CASE Chat with Eric Savage, Co-Founder and President, Unitus Capital

This post originally appeared in the CASE blog on May 5, 2016, by Kyle Munn.

 

This month’s CASE Chat features Eric Savage, Co-Founder and President of Unitus Capital. Based in Bangalore, India, Unitus Capital was founded in 2008 with the mission of accelerating capital markets for ventures serving low-income populations in Asia.

In the CASE Chat, Eric discusses initial challenges they faced in starting a social investment bank, the satisfaction that comes from a career in impact, and the critical skills needed to be a successful impact investor.

On investing for impact…

“We’ve seen again and again that people can make very strong financial returns, investing in very impactful, socially impactful companies. So if you can do that, why would you not?”

On growing opportunities for impact careers…

“Within the next ten years… all the jobs that you have in the financial services sector, you’re going to be able to do those with a direct focus on impact if you want to.”

On starting a social investment bank…

“…most told us it was one of the dumber ideas that they’d ever heard. But we didn’t really care. We just knew it was the right thing to do.”

Want to hear more from Eric?

About Eric Savage:

Eric has well over 20 years of investment banking experience.  He moved to India in 2007 to help set up Unitus Capital and has led the company in raising well over US$1 billion for various social businesses.  He has had the privilege of working with many innovative companies that do life changing work in the fields of financial inclusion, affordable health care, renewable energy, affordable education, women empowerment, and agriculture.  Previously, Eric directed Citigroup’s Asia Power & Infrastructure Investment Banking Group and helped secure and execute multiple landmark equity, debt, and M&A transactions totaling many billions of dollars. Learn more.

About Unitus Capital:

Unitus Capital was founded in July 2008 by the international non-profit, Unitus Labs and several committed leading global investors to accelerate the development of the capital markets for entrepreneurial businesses serving low-income populations in Asia and eventually globally. Since its founding, the team has established a strong track record in delivering best-in-class investment banking services. To date, they successfully raised $1.4 billion across 67 clients in India, Indonesia, Philippines, and Australia across a range of diverse sectors including microfinance, renewable energy, health care, education and agriculture. Learn more.

About CASE Chats:

The CASE Chats video series features the movers and shakers in the field of social entrepreneurship sharing their insights on tri-sector leadership, impact investing, social ventures, and more.  View the all the CASE Chats here.