The Quarantine Tapes 178: Jacqueline Novogratz

The Quarantine Tapes

On episode 178 of The Quarantine Tapes, Paul Holdengräber is joined by Jacqueline Novogratz. Jacqueline is the founder and CEO of the non-profit Acumen. Jacqueline and Paul celebrate their birthday, both born on the Ides of March, before turning to how Jacqueline approaches her work with Acumen, both during the pandemic and beyond.

Jacqueline talks about how Acumen engages with investment and how the pandemic drove them to understand their role in community-building on a deeper level. They talk about the need for moral imagination and the essential role of reading in building understanding, touching on Mary Oliver, Gabriel García Márquez, and more.

Jacqueline Novogratz is the Founder and CEO of Acumen. In 2001, Jacqueline founded Acumen with the idea of investing philanthropic patient capital in entrepreneurs seeking to solve the toughest issues of poverty. As a pioneer of impact investing, Acumen and its investments have brought critical services like healthcare, education and clean energy to hundreds of millions of low-income people.

After supporting hundreds of entrepreneurs, Jacqueline and her team recognized character as the crucial ingredient for success; in 2020, they launched Acumen Academy to instruct others in global social change. Under Jacqueline’s leadership, Acumen also has launched several for-profit impact funds designed to invest at the intersection of poverty and climate change, and has spun off 60 Decibels, founded on the principle that serving all stakeholders is as important as enriching shareholders.

Jacqueline is the New York Times best-selling author of The Blue Sweater and Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: Practices to Build a Better World. She has been named one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy, 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, which also honored her with the Forbes 400 Lifetime Achievement Award for Social Entrepreneurship.

Credits:

Paul Holdengraber - Co-Creator, Host, OLA Director
Anthony Audi - Co-Creator, Researcher, OLA Director
Alejandro Cohen - Co-Creator, Producer, Composer
Christian Pitt - Production Coordinator
Erin Cooney - Copy, Production
Dublab Team