LeapFrog Investment's Stewart Langdon | Impact Investing, Helping Millions Out of Poverty (#017)

SRI360 | Socially Responsible Investing, ESG, Impact Investing, Sustainable Investing

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.

Show notes: https://sri360.com/podcast/stewart-langdon
About the SRI 360° Podcast: The SRI 360° Podcast is focused exclusively on sustainable & responsible investing. In each episode, Scott Arnell interviews a world-class investor who is an accomplished practitioner from all asset classes. In my interviews, I cover everything from their early personal journeys—and what motivated and attracted them to commit their life energy to SRI—to insights on how they developed and executed their investment strategies and what challenges they face today. Each episode is a chance to go way below the surface with these impressive people and gain additional insights and useful lessons from professional investors.
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Hoofdstukken

1. Episode introduction (00:00:00)

2. Stewart’s career background and how he started in investment banking before moving to impact investing (00:05:49)

3. 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 (00:08:37)

4. Stewart tells us about his move to investment banking at Rothschild & Co. (00:11:16)

5. We learn how Stewart came to join LeapFrog Investments in 2010 (00:12:53)

6. Stewart gives an overview of LeapFrog Investments and the company mission (00:13:56)

7. Stewart describes LeapFrog’s four funds (00:20:52)

8. We hear how Andy Kuper founded LeapFrog Investments and the genesis behind it (00:21:55)

9. Stewart shares how LeapFrog select their investments (00:24:28)

10. We hear about the financial and non-financial screens that LeapFrog uses (00:27:20)

11. How LeapFrog vets their investment targets and the due diligence used when making investments (00:28:18)

12. Stewart shares some examples of investments LeapFrog have made (00:30:57)

13. We discuss how LeapFrog verifies the impact of their investments and we hear about the company’s FIIRM framework (00:38:14)

14. How LeapFrog avoids greenwashing, or impact washing (00:40:50)

15. We discuss LeapFrog’s key areas of competence and what sets them apart from others (00:43:16)

16. We look at LeapFrog’s typical investor profile and how this has changed over time (00:46:29)

17. Stewart describes LeapFrog’s recent partnership with Temasek and what this means for the company (00:50:59)

18. We discuss the potential of technology to scale access to essential financial and healthcare services for lower income populations (00:52:14)

19. The single most important challenge in the sustainable impact investment space at this time (00:54:56)

20. What Stewart knows now about impact investing that he wishes he had known when he joined LeapFrog in 2010 (00:55:30)

21. Lessons learned from an investment that didn’t go to plan (00:56:56)

22. An example of an investment he had passed on that worked out better than expected (00:57:54)

23. Stewart shares his advice on how to get into the impact investing space (00:59:26)