Investing in Untapped Global’s Smart Asset Financing™, an investment in the Future of Asset Financing for Emerging Markets
A Conversation with Jim Williams, Founder and Principal Owner of Williams International LLC
An early-stage investor, advisor to senior management, and non-executive board member for startup companies who has lived, trained, and worked in emerging markets virtually all his life, Jim Williams is excited about the opportunity Untapped Global’s Smart Asset Financing™ represents for economic growth in emerging markets. “I continue to be driven by my real-life experiences in emerging markets,” says Williams. “Having grown up in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and working for 40+ years in international trade and investment — including 24 years underwriting long-term direct investment in the emerging markets, I’ve seen what it takes to enable entrepreneurs and businesses to sustain themselves for long-term success. I believe Untapped Global’s Smart Asset Financing™ will have a huge impact in emerging markets.”
Born in the Philippines, Jim spent his formative years in Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. His upbringing there and later working in emerging markets, and certainly in Southeast Asia and Africa, exposed Jim to both the opportunities and challenges there. In the 1960s, the average GDP in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa were similar. Southeast Asia’s economic structures were also similar to those of some African countries at the time.
We sat down for an interview with Jim to learn more about why he is committed to investing in and growing Untapped Global’s Smart Asset Financing™.
You had quite the global upbringing! Tell us more about yourself and how you got into emerging markets investing.
I am the son of Roger Williams, a U.S. Marine and one of “the greatest generation” who fought in Southeast Asia during World War II who returned after completing college to embark on a long and successful career to market, supply and distribute energy in emerging markets for the Standard Vacuum Oil Company and later with Mobil Oil. Roger’s passion for building successful business opportunities through mutually beneficial and trusting relationships with local entrepreneurs became ingrained in me early on. I was later fortunate to work alongside Roger at The Skarrup Group, a shipping company based in Greenwich, Connecticut, that owned and operated bulk cargo carriers transporting cargoes globally. The years working with The Skaarup Group alongside my dad are the strongest cornerstone for my lifelong ambition to make a difference in emerging markets.
Later in my career, I worked with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (now https//www.DFC.gov), one of the preeminent international finance institutions, the origin of which was the Marshall Plan to reconstruct economies decimated by World War II.
While at OPIC, I had the privilege of working with many companies to underwrite a highly developmental and impactful long-term direct investment projects in emerging markets. Since leaving OPIC, I have sorely missed the opportunity to “make a difference,” so growing my support for Untapped Global’s Smart Asset Financing™ has been a wonderful way to get back into working alongside entrepreneurs and to making more of a tangible difference in emerging markets.
Tell us more about why you decided to invest in Untapped Global.
First, I have to mention how I learned about Untapped Global. Jennifer Faust, who I got to know while we both worked at OPIC, graciously introduced me to Jim Chu soon after she appeared on The Nest, an Untapped Global production similar to Shark Tank. Jennifer was a great panelist on The Nest as her company, Faust Global Partners, is an international business advisory firm that provides clients with strategic advice on ESG & Sustainability, private equity, venture capital, impact investing, and development finance. So soon after Jennifer introduced me to Jim Chu, I dug deep into the business plans and inner workings of Untapped Global, and I made my first investment in Untapped Global in the fourth quarter of 2021. By the way, I also made an investment in Boost Technology, one of the companies that made a pitch on the very same edition of The Nest. So the OPIC alumni network remains as strong and vibrant as ever!
Now, back to your question, I decided to invest in Untapped because I’m convinced that Untapped Global’s Smart Asset Financing™ is a paradigm shift for how financing will be provided in the future. It will be the primary driver for a quantum leap in the amount of capital that can be deployed profitably and with real, measurable economic impact. It will enable many more businesses in emerging markets not just to survive but to thrive! Simply put, Untapped Global is re-engineering and modernizing how to provide asset financing and is doing so more efficiently and productively. Jim Chu and the rest of his team at Untapped Global are quickly scaling up and expanding the availability of “smart” assets with embedded financing with the Internet of Things (IoT) and further re-engineering developing and expanding digital payment platforms.
Untapped Global’s Smart Asset Financing™ is dramatically reducing barriers to entry and supporting an explosion of bottom-up entrepreneurial activity in Africa and other emerging markets by providing pay-as-you-go financing for entrepreneurs who need modern business equipment such as point-of-sale devices, medical devices, e-bikes, and other mobility equipment; or to finance off-grid renewable energy systems and last mile logistics services. This paradigm shift will help emerging markets grow more efficiently and rapidly, and as Untapped Global’s Smart Asset Financing™ fully scales up and expands geographically, it will provide better access to financing for entrepreneurs and more measurable economic growth globally.
You mentioned that you invested in Untapped Global to have an impact. How do you measure social impact, and what does impact investing mean to you?
I believe what Jim Chu and the rest of the Untapped Global team are doing is having a clearly measurable and rapidly growing impact in emerging markets, not just in the ways described earlier but more importantly right down to the micro level, including from a social impact standpoint. For example, in addition to quantifying the capital flows and returns through Smart Asset Financing™, Untapped can determine just how much additional revenue a particular business generates from the assets, which, but for Smart Asset Financing™, that business would not have been able to generate. And Untapped Global’s SmartAssetFinancing™ can more directly quantify and demonstrate how a particular business continues to grow, or falter, almost in real-time — not just from a cash flow standpoint but also in terms of the number of employees, how much they are paid, and what else the business is doing for their employees as well as those of their contractors or suppliers, by providing training or other benefits.
In 5 years, what would you say the Economist or Bloomberg would have to say about Untapped Global?
“Untapped Global’s Smart Asset Financing™ has dramatically changed the way asset financing is provided in emerging markets. It has re-engineered and modernized it to make attracting and deploying capital for emerging markets more efficient and effective and make capital far more accessible to businesses and entrepreneurs. Untapped Global’s Smart Asset Financing™ has taken the world of asset financing in emerging markets a quantum leap forward and helped build a digital asset financing pipeline for the emerging markets that is only limited by the technology available today and the dreams of every entrepreneur to make a difference for themselves and their partners.”
The Untapped Global investment platform is up and running! We’ve built a reliable, high yield, high impact investment platform that gives global investors the opportunity to invest in a portfolio of innovative emerging market companies! Our platform is currently accepting investments from accredited investors. Visit our website, sign up and start investing!
