This Entrepreneur Is Positively Impacting Our Planet

Sustainable responsibility is at the forefront of social good. As a result, more corporations are taking a stand to preserve the planet’s future, challenging nations to do better.

The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its core are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, an urgent call to action by all countries to tackle climate change and work towards preserving the oceans and forests. Additionally, all Member States recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth.

Geeta Sankappanavar founded Akira Impact, an investment firm that directs capital to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The firm invests in companies that support gender equality, clean water and sanitation, clean energy and responsible consumption and production. Current investments include Green Impact Partners, which went public last year, Northbase Finance, Rplanetnft and Bluewater Renewable Energy. She has been honored as one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women, Alberta’s 50 Most Influential People and Calgary’s Top 40 Under 40.

“I became deeply interested in sustainability in 2016 and the circular economy, which I view as the intersection of water, waste, clean power and agriculture,” Sankappanavar states. “I shifted my entire business to focus on this, and I made a couple of deeply unpopular investments at the time, which have proven to be the right call. But you’re not often the most popular person in the room when you’re advocating for climate activism in a room full of oil and gas people. So the first pure green energy company I took public last year, Green Impact Partners, is brand new, but it’s building at the heart of the circular economy. They’re developing North America’s largest clean energy plants, about 1.25 billion, which will generate about 300 million EBITDA per annum and fight global warming.”

After graduating from MIT, Sankappanavar worked at Mckinsey for two years before starting her first company, backed by SoftBank. She then started a second company. Shortly after, Cambridge Solutions acquired the company, and Sankappanavar took over as head of strategic global outsourcing, becoming the first woman and youngest person on the executive team. After a few years of building out other companies worldwide under Cambridge, the company was sold.

At that time, Sankappanavar opted to pivot to New Vernon Capital, a $3 billion blue-chip asset management firm focused on India and the emerging markets. Then, before opening Akira Impact, she cofounded Grafton Asset Management, a roughly $1 billion energy investment firm based in Calgary, Alberta. Additionally, she serves on many boards, including the Board of Governors for the University of Calgary, UNICEF Canada, the Palix Foundation and Axis Connects.

“Personally, I come from poverty,” she shares. “I was born in Brazil. I am an immigrant. My dad raised a family of five on $19,000 a year… I’ve been very lucky to be financially successful in my professional life. But as a result, from my own personal journey, I’m absolutely aware that our institutions are not set up to serve all of us nor align with the causes that we care about; they’re very slow to adapt. I love that revolutionary spirit to challenge the status quo and build better systems from the ground up.”

Sankappanavar’s experience growing up shaped her foundation. She operates and builds businesses under three core themes. First, she believes education changes the trajectory of people’s lives. Second, she helps the world’s most vulnerable, and finally, she supports marginalized communities.

Most recently, she spearheaded a minority and women-led company, R Labs, and its first consumer-facing collection R Planet, building a purpose-based ecosystem in Web3 where every digital and community action aims to create a positive impact in the physical world. Its mission brings purpose and more utility to Web3 while addressing the generational shift of more than $24 trillion in wealth this decade to NextGen and serving their desire to mobilize their actions and financial assets for environmental and social good.

“Today, we have two massive generational, cultural shifts that are happening,” she explains. “One is a paradigm shift that I would say is reshaping financial systems—this global generational culture shift towards purpose. And the second is blockchain innovation. It’s at the very beginning of its use cases, not just driving the fractionalization tokenization distribution of assets but changing how customers engage with brands, commerce and investment. R Planet is building at the intersection of these two shifts.”

As Sankappanavar pivots in her career, she focuses on the following essential steps:

• Always be curious. Having an open mindset helps you engage with people and make the right connections.
• Be ready. Preparation is key to success. You never know when the next opportunity will present itself.
• Embrace challenges head-on. They build character and reveal who you really are as a leader.

“I’ve learned that you need to be flexible and willing to pivot to different realities that can become just as fulfilling or even more so than your original plan,” Sankappanavar concludes. “If you don’t have time for fear, you better start developing your courage muscle.”