Theories of Change

Dr. Karen Wendt holds an MBA of the Faculty of Social and Environmental Studies of Liverpool University. She is the Editor of the Springer book series “Sustainable Finance” and has published in the field of responsible investment banking, positive impact investing, and sustainable financial innovation. She has more than 20 years of experience in investment banking with UniCredit and has been introducing the first effective sustainability standard in investment and banking: the Equator Principles in two top tier financial institutions. Karen is passionate about co-creation and transformation. She is sitting on various boards in the financial industry including SwissFinTechLadies, Sustainable Finance Association and Female Founders Association. Today she is a serial entrepreneur, an internationally recognized expert for sustainable finance, transformation, positive impact investing and an inspiring lecturer at internationally recognized universities. She loves intelligence driven organizations, creating data driven change and helping others to connect their vision with the right data points. Karen is likewise a prominent Key Note Speaker. She has become a leading authority on impact investing, SDG investing and regenerative capitalism.

• Part I: Theories of Change: Defining the Research Agenda, Leadership and Change.- Theory of Change: Defining the Research Agenda.- About Bridges and Goals: On the Art of Change Management as a Bridge to the Goals for a Sustainable World and a World of Sustainable Investing.- Analysing the Credibility of Theories of Change.- Failed Theories of Change: Misperceptions About ESG Investment and Investment Efforts to Combat Climate Change.- Y.1: The Biological Code for Evolutionary Transformation and Strategic Investment Decisions.- Part II: Creating Global Frameworks.- Towards a Unifying Framework of Impact Assessment in Impact Investing.- Social Reporting Standard (SRS): Making Social Impact Visible.- Clustering of Negative Criteria: A Pragmatic Approach for the Implementation of SRI.- Part III: Impact Investing.- Improving Early Childhood Development in Namibia with Result Based Financing.- An Analysis on Impact Measurement: How Do We Measure Impact?.- The Lessons of Microcredit.- ImpactInvesting Practice Report: Impact Analysis and Impact Reporting at BonVenture.- Part IV: Quantitative Analysis in Investing.- When Transparency Clouds Rather Than Clarifies: A Closer Look at Transparency Bias Within ESG Scores.- Comprehensive Simulation Meta Model for Transition Planning and Decision Analysis with Sustainable Impact.- Part V: Ecosystems.- Banking 4.0: Digital Ecosystems and Super-Apps.- Orchestrating Value Co-Creation in Business Ecosystems.- Part VI: Blockchain, Chryptoeconomics and Sustainability.- Change Through Crypto-Economics.- Blockchain and Sustainable Development Goals: From Blue Skies Estimates of Impact to Bottom-Up Essentials.- The Tokenization of Assets: Using Blockchains for Equity Crowdfunding.- Blockchain and the Evolution of Information Society.- Cryptography Leads the Next Wave of Societal Change.- Machine Learning and Finance.- Part VII: SDG Topic.- The Gender Investment Gap.- The Era of New Leadership.- Social Enterprises: Investment in a Sustainable Social Development with Added Value.- Part VIII: Climate Change.- Domestic Heating and China’s Sustainable Energy Goals.- Sustainable Energy Investment in Australia.- The Money Pipeline: The Role of Finance in the Climate Emergency.- Moving the Topic of Climate Change from Politics to Economics.