Living on Purpose, The Journey of a Social Entrepreneur
In this episode we are chatting with Dr. Ipshita Mandal-Johnson, a founding Partner & CEO of the Global Bio Fund where she is focused on investing in and scaling women-led Health-Tech ventures through Jaya Ventures. She is a visiting Lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Cambridge and currently serves on the advisory boards of Proximie, Chiasma NZ, and Global Engineering Futures.
Learn more via the links below:
https://www.globalbiofund.org/
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson's LinkedIn
Show Notes / Discussed on the Podcast:
Book - The Innovation Blind Spot
Imperfect Show Notes
While these notes are not perfect (computer transcription is still a work in progress), they give you the gist of the conversation. Enjoy!
My conversation with Ipshita Mandal-Johnson:
Morgan Bailey 0:02
Hello, and welcome to the Profit Meets Impact Podcast where we explore the intersection of doing well and doing good in the world. I'm your host Morgan Bailey, and I'm excited to bring you the wisdom of entrepreneurs and thought leaders that are using business to create sustainable and meaningful change across the globe. In this episode, I'm excited to be chatting with Dr. Ipshita Mandal-Johnson, a founding partner and CEO of the global bio fund, where she is focused on investing in and scaling women led health tech ventures through Jaya ventures. She currently serves on the advisory boards of Proximie, Chiasma NZ, New Zealand Global Engineering futures, and is a visiting lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Cambridge. Ipshita is such a pleasure to have you on the show, really excited for this conversation.
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 0:56
Thanks for inviting me more than happy to be here.
Morgan Bailey 0:59
Yes, we've had a couple of conversations already. And there's so many questions I've been wanting to ask you. So you have such an amazing background in terms of you know, you have a PhD and engineering, you're a social entrepreneur, you've started a new venture, where did this all begin how to talk to us a little bit of what the experiences that kind of led you into the work that you're doing today?
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 1:24
First off, I didn't think I'd do any of that, including now starting a fund for Social Entrepreneurs. But it's just, I think, when you starting to follow a purpose or a problem, and your life, slowly, you connect dots through it and experiences. But yeah, I think it probably started quite early on, I grew up in India, and probably from a very sort of a middle class family and saw some issues such as having, sitting on in my car in an air conditioned car, seeing beggars, and mothers with children, knocking on my window, begging, and trying to understand that as a five, six year old, all the way to going backpacking in Indonesia, and living close to a slum there and seeing kids in streets, lovely, beautiful street kids who weren't going to school, but had such warmth and empathy and thinking how how do you change their trajectory? I think some of those early growing up experiences probably made me think, How can I make my career a channel towards making some difference to these problems?
Morgan Bailey 2:44
Wow. And that's Yeah, and I've just had this image of you as a young person in this air conditioned car, you know, and safety, luxury, and you're looking outside and somebody else is having a completely different experience. And I actually really resonate with that when I was when I was younger. You know, there are things I want to get remember this one time, I wanted to buy this equipment to do mountaineering, because it's something I love. And I said, How can I justify getting these things when there are people out there who have nothing to eat? And it's something I've always grappled with? So I'm curious for you, like, how did you grapple with that? And how did it inform kind of where you're at now?
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 3:20
I think it was every day as well, Morgan, I think, in certain societies, I mean, you can, it's not quite slavery, per se. But in India, we used to have a domestic servant, and she had her kids not going to school, I went back to India, somewhere down further in my career, I was working with McKinsey and I went back to Delhi, and the soul in those same neighborhoods where I grew up in my air conditioned car, having a domestic help helping me and seeing her struggle to send her kids to school. And then I was at a position where I didn't have to ask my parents, how do we support them? There was a opportunity for me to directly get involved and pull out funds for No, your girl needs to go to school, and I will make sure she goes to school. So which school are we looking at? I think it's some in some situations, and it's different now that I live in New Zealand more than it's not. I think the society is a little bit more equal. But I do like to my work and travel, I do like to identify even in small measures how how we can make small differences and also systematically through my work in the fund. How we focus on some of these because you do need to focus on certain problems. I think there's so many, there's so many social sustainability and development challenges in the world. Not one person is not the solution to these things. But where you focus where you want to things and skills and experiences and people that you know, that you want to invest and work with to will make a difference. So I think doing a little bit every day, and figuring where to focus on your impact has been something I've learned.
Morgan Bailey 5:12
Yeah. And that is, I think, focusing on the impact. And, and having patients things don't change overnight. And I think it's something that social entrepreneurs struggle with is this pressure. You know, and we've talked about this as the white paper I'm trying to, you know, I'm interviewing people on is like, how do you manage the pressure of like making an impact, while also realizing that like, change takes time.
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 5:40
And I think you have to be patient with yourself, because we open up. I mean, in venture capital, we call this patient capital, often that it's not about making a six month return. It's not about it's not the quarter reports. It's not, you need to give entrepreneurs the space and time they're disrupting a certain. But then sector research and device or a certain system, you need to be patient. But I think, beyond asking patients from the system, I think we have to be more patient with ourselves, I think we are often our own biggest critic. And we often do push ourselves so and it's good, it's good to have drive and energy and wanting to make a difference quickly. But you also have to be kind to yourself that this is not going to get solved next year, I need to have the stamina to run the marathon, which will be God knows how many years? So? Yeah,
Morgan Bailey 6:38
absolutely. So jumping back into your story a little bit. So it sounds like from very young age, this sense of like purpose. And like desire to make an impact is like something has been instilled in us for very young. So how did that start to take form? You know, as you started to chart your career path? How did you take that all into account?
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 7:04
I think there was a, what I enjoyed doing, which was I loved science and tech. But then kind of understanding how can I use what I love or enjoy and get getting my head into to meet that purpose, or those problems I was seeing. And to be frank with you, Morgan, I don't think I had it figured out for quite some time. I definitely got seduced fully. And a lot of us I mean, we often think technology is the only solution to a lot of these things. So the sort of you get walked into the science, you get walked into the research as a PhD student, you get walked into a startup building fundraising, product development, you get walked into the corporate life. So when I was in McKinsey, then you start looking at systemic challenges, you get walked into the business risks, and blah, blah, blah. And somebody's like, Wait, you're looking behind? And like, Where was the impact there? You know, what have you mentioned in some measuring a lot of tech development, and measuring a lot of business growth and finance, which is great, because any entity that you develop needs to be sustainable and profitable. It's what you do with those profits also matters. But then, where was the impact designed into the solution? Where was the impact designed into the business? And I think as I further than do my work, I've made that more intention and into the DNA of the way we invest, or the way we develop the product, or we look at the market, you have a financial lens, but you also have an impact lens, and you kind of see what it does the finance and the impact worked together, then does this work and the scale? So I think, yeah, I crossed that sort of science, entrepreneurship, corporate, three, sort of phases of my career so far. I've probably not been intentional about impact all the time, even though I had it in my childhood. And I think it's taken me some self work and development to identify rate, there's something missing here, which is why I'm not happy. You know, I'm making some good bucks. I'm working for some great brands, but I'm still not happy. And why am I not happy? And it's because I wasn't being authentic to my little childhood ashita who probably wanted more from myself. So I think it takes guts to look at yourself in the mirror and see what how things really are like in your life. Wow.
Morgan Bailey 9:44
Yeah, that's, that's powerful. And, and what a human experience as well. You know, and, you know, I think something we've talked about too, is like, you were also a privilege to be able to have those choices to be able to make that you know, I don't think I think a lot of people who want to make an impact, I don't think everyone has the resources to do that. And I think being able to both realize where you're at, to take that look at yourself, and then to see well, you have the opportunity to do so. And a part of you is calling to do that, and listening and honoring to that, despite that, that's, you know, for a lot of social entrepreneurs, it's an uncharted course, there isn't, you're stepping off into the unknown a little bit. As a business community, we're still learning what this looks like, like we're redefining what the face of business looks like. So that's a big leap.
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 10:31
It is, and I read this book, by New Zealand author, it's called too much money by Max Rashbrook. And that was my sort of inspiration for this post on how much of a luxury it is to be an entrepreneur, forget being a social entrepreneur, you do need, you do need, you need to be somewhere in the Maslow's hierarchy, where you've got your basics met, you've got food on the table, you have a place to live, you can pay your bills, you have some stability, if that's through your family, if that's through your partner, if that's through previous success of exits, or money that you've made, I think you do need that financial resource before or support from somewhere, to be an entrepreneur and being an entrepreneur is often taken a place of privilege, you know, often it is people who have families that can back them, and let them allow them to experiment for those first two, three years before they hit it off. So I think social entrepreneurship is even worse in some ways. Because the, it's it doesn't look as profitable on face value. So then Harder, harder to hit into the market when you're disrupting a different model, a different operating or business model. So yes, it is really tricky. But I do think you don't have to be rich to be an entrepreneur as well, you do in an Indian. There's another book, and I can mention it and talk about it in a bit. But there's a philosophy called Jakar, which is frugal innovation, where you make do of what ever limited resources you have. And I think as an entrepreneur, if you believe in, if you're just madly in love, or believe in watch the difference you want to make, you can make it work, and you can figure it out other support systems, but it is tricky.
Morgan Bailey 12:34
Absolutely. So and we'll add some, some show links for those those books. Now, okay, so you, you know, you went through your journey as being a scientist, and being in love with science and into the consulting world into being an entrepreneur. So, you know, how did that lead you to where you're at right now.
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 12:59
I was sitting in midtown Manhattan working for quite a big merger. This was my McKinsey days. It was a strange life, you know, I was living next to Times Square in a nice hotel. And I was doing really well in consulting. And I just had this moment on I actually was just depressed. To be honest, I think I had people don't like to talk about these things, especially in consulting in it does not look good for your promotion cycle. If you start talking about rhythm, I'm struggling a little bit mentally. And though there's a lot of support for it now with people internally to get that but I found I was big, I was showing early stages of depression, even though what I would have thought being in New York peak life doing this consulting job, nice offices, all that traveling business class, blah, blah, all those sorts of materialistic superficial things. And, you know, the projects were cool, too. I found more interest my husband and was working in St. Lucia, a small Caribbean island. He was working with the prime minister there on health and education outcomes. Something with vaccines and improving children's education. And I used to go there in the weekends and meet some women entrepreneurs. Small farmers really call them entrepreneurs, but they were just like a bunch of female farmers who produced cocoa. And they were making some really good chocolate. I'm a big I'm a big weakness for dark chocolate. And the Caribbean dark chocolate was I just I just loved the product. And then I was thinking with these women and being able to make us basic financial sheet spreadsheet, they've they're struggling to get some of the machinery together, but damn this product. So I was taking it back to New New York to my friends of what do you think of this chocolate, it's really tasty. And that kind of got me into thinking I need to quit. Because I was getting more energy. It's it's back to where you get your inspiration and energy and I was getting more energy from those farmers in St. Lucia than I was, was a really good merge, it was one of the biggest pharma merges. I just found more purpose, it kind of reconnected me back to bits of my childhood. And it was also connecting some of my skill sets, things that I was good at some of my experiences and thinking, I was like, wait, I want to do something around this. So I just quit, which was a really stupid, or the best thing I've done. But I just I just told my corporate firm that I'm done, I'm leaving. And it's very typical in corporate consulting, to write a really nice email with, oh, that I loved all these people. And I thank everyone. And this is like the next C job or some cool form or fund that I'm joining. I didn't have any of that I was just, I'm just leaving, and then figured out what to do. And I did have a, I had a financial support system from my awesome husband who said, just come down, have some rum cocktails, and sit around the beach, and look at the sea and think through what you want to do. So I did that. So I think that was my inflection point before I started co founding global bio fund, and then building this investment fund for women entrepreneurs. That was that journeys been the last three, four years. But yeah, I did take some time after consulting.
Morgan Bailey 16:44
So back back here for a second. Imagine that moment, right. And you're talking about going through this, this large merger, you know, what should be like peak life moment in New York working for McKinsey. And like, see, like this is just doesn't feel right. Like this is not feeding me. And you made that decision. And I'm curious, what advice would you have for others who are also feeling that same situation of hey, you know what, something's not right. I want to make a shift to something more meaningful. Looking back? Do you have any any ideas or any suggestions on how people might navigate that terrain?
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 17:21
I think there's no way of sugarcoating it, Morgan is just a little scary, because when you are in the system, there is a path, you can see the you know, getting promoted becoming a partner, the nice checks, checks and the bonuses. It's a very interesting lifestyle. It's it's also struggling, because sometimes it doesn't give you the space and time for self reflection, for example, that doesn't give you the space and time to spend time with family and friends. I think my own the key thing with that would be I've been guided by the people I enjoy learning from people who I get energy from people who I find inspiring. And at some point, I realized, I'm not finding the inspiration. So I don't want to be, I don't want to be a partner here. I don't want to be the CEO. I couldn't, I'm a very ambitious person. But I don't want to be the CEO of McKinsey, I mean, because it's not easy to become the CEO. But that was not something that drove me, you know, I didn't see myself as this is not the person that looks successful to me. And then I started talking to people who I did find inspiring. Maybe it was the female farmers, maybe within some professors at Harvard or MIT that I started talking about impact investing, and social entrepreneurship and all these things. But I just started surrounding myself, or having conversations with people who I felt I could learn something from and people I could see bits of I want to be a bit of that. I want to be a bit of that. So I think it's following people who you get energy and ideas and maybe want to be see them as role models.
Morgan Bailey 19:10
Yeah. That's such a Yeah, that's such a clear, you know, a clear benchmark there is like, you know, do you, you know, if you're any given situation, like, do you want to be the the person who's like the next step up? Do you want to be the CEO? Do you see yourself as that? And if you're like, No, these aren't? These aren't the individuals that I want to be or even be around? I think that says a lot. You know, and I think one thing I always talk a lot of my clients about when they're struggling with purpose or what they want to do. And I always say like, what, what are you going to do or be interested in? Regardless of whether or not you're going to be paid for it? Yeah, yeah. Because if you're working in a job, that you have to force yourself to get better at it, force yourself to read about it. That's a struggle, but if you're in a job, you're like, I can't help learning about it. Like I'm gonna spend my free time learning about that just means you're gonna go get better and better because it drives you. It's self generating. And I think once you make that shift, I mean, so much opens up energetically, so much opens up for your opportunities the people. But it is, but it takes a little bit of leap because you're stepping out of a system that provides you a paycheck security, and all those things.
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 20:19
Once a social approval, I think we are a generation of formulas. And social media makes it hard. And if you're in LinkedIn, or Instagram, or Twitter or whatever, platform, you know, the celebration, you know, you announce a brand, you announce a promotion, you announce I'm flying on the school flight, I'm living in this nice hotel, even though you're working like Lucky work often working really ridiculous hours. But you do paint the celebrity picture of yourself, and you look at other people. So I think we get when you see our friends and colleagues and other people further ahead, we start wanting to live this different life without really looking at who am I? And like you said, you know, what will I do? What really brings that in a module or magic or energy or that passion or that extra effort, which no one has to account for no one else has to value? I just get I just feel valued by that. I think it takes a little bit of moving away from what other people expect and want you to do, or what you think other people want you to do. To who am I? Who am I really and what am I really good at? And what will what sort of outcomes or impact will really make me feel good at the end of you know, by end of the day, if not end of five or 10 years or 20 years?
Morgan Bailey 21:45
Yes, absolutely. That's one thing I talk a lot with with clients about is the idea of legacy, like what are you going to remember, in 20 years, right, you're going to remember this project, you remember how stressed you were? Or you know, like what, what's the value for you that you're really going to remember and like make your decisions kind of with with through through the lens of that. So sorry, going my mind is kind of left us like you're at Imagine you're on the beach, having rum drinks, thinking about what's next. And you've spoken with all these women. So how does this turn into the global bio fund?
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 22:22
I have a huge impostor syndrome. I think I've been taught about imposter syndrome that the most the good people have impostor syndrome, anyone who's credible, or really good at what they do the other ones who keep questioning themselves like I shouldn't do this. I'm not good enough for this. So I, I had a probably a nine month phase. So I was doing some consulting roles and jobs and teaching. I did a few projects around my it's figuring out what is this? What is this thing, my passion project? How are we going to build up all these ideas that I had been kind of mulling about for whatever like, since child, but like, all these years, there were a lot of thoughts and values and projects and things that I was thinking of, I came up with this. What I really liked is a venture builder, and social impact space. So I've worked in bio Life Sciences tech, for all my life. I love biology, I love understanding nature, and how we can work with nature and optimize certain bits of nature, to provide benefit to society or environment. And so the tech side was very clear that this is what I'm good at. This is where my passion is. And then the impact side wasn't clear. And like building, I genuinely loved startups, I loved my time building two or three companies before McKinsey. And I love the thrill and the rush and the risk of it. However, I wanted to do it not one company at a time. This time, I felt I liked working on multiple problems, which McKinsey taught me. I liked working on multiple projects at the same time. And I didn't have to be on the driving seat. I also had more confidence that I don't have to be the rock star or the CEO who kind of gets covered on fortune. I'm very happy and more confident that I can be on the back seat supporting that. So I think there was a lot of that internal and external interview. I just interviewed and talked to a lot of people in academia and business, a lot of past mentors. A lot of new people that I've come across those nine months were really good. And then, yeah, COVID hit in February. And that's when and it's funny talk COVID that when COVID hit was when I was thinking who is going to get most affected by this by this and and then I thought entrepreneurs fundraising It's just a complete, It's always risky anyway. And then I was thinking which types of entrepreneurs find it hardest to raise capital? And that's when I, I mean, I've never been a feminist before global biopharma. Like, I wouldn't articulate myself as one. And, and when I started doing my homework, that's when I realized that how bad it is for women entrepreneurs to raise capital. And yeah, long story short, I think, yeah, from that beach, to getting in front of the computer and writing a sort of plan and building a team and building an organization. I think it took me one to two years to get my head around it. And I'm still getting my head around it to be frank with you. But yeah, I think rum cocktails in St. Lucia definitely helped.
Morgan Bailey 25:54
All right. All right. Sounds like I need to take a plane trip. So alright, so I'm hearing these like three elements come together. There's, there's, you know, like biotech, something that you're passionate about. There's there's funding, right, like something that helps synergize with that, and you know, funding for impact. And then there's, there's women and women leaders kind of coming together into like, this business, is that right?
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 26:20
It is I switch the funding to capital, and what I'd say but capital, so yeah, of course, bio life sciences, innovation. So with global bio fund, we thought of all the way from health agri climate tech, that's the whole ecosystem where life sciences or biotech can make a difference. Funding this capital, there's actual financial dollars, equity investment, but we thought, again, coming back to social capital, or human capital, or knowledge, capital, there's other sources of capital, which entrepreneurs may or may not have. So I may not come from a privileged background, my father or my husband may not be able to introduce me to 100 investors who want to write down checks. So that social capital I feel is such an under it's so important to build that. So yeah, I think bio funding, and then impact, I think, an impact for us is specifically with them. And SDG, five and three, so gender and health.
Morgan Bailey 27:25
So in talk to us a little bit, I mean, I read on your, on your website, that funding to all women teams, or capital, all women teams, or women led teams is something like 2% of the funding that's out there. Talk to us a little about that number, because I mean, that sounds like a massive disparity.
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 27:44
I thought the number was wrong. I just thought some feminist group came up with that. It just can't be right. Come on in this day and age, we are in 2020s. You know, how can you have? You can't have venture capital solo. For women. I think one thing to clarify is that for all female teams, and mixed teams can be about 10% ish. And then the lion's share of capital goes to all main teams. And I'm not picking on a specific ethnicity as well, or race. I think it's all white male teams that often are much more successful with your traditional venture capitalists. So yeah, it's shocking stats, I think I found it really hard us is the mecca of venture capital. And if US has it down to now, as of last year 1.9%, of venture capital going to only female teams, we're finding Europe is also behind it's about in UK, it's about 1%. And Australia's a little better, but it's three to 4% in Australia. So I think going through the analysis, and again, there's some great work from McKinsey, and BCG and PitchBook, which is a big funding syndicate. There's a lot of multiple pieces of reporting research, which the scientist and me did before actually going into this was to do wait, is this really a problem? And why is this happening? And what needs to shift in the system?
Morgan Bailey 29:24
So how does the global bio fund both make an impact a broader impact in the world? And specifically, how is it how is it shifting the this investment in this financing towards all women teams?
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 29:40
So I'd say like we're like a needle in the haystack of the solutions that are needed, but we are doing our small bit. So we are what we call a gender smart fund. So there's a whole space in impact investing. So impact investing, for those I'm sure a lot of people already aware of it. But always all the way through the spectrum of ESG, environmental, social governance, to impact investing, impact investing is more quantitative about measuring impact outcomes. And around ESG is a bit more qualitative. And then, within impact investing, we're working on the gender side, because there's lots of different social impact goals. So we are one of the funds, there's about 300 Odd funds who work in this space, our fund only focuses on health tech. So that's what I'm good at. That's what my partners and my team and my advisors are good at. And we've built and sold companies. And we have an extensive network of investors and advisors in that space. So what we do there, basically, to cut it down to very simple language. And exactly what the bread and butter is, is, we invest in early entrepreneurs, mixed gender teams, we want to see a woman in a driving seat, but she doesn't have to be just the CEO, she could be a CTO, CFO, they are kind of at a space where they've come up with an idea, they've developed some proof of concept, they're starting to scale up the idea, they're doing some clinical testing, we invest in them. And but our differences in the due diligence process of how we look at the company, how we keep nudging the board, and the development of the product, and also the patients that had benefits, making sure that this is really useful in terms of health outcomes to both male and female patients. So that's our job as an investor is to kind of keep that carrot stick on, is the agenda diversity in the team? Is the gender diversity in the product development? And is the gender diversity in the markets that this makes an impact on.
Morgan Bailey 31:50
Wow. So and that's so it sounds like you're not just taking a snapshot, like at the beginning, right? You're this is something a benchmark, you're you're kind of setting throughout the early stage of the business. Is that correct?
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 32:03
Yeah. And I think it's a journey. I think it's really it's you can't there's no perfection in this. It's not like 5050 is the best answer. And a lot of companies are at different stages. So we what we are looking at is actually just looking at it's again, people, we're coming back to the founder and the team and what drives them? What's their purpose outside the signs? Do they care about their impact? Do they care about the patients, what sort of patients how so they could be an MIT or Harvard or Stanford or some top notch or not even not top notch, they can have really credible backgrounds, but what is driving them. So I think, in that journey, we are seeing if this is a person who's willing to learn and coach and really cares about impact as much as they care about the technology and financial growth, this is a person you want to invest in. And then it's a journey, like this is where you are now, over the next three 510 years, how do we shift the needle across these five areas for that for you?
Morgan Bailey 33:08
And so when you say you invest, right, I mean, obviously, I think a lot of us our mind goes to Financials. Right? Yeah. But how else do you invest in these companies to ensure their success?
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 33:20
I think it comes back to that what we said about not financial funding, but capital. So I think we want to learn from our entrepreneurs as much as they learn from us. I think each entrepreneurs had either failed businesses or been very successful in what in their journey, that human capital. So we are coaching them, and they're coaching us, you know, we are learning from their experience. So there's human capital, even after we've closed around. So one company we invested in as being my job in maternal health. So basically, 85% of mothers who have bleeding after giving birth, are still dying from excessive bleeding. And it's just ridiculous in this day and age, why we would have that. So they've developed this medical device diagnostic, I won't bore people with all the details, but they're really cool company out of Sydney. So worth looking at, and they're expanding in the US now. But they're raising the next round. So my job as an investor is to keep touting about them and podcasts like this about Check out this cool company. We introduce them to other investors, and we identify risks and poke holes on hey, you're gonna have problems with this one. Make sure you've got an expert behind this. Hey, have you talked to this other company? So our job is not just providing that million, 2 million whatever check. You can get money. There's a there's money around the world. There's a lot of places. If you knock and knock doors you will get money. But it's all those other elements of the business to help them and I'll be honest, we probably don't do as much as we'd like to. But we do try and do something and keep in touch with them and follow their journey. So, yeah, I think investment is not just the financial modeling, the valuation of the company, how much check we put in and all the technical things. I think that's the start, once you've invested, because this company can only get successful, and I want to be, I want to make sure for financial returns, if this company is not going to be successful, I'm not I'm not going to get my return back to my investors. So I have a vested interest on to keep supporting this company to be successful.
Morgan Bailey 35:39
And how do you balance like the financial, the pressure for financial success with the pressure to for them to make an impact? Right, because sometimes their businesses, those can seem sort of diametrically opposed, right? Like a they're making an impact and focus on here are making profits. So how do you how do you help companies, these companies navigate that space?
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 36:03
I can go into a big philosophical chat on this. Morgan, and I'm not going to, but I will tell people, there's another cool book that I read was innovation blind spot by Ross bed. And it's the two pocket thinking of we feel we make a lot of money in one pocket. And we do charity and philanthropic and purposeful things from the other pocket. I think what we've discounted in capitalism, often is we've used resources and technology and people without costing for the, for the lot of the social and environmental impact that they've had. So there's been just still wrong. And I'm not an economist, and probably speaking about my experience here. But coming back to our businesses, I think this is just going to be the new normal, I feel more going off of investing. I think now we are talking about impactful ventures or social entrepreneurs or impact investors, as this niche, cool, trendy, different way of doing the business. At least the optimist in meetings and 100 200 years are great grandkids will be looking back and saying, Whoa, those guys and 2000s or 1800s, and 1900s, were really backward. They were having, they just didn't account for a lot of these. You know, this is not how to we should be doing business. So they have finally progressed. So I think how investments are entrepreneurs, this will be the new, this will be the standard, but I think it's going to take time for it to get established into the mainstream. So I don't know if I answered your question there. But I definitely took a philosophical tangent on it.
Morgan Bailey 37:51
Yes, no, no, no, I appreciate that. And I appreciate that book recommendations. Well, this has been a great episode for book recommendations.
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 37:59
You can see my background, but I have, um, I love books, or at least I love collecting books. I don't get to read as much. But yeah,
Morgan Bailey 38:09
I think I always have there's about 10 books, I always have open at some time reading. And I'm like, I'm committed to finishing them all. But it may take quite quite a bit of time. So I'm with you on that. So okay. I mean, and that's one thing that I think that, that I know, I'm always curious about when it comes to balancing the impact versus the profit and what that looks like. And, and I think as we move forward, like the ability for those just to be integrated. And, you know, it's my belief that if your organization does more harm to the world than good, that it just shouldn't exist. Like that's negative for the world. And I think that's, oddly enough, that's not currently, that's not currently a benchmark that's not currently a measuring stick for businesses in the world. But I think it will be
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 38:54
interesting, though, Morgan, I think I mean, let's think about where the how capital flows, I think Ross maybe had covered that in the book himself. How capital is flowing off, and it's our savings. So you and I are making some, we trying to save a bit from our whatever high cost of living right now. We tried to save little pockets. And we're putting it into pension plans, for example, these pension plans get caught into some big, big super fund or pension fund or a sovereign wealth fund. Those sovereign wealth funds, start putting money into institutional funds, those institutional funds then start putting money into venture capitalists, and then venture capitalists start putting money into in US entrepreneurs, so social or not, and I think you're finding everyday people like you and me are now pressuring with you if we start becoming more mindful of where am I saving? Where am I investing. So what stocks Am I putting money into which savings schemes are they being intentional on impact? If we start putting Going back as a generation on some of those parameters, the pension and the sovereign wealth funds are now having to be like, Oh, wait, there's more funds that are being accumulated by that fund, because it's more purpose and impact driven. Now, I don't think that is the mainstream yet. Not everyone in the world cares. We, Everyone's tired trying to make where do I get five 10% return on my investment. I don't care what the impact is. But people don't want to put money in oil. People don't want to put money in weapons. So you are more conscious of those more ethical investment saving spots. So I do think I do think there's a shift, though. I wish it was faster.
Morgan Bailey 40:42
Yeah. And that's, I mean, that is a topic I'm passionate on the ethical investing. That's a whole nother episode. That's a whole bunch of a series of episodes there. And it is something we're facing some challenging times United States, because there is some political backlash to wanting to do that. There are some some, there are politicians who are looking to block retirement savings from being from having investment funds that are, you know, that are based in sustainability or alternative energy, right? Under this guise of well, if you're putting people's retirements at risk, we know oil and gas is, you know, true and through, right. And so let's we're going to create regulations that say, this is where investment funds can go, this is where they can't. And ultimately, it's short sighted. Because, you know, if you know if, you know, the climate continues to, you know, the temperature continues to increase climate change continues to create disruptions that's going to hit the economy, that's going to hit the long term bottom line. And so it's I think it's a really short sighted way to look at it that I think, you know, some politicians are in the United States. So I think that's something we're gonna have to wade through. But I think you're absolutely right. And I know, I think a couple years ago, when I looked at my retirement savings, it was really intimidating for me to figure out well, I don't have I'm not an economist, I'm not I'm not in investor, like, what does this mean? What is an index fund? Right? Like, yeah, no, I didn't even know any of these things. And I think if the advice I'd give to people who are like, Well, where do we even start? Start slowly, it took me about two years, to figure out where to change my banks to and to banks that I agreed with. And, you know, first thing was get your money out of Chase. That's number one. You know, figuring that out, too, then going through and saying, hey, you know, what, you know, where, where can I invest my retirement funds? Like in how do I search for that? And I actually went through and changed my portfolio to say, okay, these, these are not funding private prisons. This is not funny toil and gas. And it took time. And I think at first it was so intimidated, know where to start. And I gave myself about a year, year and a half. And eventually I did it. And I'm happy I did.
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 42:57
And it's asking the city questions. None of us are experts. Like, I, even when I look at biotech, I fully get intimidated by there's so much expertise in tech, even finance. And I think sometimes I think just having, I'm just gonna ask the dumb questions, right, I'm gonna just Google it, I'm just going to take time, because I'm putting I'm putting my money. So if I'm not being authentic, on on where I'm putting my money, then I can keep talking as much as about this impact and all this good that I'm trying to create. But hey, I'm actually pocketing my money and just making money out like everyone else. And I'm probably still getting it wrong. In my own financial. I'm sure there's blind spots that I just haven't untangled yet. But I think it's just being more mindful and intentional about our own finances. Definitely helps.
Morgan Bailey 43:51
Yeah, and that's a journey. And, you know, and I think, you know, shares last thing before we, before we start to wrap on here, because it's such a meaty topic, but you know, I had this realization that, like, so many of these things are so difficult for us in terms of the information we need to make good decisions, right? In terms like, where do I buy my clothes from? Right to like, what about my food? Like, it's coming from? Totally, like, what is it? Is it better to get a large farm food? Is it you know, what is the carbon footprint? Like, you know, think about where do I invest my money? What do I bank with? Like, it's overwhelming? Yeah, taking it small. And if you have kids start teaching them stuff early. Because if we if we started learning this stuff early, about where to buy our food, well, we wouldn't be stressing about that. Now. We'd be like, oh, yeah, this is kind of how I was brought up, I was brought up with these learnings and these values. And it's something that you know, if we're taught and when we're young, you know, it's it's knowledge that we get to carry with us and slowly grow as opposed to all of a sudden having this realization that I have no idea what the impact my life has having Around the world. That's a that's a that's a difficult place to start.
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 45:04
It is. And you I wouldn't have said it better Morgan. I think, though, I made different facades that I'd say is putting my bio nature hat on and not like tinkering with DNA, but actually the beauty of life and nature. We do talking about the situation and us and politics and policies there. And honestly, I think, human beings, I'm reading this book again, sapiens by Yuval, Noah Harare, and it's something like always investors seem to read. I haven't read it for years. But humans have been for two and a half million years. And we've gone through a few ice ages and some dramatic climate shifts. So my point is, all these politicians, everyone's looking for a short term cushy, how can I get this great house and a yacht and a jet and all that stuff? Great. So you're gonna live a good life? What about the generations ahead? Because nature will counterbalance if that's a pandemic, if that's a sort of a climate sort of hurricane or some earthquake or something is happening now nature is balancing out, you know, this is physics and chemistry of geology. So it's going to balance out. And I think what's going to affect is just as human species that there's advancement, so you've seen lots of civilizations. Netflix has this great documentary series called ancient civilizations, which talks about Atlantis, about this really intelligent civilization that was there in the Caribbean, somewhere close to the Caribbean. And they were so arrogant and egoistic about how clever and successful they were. And they got wiped out by some climate event. And we still there, you know, there's still future generations of human civilizations, but the Atlantis people are not around, right. So I think, yeah, I think at the end of the day, nature's still gonna be around in some shape or form. Maybe it'll be bacteria and viruses rather than humans, or maybe there'll be some super bunkered up billionaires living in banks and under the surface. It will, it will, it will continue on, and I feel Yeah, I think politics. Yeah, as I said, we can do, as you said, as well, but I think we can only do small things ourselves to to make a difference.
Morgan Bailey 47:31
Yeah, absolutely. And if enough of us do that, things will shift. So thank you so much this conversation, we went a lot different directions, which Yeah, I'm like, my, we just turned this into a series or just turn into the Morgan cheetah podcast and talk about everything.
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 47:49
I don't know how much about I don't know, we did what we wanted to do in the podcast. But hey, we talked about some really cool things there. So
Morgan Bailey 47:56
I love that. I love that. Awesome. So if people want to find out more about you and your work and Global Fund, how can they do that?
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 48:04
We've got a website, global bio Fund and the specific health fund, Javon, just it's on the website. We've got a rock stellar team in the States, UK and Australasia. I am mostly active on social media. So I'm becoming more mindful of social media now, and which channels do I support? So I'm very active on LinkedIn. And I do write some of my rantings. If we've not got both today, you will see some of it on LinkedIn. And I'm more I've got more personal posts on Instagram. So I'm on those two, four profiles as well. If you want to get in touch and share your story as well. I'd love to meet some cool people in your network. Morgan.
Morgan Bailey 48:45
Thank you so much for for your time and everything you're bringing into the world.
Ipshita Mandal-Johnson 48:50
Thank you. Thanks for this opportunity.
Morgan Bailey 48:53
Thanks for listening to another episode of the Profit Meets Impact podcast. If you'd enjoy this experience, please subscribe wherever you find your podcasts and leave a positive review. You can also find out more about the podcast at www.ProfitMeetsImpact.com