I’m delighted to announce that Karen has agreed to be the new Chair of Resonance’s Board, and to introduce her we thought it might be helpful to have a “fireside chat” about this new role at our Christmas strategy away day. We thought we’d share it with you.

You’ve been a Non-Executive Director for two years but you are now taking on the Chair of Resonance’s board, what do you hope to bring to the role and to the organisation?

Well firstly, it is a great privilege to be asked to carry out this role. I’ve said it before, but I still think it, if I was at a different stage in my career I would be dusting off my CV and seeing what job I could be applying for at Resonance. It is a fantastic company at the cusp of something very exciting and driven by values unlike any organisation I’ve ever seen.

In terms of the role, one of the key jobs of any board’s Chair is to ensure the board itself is performing.  Resonance has already got breadth and depth of experience and skills around the table from a group of really smart people committed to a shared vision to see a world in which capital serves people and communities. That said I think we will be looking to strengthen the board further with one or two new Non-Executive board members to ensure we are fit for the future.

I want to see Resonance go to the next level. Investors and Social Enterprises alike speak highly of their experience with Resonance, but there are still significant untapped pools of capital that we can channel into addressing some of the world’s problems. In the last five years, Resonance has mobilised £91million into the hands of 35 social enterprises – real business models that are both socially transformational and profitable. But whilst there is evidence that the social enterprises we back are making a real difference, we are not yet close to the point where the social challenges we face have been saturated by investment capital.

What does the next level look like in your mind for Resonance?

The first thing to say is that, as a Non-Executive Director and Chair, I am entirely behind the strategic vision which Daniel and Simon are already setting for Resonance and they will continue to be the drivers for that. Part of my job as Chair is to help the Board bring fresh perspectives to that strategy.

One of the huge opportunities I am particularly keen to get behind is about scaling the Resonance ‘platform’. Resonance has a number of different investment offers; its Property Funds tackling homelessness appeal primarily to Institutional Investors, its Social Investment Tax Relief funds appeal to Individual Investors and Wealth Managers. But it’s not just Funds Under Management, there is a significant growth in direct investing allowing some investors to back simple projects directly without the cost of developing a fund. Resonance’s Ventures team have the potential to provide social enterprises a suite of standard investment products (in addition to the more tailored solutions) that appeal to investors who want to pick and choose direct investments into specific social enterprises.

So what are the opportunities for innovation?

here is no problem in finding opportunities! The challenge is putting resource and effort behind the right ones. Over the past two years, we’ve established a number of sub groups of the board, each one chaired by a different board member. These sub groups have a mix of board members and members of Resonance’s Leadership Team. This structure has taken a little while to bed down, but they are now clearly beginning to add value and are helping to facilitate good decision making. The sub groups are advisory groups, so it is not another layer of permission seeking.  Resonance actually has two sub groups focused on innovation: one looking at the development of new products and the other at opportunities that are little more leftfield.

Resonance claims it is a relationship business, but how do you see this in reality?

I see it all the time. There’s good evidence that investors of all sizes are coming back to Resonance for more – sometimes more of the same, sometimes different things. One foundation has considered nine investments from Resonance and backed seven of them. Some of their investments have been in Resonance’s funds, some co-investing alongside and some directly investing in social enterprises for which Resonance has been deal arranging.

One investor I met recently talked to me about how seven years ago he met one of the Resonance team and whilst the timing was not right back then, Resonance kept in touch without being pushy or filling up his inbox. He saw over time more and more evidence of Resonance persistently delivering on what they set out to. He admitted to originally thinking that he stumbled into a world of the hypothetical or utopian dreamers. But over time he had come to realise that Resonance was an organisation that spoke the truth and delivered genuine risk adjusted returns without compromising on the social impact purpose.

What’s the key challenge facing Resonance right now and what should we do about it?

Impact Investing is taking off. My day job is advising Local Authority Pension funds. It is clear that over the past two years, Impact Investing has increasingly been a feature of the vast majority of conferences or gatherings of Local Authority Pension funds. Resonance is an unquestioned leader in the field, but is suddenly having to compete with much larger, more recognised investment firms that have a longer history of working with pension funds. Resonance’s challenge is to maintain our reputation and profile in a market which is becoming increasingly crowded by those claiming to offer impact investment opportunities simply because they consider their contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

How do we do this? Well it is a mix of things. One is simply getting bigger, but most important is our continued focus on investment in real social enterprise and then communicating that effectively in our story telling and the quality of impact reporting.

If our role is to pioneer a “new norm”, is there an inherent risk that at some point we become part of the problem?

I think there is a difference between disrupting a system that is not functioning as it should or could and just being anarchists for the sake of it. For me Resonance demonstrates thought leadership, but it is open handed inviting others to join it as investors and as peers. The leadership is grounded, rooted in understanding change, measuring impact, listening and personal experience. We should celebrate when others follow our lead even when that provides a new challenge.