Have you ever talked with someone looking to get into impact investing as a career–and didn’t have any answers on where to go? Over the past three years, the Frontier Market Scouts program, which was launched in 2011 in partnership with Village Capital and Sanghata Global, has been an invaluable launchpad for professionals aspiring to enter the impact investment world–we’ve trained and placed over 75 professionals with investors and start-up ventures in emerging markets over the last three years.
From a professional standpoint at Village Capital, the Frontier Market Scouts have been critical to Village Capital’s sourcing engine: they have recruited over 5,000 unique enterprises to apply to programs in the past 24 months, largely led by Scouts on the ground. Scouts come from top graduate programs and professional firms such as Goldman Sachs, Cambridge & Associates, TDBank, and Deloitte; placements globally have included firms as wide-ranging as Invested Development (Kenya); Unitus Seed Fund (India); Artemisia (Brazil); Transist (China); and New Ventures (Mexico).
FMS and Village Capital are excited to announce that this summer, we will be launching the first US-based Scout placements, in partnership with the Sorenson Center for Global Impact Investing, based at the University of Utah. Scouts will undergo a two-week practitioner-led training in Salt Lake City at the Sorenson Center for Global Impact Investing (formerly known as the University Impact Fund); at the end of the training, they will be placed with impact investors and startup enterprises across the U.S. The program–including curriculum and placements–will be operated in partnership with MIIS.
How you can get involved:
1. Do you know a talented person looking to break into impact investing as a profession? Please forward this e-mail to them: we’ve found the Scouts program to be an excellent career on-ramp. Applications are due May 7th, and the training begins in Salt Lake on May 28th; application can be found at: http://www.miis.edu/academics/short/frontier-market-scouts/apply/application
2. Are you based in the U.S., and do you need short-term project help? Please fill out the short partner form (http://www.miis.edu/academics/short/frontier-market-scouts/partners/partnerform) if you’d like to have a Scout work with you. Scout placements last three-to-six months, starting in mid-June and ending in mid-December. Scouts have been able to add value in deal sourcing, diligence, operational assistance, and sales/business development. You’ll have the opportunity to interview potential placements directly, and we will ask placement partners to contribute a small stipend.
