Women as Agents of Change: Heading for Change announces its first investments

The Heading for Change team is delighted to announce its first five investments: AiiM Partners, Supply Change Capital, MCE’s Mesa Fund, WaterEquity, and Just Climate.

This blended, multi-asset portfolio is driven by Heading for Change’s “women as agents of change” investment thesis: an integrated approach to climate and gender investing that views women as essential leaders, innovators, and creators, not just as beneficiaries of climate investment.

“We believe that climate solutions have the best chance of success where women are engaged at every level: as fund managers, entrepreneurs, in supply chains and the workforce, and as consumers,” says Natalie Shriber, Heading for Change’s Head of Investments. “Rather than viewing climate and gender as distinct areas of performance, Heading for Change takes an integrated approach, looking at how funds leverage gender analysis to enhance climate impact and support a just transition.”

The legacy project of the late Suzanne Biegel, an impact investing pioneer who was central to establishing the gender-smart investing field, Heading for Change seeks to mobilize and accelerate capital to the nexus of climate solutions and gender equity, through a demonstration portfolio of funds that invest in gender-smart climate managers, and a Donor-Partner program that provides investors with the insights and information they need to follow suit. Heading for Change was launched in April 2023 with a $1MM endowment from Biegel and her husband Daniel Maskit, and has since grown to almost $3.5MM through contributions from other 100 individual and institutional donors.

“Suzanne was someone who deeply understood the urgency of the climate crisis, and she was driven to leverage all the tools at her disposal to address it,” says Samantha Anderson, Change Weaver at Heading for Change. “In Heading for Change, she intended to both use her own capital to take bold action on climate, and inspire other investors to do likewise.” 

Over the coming months, the Heading for Change team will continue to build out its portfolio, with the expectation of investing in at least 20 funds by the end of 2024. New investments will continue to be made as additional capital rolls in.

“We’re so excited to continue doing due diligence on the forward-thinking funds in our pipeline, and to continue deepening and communicating our articulation of what ‘good’ looks like at the climate-gender nexus,” says Shriber.

Learn more about the investments below, or join us on November 15 for our Agents of Impact call with ImpactAlpha on women as agents of change for climate resilience.