Re-live the conference – if you were there
Check-it out – if you missed it and do not miss it next year! 🙂
SUMMARY OF CEE4IMPACT DAY
„I’m a believer, a believer in impact investing” – Elemér Eszter, president of THBE (Social Impact Investors’ Association) addressed the guests of the CEE4Impact Day and opened the conference.
On THBE’s seventh yearly large conference, the CEE4Impact Day, we could hear an outstandingly large number of International, as well as local speakers and panel discussion participants. This year’s patron was Mr. Csaba Kőrösi, President of the General Assembly, United Nations. Via his video-message, he called upon an agreed upon, science and evidence based methodology to measure sustainability, whilst urging the common goal and common responsibility of taking care of our planet.
We were fortunate to have two Keynote speakers, with a very well renowned impact investor, Charly Kleissner, giving a fantastic framework to our conference, joining us online from Innsbruck.
This was followed by Uli Grabenwarter’s keynote, who highlighted that “Rather than having impact unicorns that are defined by one billion dollars in market cap or company value, let us strive for impact unicorns that change the lives of one billion people.”
Being a CEE Impact Day, we heard the opinion of key impact investment players of the region talking about the current situation of impact investment and what needs to be done in order to grow the ecosystem – moderated by Cyril Gouiffes. Most panel discussion participants were involved in the Impact Survey, conducted by Dr. Eszter Hubbes, whose findings could be picked up in a Brochure made especially for this event.
Nikolaus Hutter gave an outstanding speech titled ‘The Purpose Iceberg’, continued the thoughts of Charly Kleissner, underlying the importance of ‘deep impact’ and talked about the moral, political and societal transformation humanity needs to undergo. “Do what needs to be done, not just what pays. If you create real value, profit will follow.”
Since THBE has been dealing with ESG and its relationship to impact investing for the last two years, we heard important figures of the bank and financial sector, fund managers talking about the rocky road of the ESG world, moderated by Gyula Pleschinger from MKB Bank.
In the last part of the conference we heard a Keynote from Mr. András Havas, McKinsey, talking about their Net Zero survey and their findings, whilst we heard two panel discussions talking about the consequences of the present geo-political crisis on the energy and food sector.
The professional part of the event also gave an opportunity for networking with coffee breaks, a standing reception, whilst the fantastic location’s (Budapest Music Center) original use was also put into practice by outstanding and memorable performances by Jazzation and a Ukrainian and Russian ballet performance from the Opera House with the ballet master being Tamás Solymosi.
Without the support of EIB and EIF and our other sponsors, this event could not have taken place.
THANK YOU!
