Join us in 2023 to discuss the hottest topics in impact investing!
Very much like last year, our IMPACT FIRE TALKS 2023 will allow pioneers, movers and shapers to discover or rekindle their fire for impact, challenge the status quo and talk practice. In 2023, our Fire Talks will kick off in June and take place throughout the rest of the year. Enjoy our inspiring virtual sessions that will boost your passion for impact with highly interactive formats, real-life cases and great experts, pioneers and speakers. FASE and our event partners EIB Institute, EVPA, EBAN, Bundesinitiative Impact Investing and Toniic thank you for joining us on the journey for more and deeper impact. For those who can’t make it to one or the other session, our media partner Pioneers Post will cover the highlights for you. Here is what awaits you:
What's hot in our Impact Fire Talks 2023
Session 1 / June 21, 2023, 14:00 – 15:30 CEST
HOW MUCH IMPACT IS IN SDG INVESTING? This provocative question is at the heart of this top-down session. We will dissect SDG from impact investing strategies and investigate the concrete effects of recent regulatory and sector wake-up calls: How deep is the chasm between impact promise and practice? What can we expect from certain labels? How do we move from lip service to reliable impact? Our experts in this session are Charly Kleissner, Ph.D., Co–Founder of Toniic & KL Felicitas Foundation, and Laurence Laplane-Rigal, Director Impact Investing of Amundi. The session is moderated by Nathalie Nebelius from Toniic and hosted by Juliane von Boeselager from FASE.
Register now!
Session 2 / June 27, 2023 (tbc)
EXIT PATHWAYS DURING ECONOMIC DOWNTURN: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE? Exits are one of the key concerns of impact VCs is, especially in times of economic downturn. Questions such as “What is my exit strategy in times of recession and how can I ensure that impact stays at the heart of my portfolio ventures?” are typical and pressing. In this session, we seek to answer them by looking at the best practical hacks and strategies in phases of high inflation and uncertainty by discussing with experienced peers and investors who have been there and done it right. Stay tuned for the speaker and registration link announcements.
Session 3 / September 2023
DIVERSITY BEYOND GENDER: WHERE FUNDERS HAVE BLIND SPOTS: This myth-busting session explores how to truly create a more diverse fundraising environment for impact entrepreneurs. While the DEI topic has stirred a wave of new investment practices, they seem to have barely scratched the surface. Therefore, we will hand the mike to the entrepreneurs who experience first-hand the biases and blind spots that funders still have. But we also look for solutions to the diversity dilemma by picking the brains and creativity of the social entrepreneurs themselves. Speakers and exact date to come soon.
Session 4 / October 2023
DORMITORY BANK ACCOUNTS: A SOLUTION FOR LARGE-SCALE IMPACT? The UK is the front runner and has shown that waking up the sleeping bank account beauties can pay off for the impact world. Now, Germany is on the (h)edge to follow suit. But how to unleash the full potential of this yet-untapped source of capital? What needs to be done differently in other ecosystems such as Germany? And which mistakes and obstacles should be avoided? The speakers and exact date for this important topic will be announced soon.
Who are our Media, Co-funder and sponsoring partners
For this year’s Impact Fire Talks we’re thrilled to be partnering again with Pioneers Post, the news platform for the global impact community. Pioneers Post is offering FASE network members the opportunity to gain unrestricted access to its rich stream of articles and multimedia features on social entrepreneurship and impact investing, with an exclusive 20% discount on both individual and team subscriptions. Use the referral code FASE2023 here or contact subs@pioneerspost.com to discuss a special deal for your team.
In addition to our event partners EVPA, EBAN, Toniic and Bundesinitiative Impact Investing, our special thanks goes to the European Investment Bank Institute for sponsoring the Impact Fire Talks again this year.
The FASE Impact Fire Talks are co-funded by the European Union under the program “ESF-2022-SOC-FIN — Transaction costs to support social finance intermediaries”. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Who came to our Impact Fire Talks last year
New to our Impact Fire Talks? Check out these 2 hot topics from 2022
How do we link incentives to impact? Impact investors have been circling around this topic for quite a while. The first thought that typically comes to mind is linking a fund manager’s carried interest to impact. Also, when asked how to bake impact incentives into investments, most professionals jump right into the topic of impact bonds. But how can we directly incentivise the entrepreneurs on the ground and encourage them to achieve more impact? This session was hosted by Martijn Blom, EVPA & Laura Catana, FASE.
We often fall prey to the unrealistic search of unicorns in the impact space. But aren’t most impact ventures actually zebras that are rarely able to provide a 10x exit opportunity? So how can we rethink exits for zebras in a way that avoids mission drift, while remunerating investors for taking the risks? In this session, we discovered uncharted territory with different exit scenarios that include – but are far from being limited to – the typical VC exit route. The hosts of this session were Kristin Siegel, TONIIC & Christoph Rohde, FASE.
