With changing trends in the capital market, impact investing has started gaining momentum in the past few years, as it drives social and environmental progress through investments. What else could be a better way to give back to society while also generating financial returns? After realizing the importance of sustainable finance, investors are actively contributing to help build a better world for all.
However, the question of credibility in transactions still gets raised. Scaling up impact investments requires entirely new levels of transparency and ways to determine the credibility of issuers of green assets. This is exactly what Cecilia Repinski, an ingenious entrepreneur, brings to the table.
Through her company, Green Assets Wallet (GAW), Cecilia is facilitating high-impact asset allocation, providing the needed solutions to issuers and investors to thrive and scale in the sustainable bond market with real-world measurable impact.
Cecilia is driven by her vision of building prosperous and sustainable societies, and GAW is making this possible.
In our endeavor to find “The 10 Most Influential Women in Finance, 2021”, we caught up with Cecilia to unveil her journey as a leader and how GAW is unleashing global capital at scale.
From an Innovation Project to a Purpose-Driven Company
Green Assets Wallet first came about as an innovation project supported by public grants. The project grew very fast and naturally, reflecting the need in the finance industry for practical solutions to ramp up impactful asset allocation. As market demand for innovation in green finance grew, it decided to spin off as a private company in December 2019.
Its greatest challenge came when GAW transitioned from a project to a self-sustained purpose-driven company to serve capital markets better. That transition period was challenging, but being in the next phase and with a great team on board, things are finally moving faster than ever.
Injecting Efficiency and Transparency
Today, GAW is the world’s first platform for validating and reporting financial impact. It is designed to inject efficiency and transparency into the green debt market. Its goal is to equip investors with the necessary means to make impactful asset allocations while enabling impactful project owners to access capital so that these two parties can realize a credible and sustainable capital transition.
Cecilia also mentions that GAW’s community of users appreciates that it is a purpose-driven and independent company. This creates an important foundation of trust. The actors it works with feel that Green Assets Wallet is there to support them and help them drive the transition towards sustainability in a way that will make a difference.
Driving Transition to Support Sustainable Life on Earth
At GAW, Cecilia aims at serving the sustainability champions, driving the transition to support sustainable life on Earth, including those needing capital to implement better solutions and those wanting to steer their capital towards such activities.
Cecilia believes in empowering everyone around her. Her idea of impactful self-leadership is to be very clear about the future they all strive to realize with Green Assets Wallet. Everyone in the team should feel empowered to take the necessary steps to reach this outcome, while at the same time feel supported to make their own decisions.
Going Forth and Rising
When the pandemic arrived, it had a drastic impact on individuals as well as businesses. GAW also witnessed many changes in its operations.
GAW serves a global market. Before the pandemic, everyone in the organization participated in meetings and conferences worldwide to connect with a community of impact investors, green bond issuers, policymakers, and others. This changed during the pandemic. As travel ceased, anyone benefitting from Green Assets Wallet’s solutions was engaged via video meetings.
Cecilia expresses that even after the pandemic, this may not change to the way it was before. The world has learned to connect and create meaningful relationships, even if they don’t happen in person. GAW will foster these processes in the future to exemplify how a global business can have a zero-carbon footprint. However, meetings in person may still be necessary and often the only way to network and create the necessary exchange to create new solutions.
Towards Sustainability
Green Assets Wallet has completely transformed how impact investments are made, enabling any trusted actor, regardless of size, location, or business orientation, to either invest and/or access finance to deliver impactful outcomes that otherwise would not have happened.
Talking about the future of GAW, Cecilia states that they have just started, and many more milestones are yet to be achieved.
Enlightening Upcoming Entrepreneurs
In her advice to the up-and-coming women entrepreneurs aspiring to enter the Financial Industry, Cecilia says, “Trust your instincts. Believe in yourself. And remember to have fun.”
Cecilia Repinski, Founder and CEO, Green Assets Wallet
