From Intent to Action:
Using Finance to Address Gender-Based Violence

Gender-based violence has enormous costs to the people who endure it, but also to society and the economy.

In the U.S. alone, the annual cost of lost productivity due to domestic violence is estimated as $727.8 million, with over 7.9 million paid workdays lost each year. A 2018 report found that the total economic costs to the U.S. economy caused by intimate partner violence were a staggering $3 trillion over the victims’ lifetimes.

While efforts focusing on using finance to address gender-based violence are still in the early days and many obstacles remain, there are a number of avenues investors can pursue.

Join us in a conversation with five leading experts as we explore tools and opportunities for investors who wish to deploy their capital to bring gender-based violence to an end.

Click here to watch the recording.

About Our Speakers

Joy Anderson
Founder and President | Criterion Institute

Joy Anderson is a prominent national leader at the intersection of business and social change, whose insights and experience have helped shaped hundreds of ventures as well as the movements of impact investing and gender lens investing. She is founder and president of Criterion Institute, the leading think tank on using finance as a tool for social change, which demonstrates new possibilities through its groundbreaking research, innovative trainings, convenings and institutional engagement. In recognition of her leadership, Anderson was listed in Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business.

Joy was co-founder of Good Capital with Tim Freundlich and Kevin Jones in 2006. She formerly served as faculty on leading social innovation award programs, including Unreasonable Institute and Echoing Green, advising the next generation of leaders in impact investing. As chair of the board of directors of Village Capital and through involvement in Investor’s Circle, she was actively involved in shaping early stage social investments. And through her role in developing and leading Structure Lab© workshops she has helped over 300 organizations think through their legal and financial structures.

Joy has appeared on Bloomberg and CNN, and her thought leadership has been published in ImpactAlpha and Conscious Company, among other outlets. She is the author of “A Blueprint for Women’s Funds on Using Finance as a Tool for Social Change,” published in 2017 in partnership with Global Fund for Women and Ms. Foundation, following the 2015 publication of “Gender Lens Investing in Asia,” jointly released with USAID, and Criterion’s “The State of the Field of Gender Lens Investing.”

Joy’s intellectual interests draw on her research for her Ph.D. in American History from New York University. Her dissertation examined prison reform in the 1830s and how individuals and organizations in democracies claim expertise in order to shape public institutions.

She currently lives with her husband and daughter in a Connecticut apple orchard, and can be found in the fall pressing cider and boiling apple syrup.

Teresa Wells
Managing Director and Partner | Tiedemann Advisors

Teresa serves in a multi-faceted role at Tiedemann as a lead Advisor to clients who are looking to align their values with their investments and as a senior member of the Investment Team. She sits on the firm’s Investment Committee, Executive Committee, Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee and leads the firm’s efforts on Catalytic Impact Investing – helping clients invest for positive environmental and social impact above monetary returns.

Teresa helps clients define and reach their goals by deploying capital in their best interests and creatively aligning them with their values. She is a frequent speaker at industry events on the topics of equity-lens investing, climate justice and more. She is the former president of the Seattle Alternative Investment Association and is currently a SheEO Activator: a group for women and non-binary folks who activate their buying power, networks and expertise to create an equitable and sustainable world. 

Teresa joined Tiedemann when the firm acquired Threshold Group, where she served as the Managing Director of Investment Strategy. In this role she partnered with the Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director of Impact Investing to contribute to the firm’s broad investment strategy. She was a member of both the Portfolio Management and Investment Committee and the Global Asset Allocation Committee. She also led the Wealth Management and Foundations services team in Seattle.

Before joining Threshold Group, Teresa served as the Investment Strategist at Laird Norton Wealth Management. Early in her career, she worked in client services for a small bank-owned trust company and for a venture capital fund of funds.

Teresa earned her master’s degree in international business from Seattle University and holds a Bachelor of Science in finance from Metropolitan State College of Denver. A native of Washington State, Teresa lives in West Seattle with her husband and son.

Lawanna Kimbro
Managing Director | Stardust Fund

Lawanna leads Stardust’s philanthropic investment in leaders, organizations, and progressive social movements, using diverse and innovative strategies to catalyze change, build power, and support thriving communities.

She has more than 18 years of leadership experience within social service agencies and nonprofit organizations aimed at improving the lives of the most vulnerable in our communities, most recently serving as Chief Program Delivery Officer for the NYC Department of Homeless Services, Deputy Commissioner for Outreach, Rehousing and Landlord Management and Chief Program Officer at the NYC’s Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.

Prior to her leadership within New York City government, Lawanna worked as a staff attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative, where she focused on anti-poverty and anti-discrimination initiatives that challenge the legacy of racial inequality in our country. She holds a MPA in nonprofit management and a MA in mental health counseling from New York University, as well as a JD from Georgetown University Law Center. Lawanna is based in New York.

Lisa Lynn Kahululani Kleissner
President and Co-Founder | KL Felicitas Foundation

Growing up in Hawaiʻi, Lisa learned how to “dance” between the indigenous and western cultures of her Hawaiian father and her Haole mother. The indigenous concepts of reciprocity, abundance and scarcity, and how these concepts play out in a remote island economy, inform her local and global work, both with how she is present in that work and how she influences the investment of her family's assets. Island economies are the “canary “ in the global coal mine. Our ancestors showed us how to live sustainably on our planet. How can we acknowledge and honor their wisdom in our daily practice?

Organizations Lisa has had a hand in co-creating and/or leading: the KL Felicitas Foundation, Hawaiʻi Investment Ready, Toniic Institute, The Philanthropy Workshop, and Social-Impact International. She is an Advisory Board and Investment Committee member of Aqua-Spark, and board member of Real Good Fish. Advisory roles include Criterion Institute Gender-Based Violence Advisory Committee and the Industree Foundation. In her hometown, she serves as the Treasurer of the Community Association of Big Sur.

When she is not writing, researching coaching or presenting, in order to move the impact agenda forward, she spends time being in a state of awe about how lucky we are to be a part of a growing movement of conscious leaders who envision and are actively building a better world.

Conversation moderated by:

Radha Friedman
President and SheO, Radha Friedman Consulting

Radha Friedman is an award-winning social strategist with 20 years experience in intersectional gender equality and philanthropy. She has overseen nearly 100 grants across 60 countries and is on a mission to encourage investing in under-represented voices, especially womxn and girls of color.

Radha was a consultant to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on their gender equality strategy, as well as an advisor to the Clinton Global Initiative’s Network on Women & Girls Economic Empowerment. Her work has engaged several Nobel Prize laureates, including Shirin Ebadi, Mary Robinson, and the Dalai Lama, as well as luminaries including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sakena Yakoobi and Ai WeiWei.

Radha has been a co-founder and founding board member of several women-led start ups, including the Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights, the She Matters Foundation (supporting women refugees) and ImpactData360.org (a hub for gender data).

She has helped organizations earn global awards for their work, including the Hilton Humanitarian Prize and Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.

Radha’s work is grounded by an MA in International Development Studies, MS in Public Service Administration, a BA in South Asian Studies, and a post-grad certificate in Cross-Sector Partnerships from the University of Cambridge. She is completing her certification as a Chartered Adviser in Philanthropy (CAP) and serves on the civic council of the University of Washington Jackson School of International Studies.

She has been named a fellow by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, Independent Sector, American Express Foundation, Henry M. Jackson Foundation, and Global Women’s Leadership Network.