Alex Humphry - Educating for Change: A Teacher’s Perspective on Impact Investing

Passionate about facilitating investment in social and environmental good, Alex Humphry teaches impact investing as part of the Graduate Certificate in Social Impact at the Centre for Social Impact at The University of Western Australia .
When she’s not wearing her lecturer’s hat, Alex is Principal Advisor, Sustainable Finance at Western Australia Treasury Corporation based in Perth. We sat down for a Q&A with Alex who shared how she enjoys sharing her experience and showing her students how to go about and make the most out of impact investing.
What is impact investment and why is it important?
Impact investment is the investment into organisations or initiatives that in some ways contribute to solutions for environmental and social challenges. Impact investment generate a financial return alongside social or environmental returns. It is important because it brings new types of capital to help scale or accelerate some of the solutions to the big social and environmental challenges that we see right now.
There is potential for some of these challenges to be addressed at scale with direct impact investment into companies, as well as investment into innovative financing structures such as social impact bonds or payment by outcomes contracts that can allow more capital to flow to create outcomes.
What differentiates impact investing?
The expectation of a measurable social or environmental return alongside a financial return
is the point of difference of impact investing. There are measures reported on regarding the
social impact, or environmental impact of the investment and what that has created.
What’s the most FAQ you get asked about impact investing?
The most frequently asked question from enterprises is: where can I access impact investment? The market is still in its early development in Western Australia, and there isn't that much capital available. It’s about trying to connect with the investors that are looking to make impact investments.
I think from an investor’s point of view; the questions are really around where the investable enterprises are. It’s about connecting those two things together. I often get asked why we don’t have social impact bonds in Western Australia. It's not something that has been trialled yet in Western Australia unlike other parts of Australia. There’s a lot of curiosity about that structure and how that could be applied to some of the social challenges in Western Australia.
Have you seen any trends in the impact investing space in Australia?
I think the big trend that I've seen over the last couple of years in the impact investment space is around the growing size of the market. If you look at responsible investment which impact investment is a part of, I think in 2022, a third of assets under management in Australia were aligning with the Responsible Investment spectrum, and that percentage is growing. There’s a lot of momentum behind the idea that people or investors are looking to align their investment with three factors—people, planet and profit. Impact investment is a small portion of that, but it is part of that, and it will scale along with the rest of investment in this area. I think we will continue to see that portion increase, and eventually perhaps the entire market will be investing with those factors in mind.
How did you get into the impact investing space?
I started my career in traditional finance working for a large Australian bank, but I was really interested in development finance, so I went over to London to study a master's degree to shift my career into development finance. When I was in London, impact investing was really starting to emerge as a new way of using finance to contribute to solutions for environmental and social challenges. So that's where I first learned about impact investing, and I got quite excited about it. I ended up working in the space in London, as well as Manila for a little bit, before returning to Australia to work in the field here over the last nine years.
I've been teaching impact investment at UWA for two years now. Prior to that, my former colleague at Impact Seed , Kylie Hansen, was also teaching in this space. It's a fantastic way for me to step out of the day-to-day of my job, which is really around managing an impact investment fund, and reflect on some of those big questions as to why we're doing what we're doing. Are we doing it in the right way? Have we thought about all the different stakeholders? It’s great to get challenged by the students in some of those questions and get to reflect on that.
Can you tell us about some professional and personal highlights?
A big highlight at Impact Seed in 2024 was the launch of our Impact Loan Fund . This is the first of its kind in WA, bringing catalytic capital to enterprises having an impact in Western Australia. We’ve started deploying that capital and growing the market, both on the impact investing side by crowding in other private investors into some of the transactions we're doing, as well as on the enterprise side by increasing the flow of capital to impactful enterprises.
My personal highlights really have come from moments in my career where I’ve been able to innovate and bring something new to the market. When I was in London, I was part of a group that helped set up the impact investing activities of a brand-new foundation. We got that up and running and I felt like I was able to bring a lot of that experience to Perth when I was setting up Impact Seed’s impact investment activities. These sorts of innovations have been really big highlights for me. I'm now embarking on a new role as Principal Advisor, Sustainable Finance at Western Australian Treasury Corporation !
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If you're keen to dive deeper into impact investing, explore the dedicated subject - Social Investment and Philanthropy - offered as part of the Graduate Certificate in Social Impact at CSI UWA.