Professor Rosemary Addis AM is an internationally recognised director and strategist actively promoting innovation and investment for positive impact. As Managing Partner of Mondiale Impact she leads a global partnership of practitioners who are trusted advisers to Boards and leaders seeking to respond to the governance realities and sustainability challenges of our time. Professor Addis is also Enterprise Professor in impact, sustainability, and innovation in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne and a global Ambassador of the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment.

Prof Addis’ 30+ year track record spans a global legal career including as an equity partner of Allens-Linklaters, Social Innovation Strategist for the Australian Government, member of the G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce and Founding Chair of Impact Investing Australia (Market Builder of the Year 2018 & 2020). She has advised governments and multi-laterals including the OECD, United Nations Development Programme, World Bank, and collaborated with institutions including Harvard Kennedy School and Oxford Said Business School. Her thought leadership is widely published.

I support Sweef Capital’s commitment to push the frontiers of gender lens investing forward, which underscores the importance of women’s economic empowerment in enabling inclusive and sustainable development. My experience is as a management consultant, university professor and editor specialising in evaluation and ecosystem-building on both the supply and demand sides of impact investing, blended finance, and gender lens investing in emerging markets, which clearly demonstrate alignment in purpose and values.

My boutique management consulting firm, E. T. Jackson and Associates, provides professional services to development agencies, investment funds, foundations and universities in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, including Australian, Canadian, Danish, and Swiss development co-operation programs, the Mastercard and Rockefeller foundations, Caribbean Development Bank, Investing in Women, UN Women, and the World Bank.

As an academic and multidisciplinary scholar, I hold appointments as Senior Research Fellow at the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation at Carleton University, Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa (Canada), and Honorary Associate with the Institute of Development Studies in Brighton (UK).

The way we allocate capital shapes the world we live in. I am a champion for Sweef Capital’s investment and women’s economic empowerment programs at the forefront in demonstrating the transformative potential of gender lens investing. Sweef Capital is also advancing the gender lens investing (GLI) ecosystem by leading the development of impact measurement tools and benchmarking systems.

I am the CEO of 2X Global, a global industry body for GLI that convenes the entire spectrum of capital providers. I also chair the 2X Challenge, which has raised more than US$11 billion of gender lens investments since its launch in 2018. Before joining 2X, I was deeply involved in originating, structuring and executing debt, and mezzanine and equity deals in emerging and frontier markets with a strong focus on inclusive innovation. One of the initiatives that excites me the most is 2X Ignite, a bold market-building solution that we co-created with diverse players across the global ecosystem to unlock capital for gender-smart business at scale by backing the next generation of female fund managers.