2X Global Team, September 2023

We are saddened to share the news that the one and only Suzanne Biegel passed away on September 20 in London after navigating metastatic lung cancer for two years. On behalf of our whole team at 2X Global, our Board and global community, we send our deepest condolences to Suzanne’s family– especially her husband Daniel–in this difficult time.

Impact Alpha, September 2023

Catalyst at large. When you put capital into the hands of women – as fund managers, as entrepreneurs, as consumers – good things happen. That was the mantra of Suzanne Biegel, founder of GenderSmart (now part of 2X Global) who passed away this week.

Biegel was among the most consistent and clarion voices across ImpactAlpha’s posts, podcasts and Agent of Impact calls. Suzanne herself was the quintessential Agent of Impact, present at the creation of the field of gender lens investing and a tireless champion for its growth (see, “Making markets work for women and the world”).

The British International Investment, September 2023

We’re very sad to learn of the passing of Suzanne Biegel. Suzanne was the driving force behind the launch and rapid growth of gender-lens investing globally. Her commitment to increasing capital flows to women and towards gender equity was unwavering.

Pioneers Post, September 2023

Tributes pour in following this week’s news of the death of Suzanne Biegel, the impact investor whose “legacy would require many lifetimes to fully honour”.

The ESG Initiative at the Wharton School, September 2023

By Angie Basiouny

Wharton graduate Suzanne Biegel is a global leader in gender-smart investing who has influenced billions of dollars in capital. She is the founder of the consultancy Catalyst at Large and was co-founder of GenderSmart, which is now 2X Global. For 22 years, she has leveraged her deep networks in finance, philanthropy, development, research, and entrepreneurship to connect public and private investors to the people and information they need to move their capital in a gender-smart way.

Pioneers Post, 22nd August 2023

By Anna Patton

Legal action accusing a US venture capital fund of racial discrimination, because it invests in Black women business owners, prompts anger – and raises questions about the future of race-based policies.

Pioneers Post, June 2023

By Anna Patton

Many know her as the gender-lens investing champion; her friends consider her an “exceptional connector” whose crazy ideas have long been ahead of her time. Now, as the self-described party-thrower faces a terminal diagnosis, Suzanne Biegel is more impatient than ever to get money moving to where it matters. And her legacy project, she tells us, is deeply personal – and a source of joy.

Pioneers Post, May 2023

By Anna Patton

The Skoll Foundation and the Laudes Foundation are among the first donors to back Heading for Change, the climate and gender-focused endowment fund announced last month by Suzanne Biegel.

Pioneers Post reporters, April 2023

Gender-lens investment pioneer, philanthropist and “catalyst at large” Suzanne Biegel this week launched her “legacy project”: a $1m investment to kick-start a new endowment tackling climate change and gender inequality.

David Bank, Impact Alpha, April 2023

If and when we have met the climate challenge, a key success factor will be clear: women. 

If you share that thesis, you may want to invest at the intersection of gender and climate.

Making it easier for you to do so could be Suzanne Biegel’s legacy. 

With a $1 million grant, Biegel is seeding Heading for Change, a donor-advised fund launching today that will invest in fund managers with crisp strategies for addressing climate challenges with a gender lens. She’s welcoming other donors to the philanthropic fund, which she hopes to grow into an endowment of $10 million or more.

Impact Alpha, March 2023

Frontline communities hold the keys to inclusive gender and climate finance.

Good green jobs. Better climate solutions. Food security. Resilient supply chains. Increased wealth in low-income communities. And increased returns for more stakeholders. Those are some of the shared benefits of investing at the intersection of climate and gender, according to Inclusive Gender and Climate Finance, a new report from 2X Global, the gender-lens investing collaborative. Frontline communities – across rich, middle and low-income countries – bear the brunt of climate change and hold the key to many climate solutions, say the authors, Suzanne Biegel (see, “Agent of Impact”) and Sana Kapadia (hear Sana on last week’s Impact Briefing podcast). “Inevitably, the risks facing frontline communities trickle through supply chains and into investor portfolios.”

Alliance Magazine, November 2022

By Daniel Rostrup

Why is gender lens investing still just a ‘drop in the ocean’ of mainstream finance?

I recently had the pleasure of attending the 2022 GenderSmart Investing Summit in London. The Summit drew together gender lens investing experts, field builders and changemakers from around the world for two days of learning, connecting and collaboration.

Investment Week, November 2022

By Eve Maddock-Jones

Investors have called for “urgent action” to be taken at COP27 to include gender equality targets within the financial system’s climate change commitments, after years of “far too little progress”.

In an open letter published today (7 November) ahead of the COP27 summit, investors called for four actions to be made in the public and private sector to enshrine gender equality into climate finance.

Coordinated by GenderSmart along with the Women in Finance Climate Action Group and the 2X Collaborative, the letter has 15 signatories, including Aviva, Generation Investment Management, European Investment Bank and Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM).

Cityam, November 2022

By Charlie Conchie

A group of top investors including Aviva and Legal & General Investment Management have called on governments to ramp up climate action today by enshrining the role of women within the fight against climate change.

In a letter published by campaign group GenderSmart to mark the start of the COP27 summit, the 15 signatories warn that “far too little progress” has been made to increase the role of women in climate activism in finance, and the scale and ambition of action had suffered as a result.

Aviva, the David Rockefeller Fund, the European Investment Bank and Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM) are among the firms to back the calls and warn that governments need to take action immediately or risk a faster slide into environmental breakdown.

Bollyinside, October 2022

By Patrick Huston

In order to “inspire climate finance actors to get gender savvy,” GenderSmart co-founder Suzanne Biegel is collaborating with Aviva Investors to collect signatures for a letter that will be delivered to world leaders at COP27 next month.

This, according to Biegel (above), would entail “increasing women’s engagement in the financial system and their access to climate finance, integrating gender into public and commercial frameworks for climate policy, generating gender indicators and incorporating them into reporting on climate finance… enhancing the representation of women in positions of decision-making in the climate finance and climate smart business sectors.

Citywire, October 2022

By Siri Christiansen

It’s not particularly common to open a global finance summit with a ‘grounding moment’ – a collective deep breath – and end it with a gospel choir performing ‘Hold On (Change is Coming)’.

Neither is it very common to hear the word ‘penis’ in the opening speech.

‘We have to shift from the penis-driven decision making. We have to shift from the testosterone effect.’ Sandrine Dixson-Declève, co-president of the Club of Rome and a thought leader on sustainable finance, shouted from the main stage.

Then again, this wasn’t your typical finance conference. A quick glance at the audience made that pretty clear: out of 320 delegates, only 39 were male.

ESG Clarity, October 2022

By Christine Dawson

Aviva and GenderSmart to present letter to leaders asking to integrate gender metrics into climate finance reporting.

GenderSmart co-founder Suzanne Biegel is working with Aviva Investors to gather signatures for a letter to be presented to world leaders at COP27 next month, “to motivate climate finance actors to get gender smart”.

This was one of the announcements from the GenderSmart 2022 Global Summit, which took place in London last week.

Biegel (pictured) said this would involve, “… improving women’s inclusion within the financial system and ability to access climate finance, integrating gender into public and private climate policy frameworks, developing gender metrics and integrating them into climate finance reporting… improving gender balance representation in decision-making roles in climate finance and climate smart businesses”.

Pioneer Post, October 2022

By Laura Joffre

Mainstream awareness of gender-lens investing is growing and investors are having “the right discussions” – but it’s still more theory than execution, latest GenderSmart report shows.

The flow of capital into gender-lens investing remains “closer to a trickle than a flood” as investors are not taking enough action to consider gender in their strategies, a global study of the field found.

The report, GenderSmart State of the Field 2022, aims to produce a “snapshot of gender-lens investing through the eyes of those who are doing the work”, Suzanne Biegel, co-founder of field-building initiative GenderSmart, said in the report’s foreword. She added “real headway” had been made, despite obstacles, but much needed to be done to continue to shift more capital towards gender-lens investing.

ImpactAlpha, September 2022

Women are hot… investments. So declared ImpactAlpha back in 2014, when we used quote marks for investors unfamiliar with “gender lens” investments in—and for—women, for the benefit of all.

Back then, there was little data on the size or scope of gender-lens investments. Today, one tally found $18 billion committed to private gender-focused funds.

“I’m tracking over 300 private market funds and growing,” Suzanne Biegel, the field-building founder of GenderSmart, tells ImpactAlpha. Many are on their second or third gender-lens funds. “We have moved ahead significantly on building the field and the market has moved as well.”