Impact State of Mind: Investor Day
Join us in Midtown Manhattan for “Impact State of Mind 2026: Investor Day,” a full day of programming created for investors, funders, business leaders, and other adjacent stakeholders.
Impact State of Mind is a groundbreaking initiative of Impact Hub New York Metropolitan Area with leading partners Princeton University’s Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy & Finance, Finpublica, Sustainable Investment Leadership Council (SILC), XPRIZE, and Impact for Breakfast. Thanks to our venue AES Events NYC and conference app sponsor Jotto.
Throughout the day you’ll hear from leaders in sustainable finance, impact investing, and development economics as well as engage and trade notes with peer practitioners.
This year's content themes will explore sustainable finance, the economy of climate adaptation, carbon markets, AI and emerging technology, energy transition, infrastructure in emerging economies, and global investment trends.
Agenda (More speaker updates to come)
9:00 AM — Doors Open, and breakfast is served!
9:30 – 10:30 AM — Impact for Breakfast with XPRIZE.
For thirty years, XPRIZE has used philanthropic capital to do something philanthropy rarely attempts: underwrite the risk that unlocks commercial investment at scale. Across 30 competitions we have put $519 million of prize purse into the market — and the teams who competed for it have gone on to raise more than $12 billion, from over 3,000 distinct investors.
Philanthropy accounts for less than a tenth of that follow-on capital; venture capital accounts for two-thirds. In this session, Andrew Tauhert will open up the XPRIZE alumni investment data and show how that leverage actually works: why competition functions as a due-diligence signal that private markets price (finalist teams grew their capital base more than twelvefold), how the platform catalyzes investment for years to come, and the types of grand challenges that are ideal for this model.
Attendees will walk away with a deeper understanding of how open innovation turns the world's hardest problems into investable pipeline — and where their own mandate, whether grant, catalytic, venture, or strategic, fits into the next one.
Audrey Selian, Founder, Impact for Breakfast & Co-Founder, Artha Networks Inc.
Andrew Tauhert, Chief Impact Officer, XPRIZE
10:30 – 11:00 AM — World Café Sessions
Governors Island as a Living Laboratory: What Would It Take to Finance the Coastal City of the Future? At Governors Island, adaptation solutions are tested that can help New York and other coastal cities remain resilient and investable. The session will explore what investors need to see to finance and scale successful pilots across New York, and ultimately other coastal cities around the world.
Lauren Wang, Director of Climate Programs, The Trust for Governors Island
Coastal Adaptation
Investing in the Future beyond 2030 SDGs. As 2030 approaches, this session will engage the audience on what happens after the 2030, and what should come next. Drawing on lessons from the Joint SDG Fund, the discussion will examine how catalytic capital, investable pipelines, and supportive policy environments can help align development outcomes with financial returns. Participants will consider what a post-2030 global framework should prioritize and what it would take to bring private capital more meaningfully into achieving those goals.
Lisa Kurbiel, Head of Secretariat, UN Joint SDG Fund
Beyond 2030
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM — Panel: Risk, Resilience, and Adaptation: Finance for a Climate-Ready World - Presented by Princeton University’s Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy & Finance
Physical climate risk is already reshaping asset values and insurance markets, and adaptation is no longer just a public-sector problem. This panel brings investors and on-the-ground resilience practitioners to together to examine the instruments, incentives, data, and reforms needed to move capital from the sidelines to the front lines of adaptation.
Moderated by: Pallavi Nuka, Associate Director, Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy & Finance
Margot Brandenburg, Senior Program Officer, Mission Investments, Ford Foundation
Caroline Hays, Senior Advisor, Climate & Housing, NYC Mayor's Office of Climate & Environmental Justice
Darius Nassiry, Senior Fellow, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
12:00 – 12:15 PM — Investing and De-carbonizing Shipping (Fireside Chat).
This fireside chat will explore the approach to green methanol as both a decarbonization solution and an investment model for regenerative growth. By converting sustainably managed bamboo into carbon-negative maritime fuel, the project aims to use commercial demand from the shipping industry to finance its underlying supply chain - from forest restoration and expanded bamboo production to jobs and income for local communities.
The conversation will examine how this vertically integrated model can align environmental impact with commercial returns, and what investors can learn from an approach where scaling the product also scales climate, ecological, and economic benefits.
Aurora Chisté - Senior Vice President of Project Origination, ACTUAL
John-Paul Parmigiani - CEO & Co-Founder, Impact Hub New York Metropolitan Area
Nervous system Level Reset
Deborah Lee, Somatic Executive Coach
12:15 – 1:15 PM — Lunch provided & Networking Circles
1:15 – 1:45 PM — Connecting Capital, Ideas & Ecosystems for Impact (Fireside Chat).
This session will explore what it really takes for social innovation and impact to flourish when the surrounding ecosystem is still developing—or when political, institutional and economic conditions make progress particularly difficult.
Drawing in particular on experience across Iran, Armenia and other emerging markets, the conversation will look beyond the assumption that a promising entrepreneur plus available capital is enough. The surrounding ecosystem matters enormously: institutions, regulation, connectivity, trusted networks, access to knowledge and capital, local context, and the ability of people working for change to find one another.
Audrey Selian - Co-Founder, Artha Networks, Founder of Impact for Breakfast
Azadeh Tajdar - Associate Professor, University of Maryland Global Campus & Lecturer, Unity Sustainability University, Maine
1:45 – 2:30 PM — Fireside Chat: The Missing Layer: Diaspora Capital and the Architecture of Financing Development
Diaspora communities are a powerful capital source that too often gets left out of the development finance conversation. Nicholas Bassey of the African Diaspora Network has spent years building the pipelines, accelerators, and investment vehicles that connect diaspora capital to innovation across Africa. Hear what it takes to move from informal giving to coordinated investment at scale, and how that capital can de-risk the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Nicholas Bassey, Chief Operations and Programs Officer, African Diaspora Network
Liv Varghese, Co-Chair, Impact State of Mind, Founder, Legacy Returns
2:30 – 3:00 PM — Investing in Green Growth in a Multipolar World: Geopolitics, Infrastructure, and the Global South.
As global development finance becomes more fragmented and multipolar, this lightning round will explore what it means to invest in growth from the ground up. Drawing on the experience of Proximate Fund Sudan, the conversation will examine how capital can reach locally led organizations, entrepreneurs, and communities that are already building resilience and economic opportunity, even in fragile environments.
The discussion will connect these lessons to the broader investment community, asking how new models of catalytic, philanthropic, diaspora, and private capital can strengthen local economies and help finance more sustainable and resilient growth across the Global South.
Khalid Ali - Managing Director, The Proximate Fund Sudan
John-Paul Parmigiani - CEO & Co-Founder, Impact Hub New York Metropolitan Area, Co-Founder, Impact Hub Accra, Ghana.
3:00PM - 3:20PM — Talk and Film Screening: Resilient Innovation for Energy and AI: From Alienation to Indigenous Intelligence Systems.
Beginning with the Puyanawa people of the Brazilian Amazon, The Regeneration Generation explores how ancestral knowledge can inform the systems we build and finance for the future. Featuring voices from Indigenous communities alongside leaders in climate science, policy, finance, energy, and technology, the film connects the rainforest to the rapidly expanding infrastructure behind AI and the global economy. Ultimately, it asks a powerful investment question: will the systems we finance today increase, or diminish, the capacity of future generations to thrive?
Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri - Multidisciplinary Artist, Entrepreneur, UN Convener, Founder of OpenOrigin & Shakti Regeneration Institute
Wesley Powell, CEO of Open Origin.
3:20PM - 3:30PM — From the Forest to the Future: A Visualization Experience. Take a short, immersive pause to reconnect with what all this work is ultimately for.
ChiehYu Liao - Creative Experience Associate, Impact Hub New York Metropolitan Area
Barbara Ann Michaels - Founder & Artistic Director, HumorVille with Jester Of The Peace
3:30 – 4:00 PM — Keynote Conversation: AI and Climate - Presented by Princeton University’s Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy & Finance
AI is changing how we model, manage, and finance climate risk, and it carries its own footprint too. Hear a researcher at the frontier separate what's real from what's hype.
Colby Fisher, Co-Founder and Chief Research Officer, Hydronos Labs
4:00 – 4:45 PM — Fireside Chat: Tokenization and the New Economy - Presented by Finpublica and SILC
Tokenization and digital assets are moving from the edges of finance into the institutional mainstream. Explore what changes when the boundaries of what can be financed, owned, and traded shift, and what you can scale today versus what it could unlock next.
Erika Karp, President, Next Economy Investments
Maria Mähl, EVP and Chief Product Officer at the new SEC-registered stock exchange GIX
4:45 – 5:30 PM — Panel: Carbon Markets: What's Working, What's Not, What's Next - Presented by Finpublica and SILC
Market builders, verification experts, and policy veterans give an honest assessment of carbon markets today. Whether you're new to the space or already active in it, leave knowing where credibility is being built and where to be cautious.
Moderated by: Annette Nazareth, Chair of the Board, The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market
Shelley Goldberg, Chief Green Officer with The Green Impact Exchange (GIX)
Wilson Ervin, Trustee Environmental Defense Fund, Board Member Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, former climate counselor, US Treasury
Darren Wolfberg, Chairman and CEO of Triangle Systems Inc.
5:30 – 6:30 PM — Breakout Circles on Timely Topics - Presented by Finpublica, SILC, and Impact Hub
These are small, practitioner-led discussions where you can ask your own questions and end the day with new connections.
Sustainable Investing
ESG Reporting
Carbon Markets
Supply Chains
Data Centers
AI for Sustainability
Breakout session leaders include Heather Burns (Founder, Upside ESG), Darren Wolfberg (Chairman and CEO of Triangle Systems Inc.), Vlada Gurvich (Senior Business Development Executive, Global Relay), Marc Rotter (Counsel, Ropes & Gray), Julie Ryan (Managing Partner, ImpactGC), Scott Ryan (CEO, Investature), Kyle Matthys (Founder, TRIIBE), Julie Thibault-Dury and Benjamin Thibault-Dury (Co-Founders, Clozist), and Chris Wimmer (Senior Trade Commissioner, Canadian Consulate General)
6:30 – 6:45 PM — Toast: Honoring Our Sponsors and Partners
6:45 – 8:30 PM — Open Networking, Food & Drinks provided
The world is changing; now is the time to have discussions and forge meaningful connections that advance efforts to deploy capital effectively.
Bring the spirit of collaboration and we’ll bring outstanding content, inspiring speakers, and food & beverages throughout the day!
Thanks to collaborators: Impact for Breakfast, Trust for Governors Island, NYC Economic Development Corporation, Clozist, Marketplace of the Future, Triibe, Humorville, Story Joy, Creaturae, One Rise, Born Global, SwissNex, StartOut, Photos Enforced and many more!