly
The extent of debate (and often disagreement) about the definition of social impact investment is fascinating – exploring in great depth the nuances and prerequisite principles for investing in a way that seeks both positive social outcomes and financial returns. But this discourse risks being divisive and self-defeating. Does this complexity actually attract or repel new investors from engaging in this exciting market?
Evidence Submission – UK Parlimentary Commission on Banking Standards
The Commission on Banking Standards is appointed by both Houses of Parliament to consider and report on:
- professional standards and culture of the UK banking sector, taking account of regulatory and competition investigations into the LIBOR rate-setting process
- lessons to be learned about corporate governance, transparency and conflicts of interest, and their implications for regulation and for Government policy and to make recommendations for legislative and other action
A copy of my evidence submission 8 February 2013 is published below, read the invitation from the Commission to submit here.
Osborne’s 2013 Budget for the UK – giving love a chance?
A committed fiscal conservative like UK Chancellor George Osborne was never going to deviate from Government’s hard-wired policy of austerity. Nobody really expected a change of course in his 2013 Budget, not even after his recent humiliation by Moody’s downgrade of Britain’s triple A credit rating – a humiliation not because of the fundamental impact of the downgrade, which was negligible, but because Osborne himself had placed such high importance on retaining the AAA status.
World’s first financial index for impact investing unveiled
Press release: 11 December 2012, London (reblogged here 12 Dec)
Engaged Investment has launched a pilot to test the creation of the world’s first investment index for the growing emerging market of social investment (‘impact investing’, as it is called globally). This is an important next step forward towards creating the infrastructure needed for the global expansion of social finance.
Impact Measurement – A conceptual framework
Tomorrow (5 Dec) in Brussels I will be presenting my views on the impact measurement discourse at a conference on “Measuring the Social Impact of Social Enterprises”. My approach will be to explore how to frame the discussion in the context of a market centric perspective as part of developing EngagedX – the world’s first financial index for impact investing. For the purposes of compiling an index, we are agnostic about specific metrics used and instead seek to determine a meta-framework approach for how to map and categorise the data of all metrics in use.
Karl H Richter 