Faith Driven Investor

David Batstone’s entrepreneurial journey begins at his favorite restaurant in San Francisco. As he recalls, he loved the tandoori chicken, but he didn’t realize that he was eating in the center of a human trafficking ring that had brought over 500 teenagers from India into the United States for the purpose of forced labor.  A journalist and venture capitalist, David couldn’t reconcile the fact tha...

When we say, ‘bring your whole authentic self to work,’ what if faith is your number one identifier? Can you still bring your authentic self to work? That’s the question Sue Warnke is asking.  Sue works for Salesforce as the Senior Director of Content Experience, and she was part of the team that started Faithforce San Francisco at Salesforce—an interfaith employee resource group. It’s one of the...

Collin Timms is the Founder and Chairman of Guardian Bank in Bengaluru, India. In a city and country where loan sharks prey on people every day, Guardian Bank is a bright spot.  While banking is a largely impersonal system set up to avoid risk by tying creditworthiness to capital instead of character, Collin and his team take a different approach.  Inspired by faith that sees the infinite worth of...

Not every Faith Driven Investor is called to a Christian-based investing fund or job. In fact, many of the people listening to this podcast work in secular markets, which is exactly why we talked to Andrew Manton today. Andrew is the Portfolio Manager for the Shelton International Select Equity strategy. We had an interesting conversation with him about how he is operating in a non-Christian compa...

Today’s guest is David Beatty , co-founder and managing partner of Veriti Management. On today’s episode, he is going to share the value of Direct Index for helping Faith Driven Investors screen for deals that reflect the investors’ Christian values.  You’ve heard of positive screens and negative screens, but Dave joined us to explore how Faith Driven Investors can invest at a high degree of excel...

Ross Baird co-founded Village Capital in 2009 with the goal of investing in entrepreneurs building successful businesses, and also making a difference in their communities.  After making some initial investments in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he realized something: local businesses built by local capital have a great effect on local communities.  Today, he’s the Founder and CEO o...

If you’ve been following this podcast for a while, you likely know that last year we had our first ever Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Faith Driven Investor conferences that included guests like Andy Crouch, Jewel Burks Solomon, Chip Ingram, Lecrae, Phil Vischer, Jessica Kim, and many more.  Thousands of you attended, making it one of the most encouraging days since the start of the FDE and FDI mov...

Today’s guest is Alan Clayton , who is, get this—a Global Roaming Mentor. Is that a cool title or what? After 10 years in marketing/logistics at WalMart UK, Alan co-founded an international coaching consultancy, turning vision into action for leadership teams, including managers at Motorola, Unilever, ATT&T, and others. ​ Following that, Alan embarked on 20 years​ of startup​ experience ​working o...

October Baby. Mom’s Night Out. Woodlawn. I Can Only Imagine. What do these movies have in common? They’re all creations from the Erwin brothers.  Jon and Andrew have had a passion for creating and making movies since they were young, and while we could talk shop about movies we love all day long, we asked Jon to pull back the curtain into the economics behind the big screen.  How do filmmakers rai...

Money is a fact of everyday life. We earn it, spend it and save it. We’re tempted to worship it and to trust it to provide for our needs. While much has been written about the power, danger, and stewardship of money, little has been said about what money actually is and whether or not money itself is moral.  Today’s guest is here to change that. Jimmy Song is a bitcoin advocate, developer and auth...

Hear Aimee Minnich , CIO, Founder, and General Counsel for Impact Foundation, share about how her personal history led her to a career dedicated to helping families steward resources for the glory of God.  In this episode, she challenges the common understandings of risk, reward, and time horizon in investing and posits “the only meaningful risk we can take is to disobey God’s commands or ignore H...

Jewel Burks Solomon is the Founder of PartPic, which raised over $2million before being acquired by Amazon. And that was just the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey.  Now, she’s a managing partner at Collab Capital—a group working to provide a viable pathway to sustained wealth for the black community. She’s an incredible story, a fascinating entrepreneur and investor, and someone we can’t w...

Derrick Morgan , former Tennessee Titans linebacker and founding partner of KNGDM Group, believes that community roots are incredibly important.  That’s why after retiring from his career in the NFL and beginning an impact-focused fund, Derrick Morgan and KNGDM Group sought to be an example of giving back and building resilient communities.  Hear him describe the importance of hope and resilience...

Before starting Access Ventures, Bryce Butler was the Executive Director of the BlueSky Network, a venture philanthropy family office in Southern Indiana with activities around the world in microfinance, clean energy, sustainable agriculture, mobile payments, and entrepreneurship/innovation.  Bryce was also the Executive Producer of a documentary about poverty, gang violence, and those trying to c...

These are the 3 beliefs that drive Kwami’s passion. (1) poverty is an injustice, (2) we have a responsibility and a joy to solve this man-made problem, and (3) every problem presents an opportunity for business.  If that doesn’t get you excited to hear about what Kwami has to share, then we don’t know what will.  Listen in to hear how Kwami Williams is discovering entrepreneurial solutions that ta...

Ray Barreth is a serial entrepreneur and dynamic visionary. He has spent over thirty years creating, directing, and leading new ventures in the U.S. and the U.K. Ray has broad experience in bringing companies from product inception to funding and launch.  Today, Ray is going to join Reuben Coulter , Director of Ecosystems for Faith Driven Investor, to share a bit about his passion of coaching extr...

We are so excited about the abundance of opportunities we’re learning about outside of America. And today’s guest is going to tell us all about those specifically in Africa. Ndidi Nwuneli founded LEAP Africa—a leading nonprofit that provides social entrepreneurs, youth, and small scale business owners with leadership training and executive coaching services.  She is also a co-founder of AACE Foods...

Today's show is a great reminder that Faith Driven Investing is not limited to North America, nor is it limited to any one part of the globe at all! And our guest today is living proof of that. If you've been following along with the show, you know that Africa has been a recurring theme, and it is again here today.  Iyinoluwa Aboyeji (or E, as he goes by) is an entrepreneur from Nigeria who has fo...

Today’s guest is Ben Chelf . Ben is a founding partner at Elementum Ventures, has been named to ComputerWorld's Top 40 under 40 Innovative IT Professionals, and is in the Stanford Inventor Hall of Fame.  He has lived every part of the entrepreneurial cycle and is passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience. As part of this work, Ben also heads up the Venture Lab at Praxis, helping serial...

We can confidently say that today’s guest is the first person we’ve had on the show who was also a part of The Bachelorette. That’s right. Before Jason Illian was pioneering disruptive technologies, he spent time sharing a house with 24 other guys trying to woo one girl’s heart.  He didn’t make it very far in the show (something he and his current wife are both grateful for!), but he did take that...

Community . It’s one of the core tenets of the Faith Driven movement. If you’ve been listening for a while, we hope you’ve heard stories from around the world that have opened up your eyes to see that FDEs are everywhere, and they’re faithfully pursuing God’s will right where they are.  Today, we’re talking with Sue Alice Sauthoff who has recently joined the FDE/FDI team as our Community Manager ....

Today’s episode features one of the great thinkers in the FDI community talking about a topic that, well, frankly none of us like talking about. And that is “how to say no.”  No investor can say yes to every deal that crosses their desk (nor should they!), but learning how to say no is a uniquely acquirable skill. Today, Jake Thomsen of Sovereign’s Capital is back after talking to us about Fundrai...

No one likes to be a part of a dysfunctional relationship. Yet, entrepreneurs and investors can often be on completely different pages with completely different goals and expectations. Today’s conversation between Henry Kaestner and Jessica Kim gives both sides of the story. Jessica shares how setting unrealistic expectations hurts the entrepreneur’s ability to follow through and the investor’s ab...

Today’s guest is Michael Arrieta , the CEO and Founder of Garden City Companies . And while normally, we try to introduce you to our guests, for today, you should read you something that Mike wrote himself:  “At Garden City, we’re reimagining existing service companies by ensuring workers are radically cared for and truly love their jobs. Service companies where innovation & technology is the norm...

One thing that makes this show so special is the feedback we receive from listeners just like you. Today’s episode is the fruit of your feedback.  Many of you have talked about how helpful it would be to connect the Faith Driven Investor world with the Faith Driven Entrepreneur world. Well, we heard you. And out of that has arrived something we are beyond excited to share with you.  It’s called Ma...