FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Inquiries: Lara Cote, Social Finance, 617-791-4829, lcote@socialfinanceus.org
Social Finance, INC. Announces NEW FOUNDING MEMBERS TO ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Alexander
Friedman, Professor Michael Porter, Luther M. Ragin, Jr., and Sonal
Shah to Join David Blood, Sir Ronald Cohen, Brace Young and Tracy
Palandjian as Founding Board Members
BOSTON, MA, SEPTEMBER 19, 2011 – Social Finance, Inc.,
an impact investment firm leading the development of the Social Impact Bond
market in the U.S., has appointed four new Directors to its founding Board:
- Alexander
Friedman, Chief Investment Officer of UBS Wealth Management
and former CFO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
- Professor
Michael Porter, Bishop William Lawrence
University Professor at the Harvard Business School,
- Luther
M. Ragin, Jr., CEO of the Global Impact Investing
Network and former Chief Investment Officer of the F.B. Heron Foundation,
and
- Sonal
Shah, former Director of the White House Office of
Social Innovation and Civic Participation.
The new members join:
- David
Blood, Senior Partner of Generation Investment
Management,
- Sir
Ronald Cohen, Chair of Big Society Capital,
The Portland Trust and Bridges Ventures
- Brace
Young, CEO of Mariner Investment Group, and
- Tracy
Palandjian, CEO of Social Finance.
Full biographies are below.
“Building a strong, diverse, and engaged Board of
Directors is critical to our long-term success,” said Tracy Palandjian, Founder
and CEO of Social Finance. “We are honored to have the stewardship of such
distinguished leaders. Social Finance’s mission requires us to be effective
across sectors – private, public and social – and our founding Directors bring
extraordinary expertise and recognized distinction in each domain.”
Founded in January 2011, Social Finance is a nonprofit
organization working to connect the social sector with the capital markets by
structuring and managing innovative investment instruments that generate both
social benefit and financial returns. The Social Impact Bond (SIB), also known
as a Pay For Success bond, is at the core of Social Finance’s current efforts.
The SIB is a financial instrument that aligns the interests of private
investors, nonprofit service providers, and governments in an effort to improve
the lives of individuals and communities in need. SIBs raise private capital to
fund nonprofit prevention programs aimed at achieving improved social outcomes
that generate government savings. If an independent evaluator determines that
the pre-defined outcomes have been met, the government repays investors their
principal and a rate of return that account for only a portion of its savings.
If the pre-defined outcomes have not been met, the government owes nothing.
Social Finance is currently working with policy makers
in a number of states who are considering launching Social Impact Bonds. In
May, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to formally explore
implementing this new financing tool for effective nonprofit organizations. In
its work in Massachusetts, Social Finance has highlighted a number of proven
nonprofit preventive programs that could be considered for a SIB, including
permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals;
housing-based support for homeless families; home- and community-based
aging-in-place programs for elders; community-based alternatives to juvenile
detention; and alternative community corrections for adult offenders.
Biographies of Board of Directors:
David Blood is
co-founder and Senior Partner of Generation Investment Management. Previously, he spent 18 years at Goldman Sachs including
serving as co-CEO and CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management from
1999-2003. David received a B.A. from Hamilton College and an M.B.A. from
the Harvard Graduate School of Business. He is on the Board of Harvest
Power, New Forests, SHINE, Social Finance UK, Social Finance US, The Nature
Conservancy, Fondation 1796 and Hamilton College; the Advisory Board of Bridges
Ventures and the Harvard Business School Visiting Committee.
Sir Ronald Cohen is
Chairman of Big Society Capital, The Portland Trust and Bridges Ventures. He chaired
the UK’s Social Investment Task Force (2000-2010) and Commission on Unclaimed
Assets (2005-2007). He was a co-founder and chairman of Apax Partners. Founded
in 1972, Apax Partners is now one of the world’s leading private equity
investment groups. He is a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers and the
Board of Dean’s Advisers at Harvard Business School, a Vice-Chairman of Ben
Gurion University and a member of the University of Oxford Investment
Committee. He is also a Trustee of the British Museum. In 2007, Sir Ronald
published The Second Bounce of the Ball – Turning Risk into Opportunity.
He is a graduate of Oxford University, where he was President of the Oxford
Union and is an Honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. He holds an M.B.A
from Harvard Business School.
Alexander Friedman is
the Chief Investment Officer of UBS Wealth Management, the world's largest
wealth manager, and chairman of its global investment committee. Prior to
joining UBS, Alex was founder and managing partner of Asymmetry LLC, and a
member of its management committee during a period when the foundation more
than doubled in size. Earlier in his career, Alex was an investment banker at
Lazard and also served as a White House fellow and as an assistant to the
Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration. Alex is chairman of
Safeboats International and is a non-executive director of Actis. A member of
the Council on Foreign Relations, he serves on the boards of the Seattle Art
Museum and the Access Fund. Alex received a J.D. and an M.B.A. from Columbia
University and a B.A. from Princeton University.
Tracy Palandjian is
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Social Finance, Inc. Prior to launching
the firm in January 2011, Tracy was a Managing Director at The Parthenon Group
(1999-2010), a global strategy consulting firm. At Parthenon, Tracy built and
led the nonprofit practice, where she advised foundations, nonprofits and
corporations on strategy development, impact investing, and knowledge and
innovation in the US and abroad. She is a co-author of Investing for Impact:
Case Studies Across Asset Classes. Prior to Parthenon, Tracy worked at
McKinsey & Co. and Wellington Management Co. She currently chairs the Board
of Directors of Facing History and Ourselves, and serves on the boards of the
Robert F. Kennedy Center and Agassi Graf Holdings. She is also a member of the
Investment Committee of Milton Academy. Tracy graduated magna cum laude from
Harvard College, with a B.A. in Economics and received an M.B.A. with high
distinction from Harvard Business School where she was a Baker Scholar.
Michael E. Porter is
the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor, based at the Harvard Business
School, and is a leading authority on competitive strategy, the competitiveness
and economic development of nations, states, and regions, and the application
of competitive principles to social problems such as health care, the
environment, and corporate responsibility. Professor Porter is generally
recognized as the father of the modern strategy field, and has been identified
in a variety of rankings and surveys as the world’s most influential thinker on
management and competitiveness. He is the author of 18 books and over 125
articles. He is the Founder and Chairman of the Initiative for a Competitive
Inner City, the co-founder of Center for Effective Philanthropy and FSG Social
Impact Advisors, and serves on the board of directors of Thermo Fisher
Scientific Corporation and Parametric Technology Corporation. He is also a Senior
Strategy Advisor for the Boston Red Sox. He received a B.S.E. with high honors
in aerospace and mechanical engineering from Princeton University, an M.B.A.
with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker
Scholar, and a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University.
Luther M. Ragin, Jr. is
Chief Executive Officer of the Global Impact Investing Network. Previously, he
was Chief Investment Officer of the F.B. Heron Foundation, a national
foundation with assets of $250 million. Prior to joining the Foundation in
1999, Luther was the Chief Financial Officer of the National Community Capital
Association, a trade association of community development financial
institutions that provide access to capital in low-income communities. Other
significant experience includes eight years as Chief Financial Officer of Earl
G. Graves, Ltd., and seven years with Chase Manhattan Bank, including three
years as Vice President of Syndications/Assets Sales for the North American
Corporate Finance Sector. Luther is a member of the Board of Directors of
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, ShoreBank Corporation and The Threshold
Group. He holds a B.A. and Master of Public Policy from Harvard, and is a
graduate of Columbia University's Executive Program in Business Administration.
Sonal Shah was
appointed by President Obama to start and lead the first White House Office of
Social Innovation and Civic Participation. She also served on President
Obama's Transition Board overseeing the Technology, Innovation, Government
Reform working group. Before joining the White House, Sonal led Google’s
global development initiatives for its philanthropy, Google.org. Prior to
Google, Sonal was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs, Inc. Sonal also
co-founded a non-profit, Indicorps, which offers fellowships for
Indian-Americans to work on development projects in India. She has worked
at the Center for American Progress focusing on trade, outsourcing and post
conflict issues. She also developed and managed policy and advocacy programs
for the Center for Global Development. From 1995-2002, Sonal was an economist
at the Department of Treasury, where she directed the office for African
Nations, worked on the Asian Financial Crisis and post conflict development in
Bosnia and Kosovo. Sonal received her M.A. in Economics from Duke
University and B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago. She is an
Aspen Crown Fellow and a Next Generation Fellow.
Brace Young is
Chief Executive Officer and Partner of Mariner Investment Group, and a member
of Mariner’s Investment and Management Committees. Brace is also a General
Securities Principal for Mariner Group Capital Markets Inc. He joined Mariner
directly from Goldman Sachs, where he retired as a Partner, head of European
Debt Capital Markets. Brace also headed fixed income and foreign exchange sales
in London beginning in 1992. In 1989, Brace moved to Tokyo to run all of the
firm’s fixed income activity in Japan. Brace first became a Partner at Goldman
Sachs in New York City in 1988 where he was the Co-Head of the Money Market
Sales and Trading Department in 1988. He was the Head Trader for institutional
money market funds from 1983 to 1988 and started at Goldman Sachs on the
Commercial Paper trading desk in 1980. Brace received a Bachelor’s degree from
Bowdoin College in 1977 and an M.B.A. from the Stern School of New York
University in 1983. He is a Trustee of Buckingham Browne & Nichols, a
coeducational day school in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In addition to the new Directors, William A. Ackman
will serve as an observer to the board. Bill is the Chief Executive Officer and
Portfolio Manager of Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P., an investment
adviser founded in 2003 and registered with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. Pershing Square is a concentrated, research-intensive, fundamental
value investor in long and occasionally short investments in the public
markets, typically focusing on large-cap and mid-cap companies. Prior to
forming Pershing Square, Bill co-founded Gotham Partners Management Co., LLC,
an investment adviser that managed public and private equity hedge fund
portfolios. Bill received an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and a B.A.
magna cum laude from Harvard College. Mr. Ackman’s board
memberships include Chairman of The Howard Hughes Corporation (NYSE: HHC), J.C.
Penney (NYSE: JCP), Justice Holdings Limited (JUSH) and the Board of Dean’s
Advisors of the Harvard Business School and a number of not-for-profit boards
including the Pershing Square Foundation, a charitable foundation that he
founded in 2007.
* * *
Social Finance is a
nonprofit organization working to connect the social sector with the capital
markets and finance effective nonprofit organizations driving social change.
Social Finance is independently funded and managed, and leverages the
innovative work of its UK-based sister firm, Social Finance, Ltd., which, along
with others, pioneered the concept of the Social Impact Bond and offered the
first SIB in September of 2010 with the goal of reducing prison recidivism. By
structuring and managing innovative investment instruments that align the
interest of private investors, entrepreneurial nonprofit service organizations,
and governments, Social Finance works to improve the lives of individuals,
families and communities in need. Founding partners include The Boston
Foundation, The Pershing Square Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation. For
more information about Social Finance, visit www.socialfinanceus.org.
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