“At Triodos, we have one mission: making money work for positive change. By positive change, we mean a society that promotes the quality of life of all its members on a thriving planet, with human dignity at its core. It’s about using money consciously to ensure that every company we finance or invest in contributes to that vision. ”
— Hadewych Kuiper
My guest today is Hadewych Kuiper, Managing Director at Triodos Investment Management — a pure-play impact investing firm since day one, with a 30-year track record of turning capital into systemic change.
However, Hadewych didn’t arrive in finance with a grand plan to change the system. Her journey began in a small town in the north of the Netherlands, where she was raised in a Protestant household that blended structure with a quiet rebellion against rigidity.
Her childhood was grounded, shaped by time in nature, and marked by her parents’ early divorce — a rupture that taught her independence before most children even understand the concept. From an early age, she absorbed values that now form the spine of her leadership: directness, responsibility, and a refusal to look away when something doesn’t make sense.
Hadewych studied business administration at Erasmus University. After that, she spent over a decade in consulting, advising boards on market strategy and positioning. But even then, something felt off.
She recalls sitting around a table as colleagues celebrated a new product in the booming “out-of-home” market.
“It was a pot of very thick plastic filled with a kind of apple juice. The margin was huge. This was a big marketing success. And the only thing I could think was: There’s an apple — you only have to take it from the apple tree and you can eat it. What’s the point?”
That question — what’s the point? — has guided her ever since.
That intuition — that business should do more than just optimize margins — eventually led her to Triodos Bank in 2008, right as the financial system was collapsing. Where most banks were unraveling under the weight of complex derivatives, Triodos was untouched.
Why? Because they’d declined to invest in the very products that brought down global markets. “We didn’t really understand them. And that was enough reason to say no.”
In a culture that prizes confidence and complexity, Triodos’ commitment not just to understanding risk, but to insisting on clarity before taking it on, has shaped their approach to investment ever since.
Today, Hadewych leads Triodos Investment Management, a €6 billion AUM firm built on that same philosophical foundation — but with a far broader mandate. The firm invests across five key transitions: energy, food, resources, societal systems, and well-being.
These aren’t just ESG and Impact categories — they’re deeply connected areas that drive real, systemic change.
Triodos made its first wind energy loan in 1986, right after Chernobyl. It began investing in financial inclusion in 1994, before microfinance was a formal asset class. Today, it’s working with UNICEF to pioneer child-lens investing — developing a framework to assess companies based on their impact on future generations.
Its portfolio includes solar-powered irrigation in Africa, seaweed protein startups in Europe, and financial institutions in Latin America that have grown from NGOs into regulated banks.
At Triodos, every investment must show not just expected returns, but why it matters. Whether it’s private equity, debt, or listed markets, the approach stays consistent: clear minimum standards, concentrated portfolios, and strong alignment between values and outcomes.
And yes, it walks away when deals don’t align, even if the financial return looks good. Especially then. Because “all money has impact — every euro, dollar, or pound. The question is whether it’s positive or negative, and whether you’re conscious of it.”
Few firms can claim a 30-year track record of pure-play impact investing. Even fewer have helped define the field and publish their standards for others to use. Triodos has done all of that — and more.
They’re on a mission to make impact investing the new normal. It’s an ambitious goal — and this episode shows what it takes to get there.
Tune in to find out!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
SHOW NOTES:
[00:00] Introduction
[01:34] Early life shaped by values and nature
[05:51] Business administration studies and the Erasmus exchange experience
[09:22] Joining VODW Marketing and early career in consulting
[11:33] Moving from consulting to Triodos Bank when the 2008 financial crisis hit
[22:06] Becoming commercial director, then managing director at Triodos Investment Management
[26:55] Triodos Investment Management – a high-level overview and theory of change
[33:18] An ambitious goal: Making impact investing the new normal
[39:42] Triodos’ five investment transitions
[51:44] Maintaining a consistent impact approach across diverse asset classes
[55:39] Integrated approach to impact, risk, and return
[01:00:41] Triodos’ minimum adverse impact assessment
[01:04:23] Consistent engagement before, during, and after investment
[01:09:47] Challenges with impact data quality
[01:14:14] Transforming the financial system beyond direct investment
[01:17:12] Using blended finance
[01:21:52] Leadership transformation and personal growth
[01:23:32] Only 20% of people need to embrace change to transform society
[01:30:01] Rapid-fire questions
MORE HADEWYCH KUIPER QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW:
“Triodos is too small to change the world. So we always say: we finance change. We show how it needs to be done, and we’re transparent about it. But we also say: we want to change finance. We want to make impact investing the new normal. It’s hugely ambitious — and that’s exactly what I like about it. ”
— Hadewych Kuiper
“It’s not about the first innovator. We need them to make the wave, to make the difference. But it’s actually the first followers who make the large group change. ”
— Hadewych Kuiper
