“This is not something we’re doing like old-fashioned private equity and then just giving it some ‘impact lipstick’ at the end. The impact analysis is just as serious as the financial analysis. It has to be a good financial investment and it has to help us to reach our impact objectives, which involves reaching millions of low-income people.”
— Stewart Langdon
Stewart Langdon is Partner and Co-Head of South Asian Investments at LeapFrog Investments, a private equity impact investment firm that invests in financial and healthcare services businesses providing essential services to low-income populations in emerging markets. Stewart leads financial services investments, primarily in India, and digital financial services across Asia and Africa, with a focus on deal sourcing and execution.
Prior to joining LeapFrog, Stewart’s career encompasses corporate finance, investment banking, and capital markets advisory as a vice president at Rothschild & Co. He specialized in the insurance, banking, and telecom sectors across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
A member of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association, Stewart is also a trustee of the Asia Scotland Institute and chairs its business advisory council. He sits on the boards of a number of portfolio companies including WorldRemit, BIMA and Cignifi. He holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Aberdeen and is a chartered accountant.
In today’s episode we discuss Stewart’s early career and how he made the switch from investment banking to impact investing, joining LeapFrog Investments in 2010. We learn about LeapFrog’s investment decision-making process with both financial return and impact metrics being equally weighted and the financial and non-financial screens they use. Stewart speaks about how LeapFrog verifies and measures the impact of their investments using the company’s FIIRM framework.
Stewart gives insights into LeapFrog’s key areas of competence, how they avoid greenwashing and “impact washing” and he describes the impact of technology on the ability to provide large numbers of people with financial and healthcare services. From the transformative power of technology to their evolving investor profile, he provides valuable insights into the intersection of financial returns, sustainable investing strategies, and measurable positive impact outcomes. During this episode, we look at LeapFrog’s typical investor profile and how this has changed over time, and we hear some real-life examples of investments that LeapFrog has made.
I really enjoyed my discussion with Stewart and I hope you will too.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, 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…
SELECTED LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:
- Connect with Stewart Langdon: LinkedIn
- Allianz
- Ashoka
- BIMA
- Celltel
- DFC
- EIB
- Ernst & Young
- FIIRM Framework
- IFC
- JUMO
- LeapFrog CX Launchpad
- LeapFrog Investments
- LeapFrog Talent Accelerator
- Mahindra
- miLife
- Policy Bazaar
- Prudential
- Rothschild & Co.
- Temasek
- Western Union
- Zepz
SHOW NOTES:
[00:00] Episode introduction
[05:49] Stewart’s career background and how he started in investment banking before moving to impact investing
[08:37] Stewart speaks about his studies at the University of Aberdeen and he explains why he didn’t go on to pursue a career in Law
[11:16] Stewart tells us about his move to investment banking at Rothschild & Co.
[12:53] We learn how Stewart came to join LeapFrog Investments in 2010
[13:56] Stewart gives an overview of LeapFrog Investments and the company mission
[20:52] Stewart describes LeapFrog’s four funds
[21:55] We hear how Andy Kuper founded LeapFrog Investments and the genesis behind it
[24:28] Stewart shares how LeapFrog select their investments
[27:20] We hear about the financial and non-financial screens that LeapFrog uses
[28:18] How LeapFrog vets their investment targets and the due diligence used when making investments
[30:57] Stewart shares some examples of investments LeapFrog have made
[38:14] We discuss how LeapFrog verifies the impact of their investments and we hear about the company’s FIIRM framework
[40:50] How LeapFrog avoids greenwashing, or impact washing
[43:16] We discuss LeapFrog’s key areas of competence and what sets them apart from others
[46:29] We look at LeapFrog’s typical investor profile and how this has changed over time
[50:59] Stewart describes LeapFrog’s recent partnership with Temasek and what this means for the company
[52:14] We discuss the potential of technology to scale access to essential financial and healthcare services for lower income populations
[54:56] The single most important challenge in the sustainable impact investment space at this time
[55:30] What Stewart knows now about impact investing that he wishes he had known when he joined LeapFrog in 2010
[56:56] Lessons learned from an investment that didn’t go to plan
[57:54] An example of an investment he had passed on that worked out better than expected
[59:26] Stewart shares his advice on how to get into the impact investing space
MORE STEWART LANGDON QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW:
“If we can help low-income people get access to these essential services that everybody else in the world just takes for granted [healthcare, financial services, insurance], that will reduce poverty and help lift that group up towards the middle class. And that’s where we get both our profit and our purpose. ”
— Stewart Langdon
“A lot of what you see today is a bunch of private equity guys who have suddenly decided they’re going to do impact investing and go out and come up with whatever framework. But is it really there in the DNA of their organizations? For us, it’s so authentically within our DNA to do the impact piece properly. We’re specific about the impact that we want to have… And at this point, we’ve been working so hard in our markets for such a long period of time, we feel like we know who the good people are and who are the baddies. ”
— Stewart Langdon
“We’re not impact generalists, we’re very specialized… we know how to do financial services, we know how to do healthcare, and that’s it… we don’t go outside of those tram lines. So, it’s very carefully defined, what we’re doing… and very intentional. ”
— Stewart Langdon
“For us… the critical thing is that we’re completely commercial in our orientation. We don’t believe in trade-offs, so we benchmark ourselves against the private equity peer group. We see no good reason why we should be under-performing our private equity peers just because we’re doing impact. In fact, we think, if anything, it enhances returns. ”
— Stewart Langdon
PEOPLE MENTIONED:
