Join Shaiza Rizavi, co-CEO at Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co in conversation with Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder and CEO of Acumen and Steph Speirs, Founder and former CEO of Solstice as they discuss the power of entrepreneurship at the intersection of climate and poverty. They’ll talk about the communities hardest hit and the potential of the private sector to power lasting solutions. 

This program is part of the COAL + ICE exhibition and series of programs at Asia Society, Feb. 13-Aug. 11, 2024, designed to provoke thought and action on climate change. Galleries will be open until 6:30 p.m. on July 23 and museum admission will be included for holders of event tickets from 5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Jacqueline Novogratz is the Founder and CEO of Acumen, a global community that fights poverty and builds dignity by investing in companies and change makers using both philanthropy-backed pioneer investing and for-profit impact funds. Jacqueline’s two decades of work with Acumen have impacted over 500 million people across Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States.

To date Acumen has invested more than $154 million of patient capital into 167 companies, and is also responsible for nearly $243 million in assets under management via its for-profit funds. Realizing that human capital is as critical as financial capital, Acumen also trains social entrepreneurs and innovators through Acumen Academy, which has cultivated over 1600 leaders in 61 countries. Through its online courses, Acumen Academy has influenced more than a million individuals from 193 countries.

Jacqueline is the author of two award-winning books: the best-selling The Blue Sweater (2010), and Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: Practices to Build a Better World (2020). She is a member of The B Team and serves on numerous boards and advisory boards. She has been named one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy, one of Insider’s Climate Action 30 leaders, one of the 25 Smartest People of the Decade by the Daily Beast, and one of the world’s 100 Greatest Living Business Minds by Forbes. She holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BA in Economics/International Relations from the University of Virginia.

Steph Speirs Steph is an entrepreneur and community builder with management experience in the Middle East, South Asia, and the United States.

Steph serves on the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club Foundation, Energy Allies, Vote Solar, and Clean Energy for America. She keynotes on the future of climatetech and clean energy, climate solutions, community benefits, and entrepreneurship.

She most recently co-founded and ran Solstice, an enterprise dedicated to radically expanding the number of American households that can take advantage of clean energy using community-shared solar farms. She previously led sales and marketing innovation initiatives in India at d.light, a solar products company powering areas without reliable electricity; spearheaded Acumen's renewable energy impact investment strategy in Pakistan; developed Middle East policy at the White House National Security Council; and field organized in seven states for the first Obama presidential campaign.

She holds a B.A. from Yale, a Master in Public Affairs (MPA) with distinction from Princeton, and an MBA from MIT with a Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Steph was selected as an EY New England Entrepreneur of the Year, US C3E Entrepreneurship Award Winner, Inc Magazine Female Founder 100, Echoing Green Climate Fellow, a Kia Revisionary, a Renewable Energy World 40 Under 40 in Solar, Elle Magazine/INCO’s US Impact Entrepreneur of the Year, a Grist 50 Fixer, a Sierra Club Face of Clean Energy, a GLG Social Impact Fellow, a Cordes Fellow, a Global Good Fund Fellow, and an Acumen Global Fellow.

She originally hails from Hawaii and was raised by a single immigrant mother.

Shaiza Rizavi serves as co-Chief Executive Officer and Money Manager at Gilder, Gagnon, Howe and Co. A graduate of Vanderbilt University and Columbia Business School, Shaiza began her career as an investigator in the public defender service and designing youth development programs in Southeast Asia. Imagining the future, she now invests in the growth stocks of companies improving their industries and customer options. Individually managed accounts for artists, dentists, doctors, teachers and others range from $10,000 to much greater. The relationship with clients is based on a shared commitment to accept volatility as a necessary challenge in pursuing growth and the miracle of compounding.

Former Board Chair at Acumen, Shaiza serves on the Vanderbilt Board of Trust and Chairs the Campaign Cabinet for Peabody College. At Columbia Business School, Shaiza serves on the Board, the Investment Board of the Tamer Fund for Social Ventures, and also co-Chairs the Advisory Board of the Tamer Institute for Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change.

Shaiza serves on the boards of Weill Cornell Medicine, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Seeds of Peace. She is a member of the Advisory Council of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History where she is an Honorary Trustee. She is a member of the Economic Club of New York and the Women Fly Fishers Club.

Shaiza and her husband, Jon Friedland, live in New York with their four children.