Leading impact finance expert Karl Richter joins ixo
The ixo Foundation is excited to announce that social impact and investing leader Karl Richter has joined the ixo board as a strategic and technical adviser.
Karl was recently the Head of Research and Knowledge for the United Nations’ UNDP SDG Impact Finance initiative (UNSIF), where he led research to improve the analytical framework for social impact investing.
He is going to bring his vast experience and a data science perspective to ixo as it seeks to grow a trusted and open-source standard for impact data, which will help the world achieve sustainable development.
Karl said: “During my 12-month assignment with the UN SDG impact Finance initiative, I had two primary objectives. The first was to explore the feasibility of establishing a global research council for impact investing. And the second was more relevant to the work of ixo: developing a universal rubric for impact management processes.
“I’ve been following ixo for some time and I’ve been impressed at the rapid progress that has been made. I’m excited to contribute, and the first step for me is to get a better understanding of the organization and the priority issues.”
Karl is the co-founder of EngagedX, which specialises in providing bespoke consultancy, thought leadership, advocacy and policy work. He has represented the UK on social investment at EU level and was invited by US Secretary of State to be a plenary panelist at the Global Impact Economy Forum in 2012
In 2011, he co-authored the book ‘Making Good in Social Impact Investment: Opportunities in an Emerging Asset Class’.
Karl began talking with ixo founder and CEO Shaun Conway after a conference of industry leaders hosted by UBS Optimus Foundation and the ixo Foundation.
The event examined how technology could help impact organisations better attribute both positive and negative externalities — to reward and incentivize positive contributions while properly costing negative ones.
Karl said: “I’m a healthy skeptic around blockchain. On the one hand I’m intuitively a huge convert to the idea of distributed data systems generally and then distributed ledger technologies specifically. I keep an open mind as to where the blockchain is, and whether we will see it either replaced or enhanced by other technologies.
“ixo shares a similar philosophy. Blockchain is central to the vision but ixo is prepared to use a broad spectrum of technologies to achieve its goals. The goals come before the technology.
“Overall, I think it’s really important to bring a data science perspective to the idea of impact data and impact management. To do that on the back of a cutting-edge technology like blockchain is really exciting.”
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