Visiting Global Shapers Q&A with New York Hub
1. What’s your name? Angela Chen
2. Which hub are you from? Toronto, Canada
3. What brings you to New York? For once, I came down to NY for fun and not for work!
4. What are you working on? I advise environmental impact focused non-profits and foundations on sustainable finance and impact investing at Impact Capitalyst, where I am on the founding team. We work on development and execution of global capital markets strategies with a focus on soft commodities, structuring financial instruments that incorporate social and environmental outcomes, and portfolio development for blended finance and impact investment funds.
5. What’s your passion/what matters to you? And why? I am passionate about creating a new market equilibrium for sustainable growth. I am also really excited about the talent mobilization of the millennial generation in all sectors to work on what were traditionally considered “non-profit” issues. Studying finance in school shortly after the ’08 crash was a bit of shock for me — I struggled with the question of “what is it all for?”. Then one day or maybe it was gradually over time, I realized that how the markets function as well as how we choose meaningful work are both up to us — we have the responsibility to contribute to the best version of the world we want. It’s cheesy, but true.
6. What does being a part of the Global Shapers Community mean to you? I was incredibly humbled to have been named a Shaper when I had just turned 20. Shapers are my family, and continuously inspire me with their boundless energy and commitment to impact, whether it is a Shaper I strike up a conversation with at the Annual Curator’s Meeting in Geneva or Toronto Shapers who are some of my closest friends today.
7. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? My all-time favourite advice is from Aristotle:
Where your talents and the needs of the world cross; there lies your vocation.
8. For what in your life do you feel most grateful? I am grateful for my parents and grandparents for teaching me everything I know about sacrifice and perseverance, and the opportunity to grow up in the multi-cultural mosaic that is Canada.
The Global Shapers Community is a network of dynamic, entrepreneurial and socially-engaged young leaders aged between 20 and 30 from across the world.
