Dr. Christian Kingombe sits down with Sandrine Henton, Managing Director of EG Capital, to unpack a thesis that blends climate adaptation, gender equity, and growth capital across food, health, and education value chains in Africa. The episode moves from Sandrine’s personal journey into impact investing, to the fund’s blended-finance design, sourcing playbook, and impact measurement approach—closing with clear advice for emerging managers and founders navigating today’s volatile markets.
Sandrine traces the “seed” of her career to her university thesis comparing ESG performance in listed companies, followed by roles in HSBC alternative investments, strategy consulting, and private equity with an emerging-markets lens. Parallel projects in India and Africa—spanning education, health, food, and nutrition—kept her close to the ground realities she hoped finance could address. Several validation moments sharpened her conviction: Michael Porter’s Social Progress Index (2014), a UN Education Commission stakeholder survey in Kenya (2016), field research with Strathmore University and Cambridge across Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya, and Project Drawdown (2018), which highlighted food, health, and education among top climate solutions. These inputs pointed to a clear gap: the need to crowd in private capital to underserved sectors that are vital for human development and climate resilience.
From early ESG curiosity to an Africa-focused impact thesisThe investment edge: thematic depth, capital design, and climate proofing
EG’s differentiator is sector depth plus value-add. Rather than hunting generic “good deals,” the team scouts management teams in strategic sectors that have proven something already and are ready to level up—with EG bringing climate adaptation strategies and flexible capital to de-risk that next step. A stark example came from Zambia’s severe drought, which triggered 17–21 hours/day of load shedding and exposed how even strong agri processors lacked resilient power solutions. EG’s answer: channel solar and adaptation strategies into agri/health/education operations while helping reduce import dependencies—a resilience play with commercial logic.
Just as critical is instrument choice. With private debt in Africa accounting for ~0.3% of global private debt and local banks often preferring 20%+ T-bills over SME risk, EG offers flexible debt (e.g., mezzanine) that provides year-one liquidity to LPs (cash interest) and amortizes principal over ~5 years—mitigating exit risk relative to pure equity
For emerging fund managers:
Identify the market gap with evidence and design your structure (including blended finance) to make the risk–return–impact equation work.
Put local capital at the table—the “usual suspects” aren’t enough; relationships with African LPs take time but are vital for alignment and staying power.
Be patient and collaborative: journeys take two to three times longer than planned; ecosystems beat heroics. Why this episode matters
This discussion offers a workable operating system for Africa-focused impact investing: a thematic lens (food/health/education) tied to climate adaptation and gender equity; a capital stack that fits market realities (flexible debt + blended finance); a value-chain sourcing approach that integrates innovators; and an IMM practice that’s humble about climate-adaptation measurement yet commits incentives to verified outcomes. It’s a blueprint for moving from intention to execution in markets where the need—and the potential—are both immense.
Listen to the full podcast on Spotify.
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