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For Carlos Peña (MBA ’19), the education he received at Leeds and the ecosystem of entrepreneurship, venture capital, and social impact he found in Boulder and Denver transformed the trajectory of his career.

Carlos grew up in Ecuador and came to the U.S. for college where he studied economics at Notre Dame, drawn by the school’s focus on social responsibility. He used the Leeds MBA program to move into impact investing from a background in management consulting, as well as involvement in the Chicago entrepreneurial ecosystem and work in microfinance serving mostly Latino and African American entrepreneurs. The MBA program helped him learn about the intersection of venture capital and impacting investing, and enabled him to get a role at a mission-driven family office after graduation. 

Currently Carlos serves as Director of Investments at where he makes impact investments across asset classes and creates portfolios that move the needle on racial equity – all while generating a market rate of return for his clients. His work involves the same due diligence and financial analysis that any “traditional” investor would do, plus the additional layer of measuring social impact outcomes.

We recently sat down with Carlos to talk about why he sees finance as the way to solve social challenges, his journey into impact investing, and his advice for students looking to follow in his footsteps. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

CESR: What big challenges are you motivated to solve using finance and business?

Carlos Peña: The world is broken. The world is unfair. Unless we actively try to fix it, it’s not going to get better. We live and operate in a capitalist society. Every business requires capital, whether it is a nonprofit with grant capital or a for-profit with investment capital. That’s why for me it was impact investing. In terms of how, I built a skillset that allows me to identify the drivers of risk and value for a company, and if you can overlay impact inherently in that business model, then you can really drive change at scale in terms of social justice. When impact is truly integrated into the business model, it’s not a “nice-to-have,” it’s not an additional benefit. In true impactful companies the product or the service is the impact, so as you scale the company, the impact grows.

Folks like us won the lottery of life. Not being born in a war-torn country. Not growing up in a violent environment. Having a roof over our heads and three meals a day. I owe it to the world to pay it back, to make it better and give other people chances to improve themselves and live better lives.

CESR: What keeps you motivated working in the impact space where you spend a lot of time thinking about big challenges?

Carlos Peña: I continuously see the inequalities and the disparities that certain populations and communities experience. These issues are multidimensional – health, education, housing, access to capital, or even basic needs – and pervasive both within the U.S. and across the world. What keeps me motivated is knowing that I can make a change through my work. Also, the fact that my role is very intellectually engaging keeps me motivated. I’m constantly seeing different businesses, different models, different capitalization strategies, different risk-return profiles. It’s always changing, so I don’t get bored!

I also have more of a philosophical answer: we only have one life, so we should use it to make the world better, to reduce suffering for others. This is in line with the Jesuit concept of “ser más para servir mejor” – which is the idea of constantly improving oneself in order to be of (better) service to others.

Folks like us won the lottery of life. Not being born in a war-torn country. Not growing up in a violent environment. Having a roof over our heads and three meals a day. I owe it to the world to pay it back, to make it better and give other people chances to improve themselves and live better lives.

CESR: You landed an incredible role as Investment Principal at The Beacon Fund in Denver right out of the MBA program. How did you do it?

Carlos Peña: Going into the MBA, I did not expect in my wildest dreams that I would get a role like that. CU Boulder was critical in me being able to do that. I think it’s immensely important while you’re doing the MBA to visualize where you want to go, so that when you’re applying for a job it’s not about wanting to do what you’re applying for, it’s about how you want to continue in that space.

The classes at CU were great. I crafted my New Venture Finance emphasis, which is what I called it. I focused on early-stage entrepreneurship, anything related to tech and took the Venture Capital Law class. That class was awesome! It really opened my eyes and gave me a skillset that very few people in the industry have. Taking that class was transformational.

Also, I got super involved locally. I mentored at , I interned at . I did a lot of internships, some paid and some unpaid, just to get the experience and the exposure. I was super active with networking by going to conferences like and . Pro tip: if you volunteer at a conference, especially at the front desk, you get to meet a lot of folks working in the industry! Then you can follow up, have conversations and learn.

Through networking and at those conferences, I met people from the social enterprise and impact ecosystems, including individuals from The Beacon Fund. Also, I applied to a ton of jobs, not just the one that I got. A big piece of my success was my summer internship at in LA. When you are seeking an internship, focus on the skillset and the experience, not the geography.

CESR: How did your education at Leeds prepare you for your career now?

Carlos Peña: First of all, the academics for my path were excellent from the get-go. Leeds is in one of the most important tech hubs in the country, if not the world, and that brought in great professors. Having access to classes like Early-Stage Entrepreneurship, VC Law and Entrepreneurial Finance was huge. Those topics are the building blocks of any early-stage investor’s skillset.

In terms of extra-curriculars, DCVF (the Deming Center Venture Fund) was pivotal for me. It’s what allowed me to get that first experience in venture capital in a real way. Doing it in a multi-disciplinary team with law students, engineers, business students, that was awesome and unique. Having faculty and investors involved on the board, and eventually co-leading it was an amazing experience. On the impact side, I also ran the Social Impact Prize in the New Venture Challenge, which allowed me to overlay the social piece over the top of the tech-enabled start-up models, so that I could say I had done early-stage impact investing during the program.

Finally, having access to Techstars, Start-Up Weekend, Watson, all the accelerators and venture capital funds in the area – that’s a rich ecosystem that very few other universities have in the U.S. We compete with the biggest brand names in terms of that. We are unique. No one looks down on us at CU Boulder. We’re awesome. I’m proud to be a Buff, always. It transformed my career and my life.

You must be humble and be kind. Be willing to wear all hats. Be open to doing things outside of your role as needed. You must be passionate about the work. If you’re smart and you’re passionate and I can see that you care about the space, we’ll give you a shot.

CESR: What are some of the skills and knowledge that you look for in hiring new associates?

Carlos Peña: Impact investing requires all skillsets and all roles, not just investors. You can be a marketing specialist, an accounting or operations specialist. For my team in research and due diligence, I want to see finance experience. Ideally investing, but not necessarily. Banking, valuation, advisory, consulting. I also want to see experience with being involved in different projects simultaneously where you manage your time and juggle different timelines and requirements.

Then, are you a team player? You must be humble and be kind. Be willing to wear all hats. Be open to doing things outside of your role as needed. You must be passionate about the work. If you’re smart and you’re passionate and I can see that you care about the space, we’ll give you a shot. I want to see that you know who’s who in the space, that you know the trends, you know about things like full continuum of capital investing, pay-for-success models, family offices, foundations. Show your interest in the space.

CESR: What advice do you have for students interested in the intersection of finance, sustainability and social impact?

Carlos Peña: Be very proactive all throughout the program, from the first semester. Your time is precious throughout the MBA. It’s limited. Be very thoughtful about your extracurriculars. Volunteer, but volunteer for things that are going to give you the skills or connections that are going to help you get where you want to go.

Aggressively pursue your internship. That will be the defining tool you will have to talk about yourself. Be able to craft a cohesive narrative to talk about your prior work, why the MBA, what you’re doing in the MBA, and where you want to go. Always connect your experiences with the academics. That’s key. Read a lot. Network. Keep an Excel sheet of all the folks you’ve connected with. Reach out to people and learn what they do. Message them on LinkedIn, share some of your interests, acknowledge how busy they are and ask if they might have 30 minutes to talk to you in the next few months. Don’t expect them to squeeze you in next week.

Be able to be specific about the kind of role you want. Be willing to relocate. You can get to the geography where you want to go later, now focus on the skillset. Be open to more junior or entry-level roles. Once you get a foot into the space it’s easier to rise, rather than trying to aim at the senior level right off the bat. There’s a lot to learn about impact investing, even if you’re experienced in finance, so be willing to put your ego aside and then grow in the field.

Always submit a cover letter with your applications. Always reach out to the hiring manager before you submit an application, or at least look at everyone’s profile on LinkedIn so they see that you are looking at them.

Carlos shared a list of media outlets and books he’s used over the years to keep up on trends in impact investing and learn. Check out the list below to learn more about this space.

Follow media outlets like , , and .

Big foundations like , , , etc. all regularly publish reports on their work and emerging models.

by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

by Morgan Simon

by Jeremy Balkin

by Alexandre Alex Lazarow

by Anand Giridharadas

by William D. Eggers and Paul MacMillan

by Ross Baird

by Jed Emerson

by James Allen

by Eric Ries

by Robert B. Reich