In episode 92 of the Investing in Impact podcast, we speak with Rehana Nathoo, the Founder and CEO of Spectrum Impact, about the future of impact investing, catalytic capital, and ESG.

Rehana has spent her career at the center of how capital moves, who it reaches, and why it often fails to support the communities that need it most. Her path into impact investing was not planned, yet the twists shaped a perspective that few in the field can match.

She began her professional life at the UN Capital Development Fund working on project finance in East Africa, where she saw firsthand how much potential is lost when local entrepreneurs are dismissed as too risky.

That early exposure to the gap between perceived and actual risk set her on a mission to understand how the global system of capital could work better.

From there she joined the Rockefeller Foundation, where she helped support the early field building that pushed impact investing into the mainstream.

Later she stepped into the traditional finance world at Bank of New York Mellon to help launch its social finance efforts, an experience that highlighted how difficult it is to shift long-held norms inside large institutions.

She then carried those lessons to the Case Foundation, sharpening her focus on how private investors and philanthropies can shape the market.

In 2018 she founded Spectrum Impact to take everything she had learned across the development, philanthropic, and financial sectors and offer it directly to investors.

Her firm helps clients understand the real tradeoffs behind impact, design strategies grounded in their constraints, and avoid the common mistakes that derail early efforts.

Rehana brings a clear, candid view of what it takes to place capital in a way that delivers financial performance and meaningful outcomes, outlining the future of impact investing.

In this conversation, Rehana breaks down the evolution of her career, what she believes investors still misunderstand about impact, the role of catalytic capital, why ESG remains a critical risk tool, and what she sees coming next for the field.

Read the full article about impact investing, catalytic capital, and ESG by Grant Trahant at Causeartist.