The Hopeful Cynic: A Journey through Social Enterprise and Finance with Dr Belinda Bell

Be & Think in the House of Trust

Dear Impact leader! Can you be curious, hopeful, cynical, and angry, at the same time?

In this episode of “Be and Think in the House of Trust”, I am listening to Dr Belinda Bell, a social finance specialist turned social entrepreneur, and academic, who has dedicated her career to social change.

She began working with community finance organisations to provide capital for entrepreneurs creating a positive impact.

Over time, after setting up a few ventures herself, and teaching about the ecosystem at the University of Cambridge, she realised that social enterprises alone were not enough to quickly solve systemic issues like climate change and inequality.

She is now collaborating with "universal owners" - large institutional investors like pension funds that own vast portions of the economy and have an incentive to address risks that could damage their portfolios.

Bell helps these universal owners understand how maximising short-term profits can create long-term damage;

Navigating through the tough paradox of hope and cynicism, her challenge is to encourage large investors to use their influence to drive companies at large toward more sustainable practices.

Highlights in this episode:

(01:37) Curious, hopeful, cynical, and angry

(10:09) Things that appear radical can very often turn out to be maintaining the status quo

(11:47) Let’s normalise the world we want to see

(18:44) How do you actually get people to do things?

Useful links

Belinda Bell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/belinda-bell/

Academic Publications https://www.landecon.cam.ac.uk/person/dr-belinda-bell

The Finance for Environmental and Social Systemic Change Centre - Department of Land Economy https://www.landecon.cam.ac.uk/finance-for-systemic-change/finance-environmental-and-social-systemic-change-centre

Connect with Servane:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/servanemouazan/

Website: https://servanemouazan.co.uk

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