Episode 17: Interview with Susie Lee, chief investment officer at San Francisco-based RSF Social Finance, an innovative lending, giving and investing organization
Description
In this podcast, Susie discusses RSF’s core integrated capital approach for delivering impact and catalyzing change. She also contrasts RSF’s “patient capital” approach with the transactional nature of commercial financing, details the kinds of support that RSF provides to growing social enterprises, and describes RSF’s five thematic funding areas. Susie highlights RSF’s commitment to developing new sources of finance for social innovation, talks about the firm’s shared risk products, trust based underwriting, and discusses key trends in the world of impact investment.
As head of capital deployment at RSF, Susie oversees the firm’s integrated capital strategy, which delivers a tailored mix of financial capital (debt, equity, loan guarantees, and grants) and non-financial capital to social entrepreneurs. Susie has 20 years of cross-sector experience. Prior to joining RSF, Susie was a principal of TBL Capital and director of IGNIA Fund. She has worked at the Skoll Foundation, Stanford, Google and JP Morgan. She also served as an AmeriCorps VISTA Entrepreneur Corps fellow at New Sector Alliance. Susie has lived and worked in Latin America and has experience doing business in Africa, China, and India.
United States
