Francesca Sanderson: impact arts investing, social impact, creativity, living off-grid

Ben Yeoh Chats

Francesca Sanderson managed an ethical equities fund at JPMorgan as an asset manager but quit that to live for a year living off grid. She then became a social impact investor with Big Society Capital and now runs the Arts Impact programmes currently at Nesta.

We chat about what she learned, missed and loved about living off-grid. How she has a more pluralist world view.

Fran talks about what she learned at JP Morgan. The power and the weaknesses of institutional and organisational strength.

“when I was at JP Morgan,I would be watching people move from their CFA and then go now I'm going to do an MBA and I'll be “why do you want to do an MBA? That's not interesting.” Now, with the benefit of 20 years hindsight, I don't think there's anything more interesting or crucial than how organizations work and how stuff gets done”

We discuss social impact, its opportunities and risks and highlight some brilliant projects.

We chat on the the tyranny of numbers and data and the tension between process and oversight, and over burdensome bureaucracy and slowness.

We play overrated/underrated addressing stakeholder capitalism, the settlement movement, and cycling.

Fran ends on her advice, be trustworthy:

“I think that this is a reflection on life and society and where we are today. Trust is underrated. I think I just behave in a trustworthy fashion. It's a long termist thing. It's not freewheeling, can we get away with its culture at all, but ultimately for the benefit of the planet of society, just be honorable when it's not an easy thing to do.”

Transcript and video are available here.