Introducing Suzie Riddell, CEO of Social Ventures Australia. Get inspired by Suzie's unplanned and exciting career path that led her to achieve ikigai, and how volunteering to teach English in Guatemala wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
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The following is a transcript created using AI technology so please forgive any grammatical imperfections.
[00:00:00.180] - Suzie Riddell
Ikigai is the intersection of four things. What do you love doing? What are you good at? What can you get paid for? And what does the world need? And when you find all four of those things, then that's your ikigai.
[00:00:19.200] - Camilla Love
Welcome, everyone, back to another episode of Shares Not Shoes, an insider's guide to careers in finance. I'm your host, Camilla Love, founder of F3 Future Females in Finance. Shares Not Shoes is a podcast whereby I interview some of my favourite people all with one thing in common, they work in finance. We lift the lid on who they are, how they came into a career in finance, and arm you with some knowledge about why a career in finance could be a good fit for you. I will promise that all my guests will share some amazing personal stories. We'll be open and honest and will inspire you.
[00:00:54.500] - Suzie Riddell
So let's go.
[00:00:58.280] - Camilla Love
We are just going to dive right into today's episode as this guest is an amazing talent, a firecracker, and an all round beautiful person. She's a CEO of a for purpose investment organization who is touching so many lives for the better. It is our guest's goal to use finance to transform education, employment, and housing for all Australians, particularly for those who are less well off than probably the two of us and our listeners today. In short, she's changing the lives of so many people she doesn't even know and building a better world. Am I overselling it? Absolutely not. And you'll work this out very soon when you get to meet her. So welcome to Shares Not Shoe, Susan Riddell.
[00:01:46.280] - Suzie Riddell
Thank you very much, Camilla, for having me. It's a pleasure to.
[00:01:49.070] - Camilla Love
Be here. I'm so excited about telling your story and I followed it for a long time. Not that you even know. But we won't tell anyone, but we met when we were much younger than we are now. But I have followed you even when you are on the AFR front cover and all this stuff, which I'm really excited to delve into a little bit more. So tell me a little bit about what you do and why you do it.
[00:02:21.510] - Suzie Riddell
Thanks. Social Ventures Australia is the organization that I run and it is a for purpose organization. We're a not for profit and we have a vision of an Australia where all people and communities thrive. I like to think you can collect lots of people underneath that vision. So what does that mean? An Australia that has a really thriving and dynamic ecosystem. It's a reconciled Australia. Everyone has a place to call home. Young children get a really great start in life. They're flourishing. Young people get access to high quality education. Everyone has access to meaningful work. Everyone can participate in society and have their rights upheld. So in short, everyone's joined in in a really inclusive, thriving society. So the way that our not for profit organization works is in partnership with others. So we're not a typical not for profit that does service delivery and works directly with people and communities. Instead, we are an intermediary and we work in partnership with other for purpose organizations, with governments, with businesses and with philanthropists because we think it takes village to drive towards a better Australia. The reason that we work with those organizations and different types of organizations together is because at the moment, Australia is not the picture that I just painted.
[00:03:47.670] - Suzie Riddell
One in four people experience disadvantage in Australia in the form of poverty, social exclusion, or deprivation, or sometimes all of those. And it's simply not good enough. We think we can do better. We think we should do better. And that means working towards changing policies that impact all of our lives. Very importantly, and I'm sure we'll dig into this, changing how the funding flows so that money is attached to outcomes that matter and evidence about what actually works and changing practice at the front line. And so the way that we partner up with those organisations is that we have an impact investing team, and I'll talk a little bit more about that. We have a consulting team that does advisory work, and then we use philanthropy to run medium to long term demonstration projects with our partners to see if we can get better outcomes, particularly in early childhood, in education, school age education, and in employment. And we're just over 20 years old. We have about 110 people around the country.
[00:04:52.400] - Camilla Love
It is amazing. And really, the purpose is just so meaningful. And getting up and going to work every day, some people dread it. But I could imagine you'd just be jumping out of bed because of all the people that you will impact. I mean, do you think you'll ever finish the job that you have set out to do?
[00:05:15.340] - Suzie Riddell
I'd like to think we'll make some progress, but no. No, I don't think it'll ever be finished, that's for sure. But you're honest about purpose and motivation. I really love the Japanese concept of I Kigai. I don't know if you've heard of that. An I Kigai is the intersection of four things. What do you love doing? What are you good at? What can you get paid for? And what does the world need? And when you find all four of those things, then that's your I Kigai. And what's kept me at SVA for 12 years and why I absolutely love my job is I really feel like I found my I Kigai in this role. I love it. I'm pretty good at it. I can get paid for it and earn a good living. And I really think the world needs this. So that's what I hope lots of people can find in their careers and in their lives.
[00:06:06.350] - Camilla Love
That is a goal for everybody to reach and not everyone does, right? So it's a big, hairy goal. So tell me a little bit about you yourself. So how did you start your personal life? What does what does Suzy look like outside of being a CEO?
[00:06:25.850] - Suzie Riddell
Sure. It wasn't planned. And I think people who have interesting careers are rarely people who have planned their pathway. I grew up in Sydney. I studied accounting at university. So I went to University of Technology, Sydney, and I had one of those great Coop scholarships where you worked full-time for half a year in your first year and your third year. So I was fortunate enough to try my hand at what accounting might be like.
[00:06:57.280] - Camilla Love
You do this? And you as an accountant, though.
[00:06:59.500] - Suzie Riddell
Well, I didn't go very far in the accounting world, to be honest. Don't tell.
[00:07:04.080] - Camilla Love
Anyone, okay?
[00:07:05.900] - Suzie Riddell
So I worked in the accounting teams at AB and Ambro Bank, which is now Royal Bank of Scotland, and in my third year at Coca Cola Haltel. And I really liked studying business and accounting. I found that part interesting. It probably wasn't really for me when I was out there in the workplace. And I'm not sure it's fair to judge the entire profession based on being a university student as an intern. And it was a really good set of fundamentals for me to understand the numbers, to have confidence in financial literacy, and to see how businesses generally actually ran behind the scenes. I did an accounting honours degree because I liked uni, not because I particularly liked accounting. And I did a lot of other fun things at university. I did a lot of sport and travel and debating and various different things that were great. I went on exchange to Canada and had a great time. When I finished my honours degree and had handed in my thesis and I was done, I had been to precisely zero job interviews and my parents thought that that was a bit of a problem. Now that you're not a student anymore, you probably need to get a real job.
[00:08:19.680] - Camilla Love
And how are you going to practice?
[00:08:21.410] - Suzie Riddell
Yeah, exactly. This was around Christmas time, just before Christmas, and I went and applied for jobs in management consulting for the very good reason that other smart people who didn't know what they wanted to do in their lives were doing it. I didn't know what it was at all. I didn't appreciate it. It was hard to get into. I just sent them my CV and a couple of letter randomly and said, Can I come and interview to join your organisations? And we did a few interviews and I got a job offer for Bain & Company.
[00:08:55.170] - Camilla Love
Which I didn't absolutely sort after.
[00:08:57.740] - Suzie Riddell
Well, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I found that out later. I was like, Oh, yeah.
[00:09:03.780] - Camilla Love
I like it. I can do this, whatever.
[00:09:08.220] - Suzie Riddell
I met great people and they sounded like they did interesting stuff in lots of different industries. But they wanted me to join in January. I said, Oh, I'd really actually prefer to take a whole year off and join the following January, which at the time they were happy to accommodate, which was very lucky for me. They gave me a sign on bonus, which was a pre GFC thing. And I went and took a year off. I thought instead of only backpacking and partying, which I had done enough of, I would also do something that I thought would be good for the world. And I worked as a volunteer English teacher in a girl's primary school in Guatemala for a few months. Yeah, it was all based on the belief that education is what it takes to break the cycle of disadvantage. And I thought that I would be helping.
[00:09:59.790] - Camilla Love
And I knew before. How did you get those values and philosophies? Because not everyone goes, Yeah, I'm just going to wake up in the morning and go to Guatemala and teach girls English just because we can break the cycle of poverty. Is that an influencer thing from your parents? Is it innate? How did you find that value? Because you're also quite young to have found that value at that point in time, right?
[00:10:26.740] - Suzie Riddell
Yeah, that's a great question. Some of it is from my parents, for sure. My parents were both born in South Africa and they left independently because they didn't agree with Apartheid when they were young adults and both met here in Australia. So they arrived in Australia and met here and decided to get married and have me and my brother here in Sydney. And I think that fundamental disagreement with a policy that last ed for an incredibly long time in South Africa that was based on racism and prejudice probably did lead to family discussions and inherent family values that were about family and social justice. Not sure we use that language, but we certainly had an appreciation that we were incredibly fortunate and that not everybody is as fortunate. And that might not be because of choices they make. It might be because of systems that exist where they have no control over outcomes in their own lives. So I think that was a big influence. And I think when I explored, just as a backpacker, some parts of Australia that I could afford to spend long amounts of time in, which means countries where there's quite a lot of poverty, the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty, and particularly for girls and women it's just really obvious to me.
[00:12:01.970] - Suzie Riddell
I think you can go to some of those places in Southeast Asia or in South America or in Africa and parts of Eastern Europe and just have a great time and think, gee, my Australian dollar goes really far here. But I found it quite unsettling. And I think that really struck a chord for me.
[00:12:21.420] - Camilla Love
I went to Nepal as a young, as a 16 year old, and we did a bit of tracking around there and all that stuff. And it was actually with school. And that was probably the most shocking thing that as a young, near adult, to experience. Because it was hard to see the girls not going to school because the family couldn't afford it, and they would allocate the money to the boys, whatever it was. Or even if the school was 12 kilometres away and they just couldn't get there, it's devastating. It's devastating to see.
[00:13:02.260] - Suzie Riddell
Absolutely heartbreaking. So I thought I was doing the right thing by going to the coal face and volunteering my time. And the really sad part, and this was very formative for me is that I did not have a positive impact in Guatemala with those little girls.
[00:13:20.550] - Camilla Love
Why do you say that?
[00:13:22.310] - Suzie Riddell
I wasn't a very good English teacher. I had an accounting degree.
[00:13:27.840] - Camilla Love
Maths, on the other hand, no problem.
[00:13:29.440] - Suzie Riddell
Yeah, that s right. So I wasn't very good at it. But actually, there were more systemic factors. So high school is not compulsory in Guatemala. And so most of those kids, especially because they were girls, a lot of them living in poverty, were not going to go to high school. So what they really needed was Spanish literacy, numeracy, life skills, because they're about to become adults at a 12 or 13. I was not part of a coordinated system where if you had been exposed to English language lessons throughout primary school in a skilled way and you had functional English, that would help you with getting a job in the tourism industry. But I was like, colours of the rainbow, days of the week, made a lot of dumb mistakes, like trying to teach them about time when no one had a watch and there wasn't even a fork in the classroom and about weather in a place where the weather's the same every day near the equator. The organization I volunteered with was corrupt. I had to pay to volunteer. I had to make a contribution and I was supposed to go to the community and I didn't.
[00:14:31.830] - Suzie Riddell
And there was just really no evidence that me doing what I was doing would actually change the trajectory of their lives. I mean, I hoped it would, but I'm pretty sure it was probably harmful. But really stark contrast was the young children who were sitting in front of me for an hour every day in their various different classes, and my family and friends back home who thought I was such a good person for volunteering my time and wasn't I doing good in the world?
[00:14:59.070] - Camilla Love
How did that even sit with you. Then fast forward to today with what you're doing with SVA, right? Surely, in hindsight, obviously, you think it was a negative impact. A re you repaying that impact through SVA in some unusual, I don't know, self effacing way? Is that what it's doing? Or did you just go, Holy moly, and just go, Okay, I've got to find a different way of applying my skill set?
[00:15:36.720] - Suzie Riddell
It definitely felt that way. I've got skills that I am not using, and I just have to find a completely different way of making a difference in the world. I do think SVA is somewhat the antidote. I did my diligence when I started at Social Ventures Australia 12 years ago. They started with the evidence. What do we already understand about what works? They were highly collaborative, no solo endeavors. Everything is in partnership. They worked really hard to keep people at the centre of the work. What matters to them? What does good look like? How do they get involved in the design, the delivery, the evaluation of the work, and most importantly, had a track record of doing some pretty tremendous things that I thought had a real story to tell about impact at scale that was really attractive to me. But at the time, I just found it really heartbreaking. It was demotivating, and I couldn't communicate very well either. So I was living with a host family trying to learn Spanish at the same time. And I can tell you what, when you haven't really mastered the past tense, you are not yourself in expressing deep philosophical challenges that you have with how you're living your life and existential dilemma s.
[00:16:59.480] - Suzie Riddell
And I feel like I'm sure most people who have been in a foreign culture and specifically a foreign language can relate to that feeling of, I don't really feel like me. I feel like I'm this one dimensional version of myself plugged into a system that's corrupt and ineffective. Actually, this system is designed to give me a good time not to help these kids. It's volunteerism. It's not international development and significant community building. And that really sat with me for a long time. And I try and be a bit kind to my former self. I was young as you just trying to do the good thing. And it was a worse than just going to Greece and partying and getting drunk. I don't know. I hope not.
[00:17:48.830] - Camilla Love
Yeah, I understand. It's a really interesting dilemma, right, too, because you do think you are doing good. And a lot of people still do those just that volunteerism type of things. So what would you recommend? Obviously, the due diligence piece is a big one.
[00:18:09.420] - Suzie Riddell
Definitely the due diligence. I guess I'm a really big believer that people should use the skills and talents and gifts that they have and get great training where great training is on offer so that you can contribute in a meaningful way. That's what I would recommend. Studying things that you're interested in, going and getting started in your career in places where there's going to be excellent learning and development, whether it's on the job or technical training is a fantastic place to start. And for those who are further on in their career, use your skills. You've already built all this knowledge and networks and you've got scar tissue that is really relevant. How can you use those to contribute to making the world a better place, rather than seeing it as something that you need to go back to the beginning and just be a generalist volunteer, start again.
[00:19:05.660] - Camilla Love
I love your comment about scar tissue. We talk about it, but obviously a lot in the podcast on mistakes that we've done in our career or turning points or lessons learned. Do you want to tell to us about one thing that sticks out that either changed your trajectory or changed your thinking? Obviously, we've already talked about one, but anything in ide, either working at Bain or inside social ventures, truly?
[00:19:37.370] - Suzie Riddell
Sure. I'll give you an example. When I was leading our education team, actually, I should probably say I started in our consulting team, I then led our education work, then began a new part of our organization focused on policy and advocacy, and I became the CEO about four and a half years ago. So I've had lots of different roles in the organization. When I was leading our education team, we had developed an initiative that we were super excited about working with schools that were in low socioeconomic communities that were also really high performing. So these are the positive deviants, the ones that are getting it right. And despite tough circumstances, getting really great outcomes for young people. And we'd identified a bunch of schools with the help of a lot of experts in our team who are led by this brilliant former school principal and education expert called Sue Crige. And we wanted to work in New South Wales and in Victoria and in Queensland. And we wanted to partner with the Department of Education with the government. And I was really naive about what it takes to partner with government because I had never had significant interaction through a social policy or social program lens with government.
[00:20:59.710] - Suzie Riddell
And I found myself on a plane to Brisbane with my then CEO, Michael Trail, to go and meet with someone very important in the Queensland government. And we thought we were going in to shake hands and tell each other how great each other were and to come out with some agreement for us to work with a handful of schools in Queensland. And instead, we got, not quite shouted at, but close and told, No, you can't work with schools in Queensland. You've gone about this in the complete wrong way. This isn't aligned with our agenda and our policy reforms that we are doing and what we want our schools to be focused on. And at the time, I was pretty angry and also really upset, probably went into a bit of a shame spiral about what I'd done wrong to get us to that point. And it certainly wasn't just me, it was a team thing. But I look back now and think, I did not take advantage of what I had many times, which was asking people who had real experience and insight and knowledge for help and support. And I really should have. We should have gone and talked to people who deeply understood how to partner with governments to get their advice about how to frame it, who to approach, how to think about the difference between the politicians and the bureaucracy, how to talk about different horizons based on when there were elections and a whole bunch of different things.
[00:22:34.250] - Suzie Riddell
And that was a really big turning point for me.
[00:22:37.910] - Camilla Love
What was that all about? Was that ego in that I can do it all? I don't know. You mentioned being naive about it, but there's a whole bunch of other stuff that comes into that thought process.
[00:22:58.270] - Suzie Riddell
For sure. It wasn't ego because I didn't then and I still don't think I can do it all. I spend probably more time in the self doubt, how did I get myself into this job where they're going to find me out face. My prehistoric syndrome. Yes. So it definitely wasn't that.
[00:23:13.820] - Camilla Love
Was it hard to... I mean, why was it hard to ask other people for help? Lots of people have this problem, which is why I'm asking.
[00:23:20.760] - Suzie Riddell
It wasn't that it was hard. It was probably more of a blind spot thing. It didn't really occur to me or to the people I was working really closely with because we just thought that the thing that we were doing was so obviously great, actually. Obviously, when we tell you that we're bringing some philanthropists to the table and some great academics and some brilliant not for profit leaders and some incredible school principals, and we're going to convene them in this brilliant collaborative networking methodology. But what's not to love? So I think it didn't occur to me that it was not going to be met with a warm embrace. So it felt like whittle ash actually. It wasn't that I went, Oh, this is going to be a bit hard, but don't worry, I'll just wing it. If I thought it was going to be like that, I absolutely would have gone and asked for help, but I didn't think it was going to be like that.
[00:24:16.250] - Camilla Love
And how did your CEO react to it?
[00:24:18.850] - Suzie Riddell
Well, I think he was pretty upset and angry as well at the whole situation and probably had a little bit of the same blind spot that I had about not appreciating that governments have different roles and different perspectives and a different set of information than we do. So I think that why it happened is that we collectively had the same group bank, the same set of blind spots. Exactly.
[00:24:48.480] - Camilla Love
So then as you as CEO now having that seat, had you had yourself in your situation, upset set, sad about what's going on, big bruise to the emotional component of you, and also coming back into the imposter syndrome piece, doubling down on that, how would you support your former self in going through all that? Because everyone makes mistakes, right?
[00:25:20.640] - Suzie Riddell
Everyone makes mistakes. I make lots of mistakes still. One of the things my coach helped me with when I was the when I was first getting started as the CEO is helping me think about how I speak with my young children. They're now five and seven. They were one and three when I started as the CEO. The thing that worked best for me was just the reminder that being a beginner is hard. I was a beginner and I made a mistake. And that's what beginners often do. It's to be expected a lot of the time.
[00:25:58.240] - Camilla Love
So at work, do you create a culture of successful failure? Do you the supportive nature of it? How does it manifest at work?
[00:26:11.040] - Suzie Riddell
We certainly try very hard to. Something that I wish we could do more of is sharing stories more publicly that belong to our partners and us. Inside SVIE, we try to be clear eyed about what happened and what we contributed to it, what other people contributed to it, and what just was a set of circumstances that were completely outside of our control and move on. Where do we go from here? It's completely expected that when we are trying to do things that are innovative and that require quite bold, courageous attitudes, that we're going to make mistakes. If it was just a repeatable process of things that were already well understood, no one at SVA would be interested in that. That's not what we do. So yes, we try and do that. I think internally, I try and do that with my team. We do get caught sometimes with how do we tell the stories more openly.
[00:27:17.110] - Camilla Love
Without it having career limiting factors, that stuff. Yes, career limiting factors. Perceived career limiting factors.
[00:27:27.950] - Suzie Riddell
I'd say also reputational things for a bunch of different kinds of organisations. People have different appetites to share stories about what happened, and that's fine and appropriate, depending on what organisation you are.
[00:27:44.040] - Camilla Love
So that's for flip tack a little bit and talk about the financial and investment aspects of your business. Do you want to give us a bit of an overview and then I'll delve into a few more questions?
[00:27:56.680] - Suzie Riddell
Absolutely. It all started about 12 years ago when SVA's CEO, Michael Trail, led a consortium of not for profits to buy the failing childcare business ABC Learning. Michael's background was in private equity at MacQuarrie Bank, and he worked closely with three other CEOs of not for profit organisations. Because he had, and a couple of people he knew really well, spotted this opportunity to turn the largest childcare provider into a social purpose organisation and change the landscape.
[00:28:38.670] - Camilla Love
For.
[00:28:39.230] - Suzie Riddell
Young children and families across the country by doing that. And what it talk was a pretty mammoth effort at a very fast pace to put together a bid to the liquidators, administrators, can't remember which, that required only debt because it was going to be a not for profit entity. So you wasn't able to have equity, you could only have debt. And so there was some senior debt from a bank, from the National Australia Bank. There was a government loan, which was pretty hard to pull off because governments used to guarantee money, but not necessarily up to lending money in this space. A bunch of private investors who were high net worth individuals and philanthropic foundations, mostly who came in with some subordinated debt and then deeply subordinated debt that was very risky for the not the profits themselves. Absolutely. And they were successful in putting forward the most competitive bid and then turning ABC learning into what is now good start, early learning. Good Start has been a tremendous success story. They run about 15 % of early learning centres across the country, which is 700 centres. They support 50,000 families. The quality of that early learning has just risen in this beautiful curve ever since they turned it into a not for profit under the incredible leadership of their CEO, Julia Davidson.
[00:30:12.060] - Suzie Riddell
And after that transaction, people came to Michael and to SCA and said, What next? That was pretty incredible. And what next has translated into a few different things. Social impact bonds. So SVA runs a social impact bond practice. And social impact bonds are quite unique financial instruments where we are essentially running an experiment on a program to deliver better social outcomes, where we have a really, really rigorous set of measures understanding what typically happens in this population or cohort, and then what is going to happen in this specific program. Governments stand to save a lot of money by not having to pay for things that cost money and are also not great for people like significant justice costs or hospitalisation costs, et cetera. And there's a not for profit who's going to run the program. And there's quite a bit of risk in that the government is going to pay on an outcomes basis. If you get better outcomes, you'll get a higher payment. And to be able to fund all of that, not for profits typically don't have very large balance sheets and therefore aren't able to take a whole lot of financial risk.
[00:31:34.260] - Suzie Riddell
So private investors invest in the bond and they get paid a coupon that is attached to the set of outcomes that are achieved. And an example of that is the very first bond in Australia, the New P in Social Benefit Bond in New South Wales, which focused on families who had their young children removed from their care and put into out of home care. Out of home care on average, is not great for children and for families in terms of their social outcomes, emotional wellbeing, etc. It also costs governments a lot of money because you have to pay for people to be in out of home care. So it's double benefit of better outcomes for families and children and benefit to the state not having to pay. And this program called NEAPN, which was run by Uniting, was about building the capability and capacity parents to have great parenting skills so that their children could be safely reunited with them. And then the payment is based on what proportion of children are reunited compared to what proportion would normally be reunited in the general course of affairs. And it was incredibly successful. Around 200 children were safely restored to their families over the period of, I think it's about seven years.
[00:32:51.020] - Suzie Riddell
And the investors got the highest rate of return that had been agreed upfront. And since then, we've run a number of social impact bonds and have a portfolio of them across the country. We're about to launch our next one, which is focused on people who are exiting prison in Victoria and supporting them with wrap around services and housing with a not for profit called VACRO. So that's been a really exciting area to lead in and requires really specialist skills. So that work's been led by an incredible colleague of mine, Elyse Sainte, who was an actuary. She worked in wealth management. So she's extremely competent with the numbers and the scenarios and very multi lingual in that she's great at collaborating with governments, treasury and finance departments, as well as line agencies. She's raising the capital, her and her team, from investors and then managing that. So we have a financial services license and then working really closely with not for profits and building their trust and being able to really refine the design of the program and understand outcomes and measurement, et cetera. So social impact bonds, we're going to continue to do because we think they're exciting experiments.
[00:34:06.890] - Suzie Riddell
And they're not really about making money for investors. They're really about trying to figure out does this work well for the people and communities?
[00:34:13.470] - Camilla Love
Have you expanded outside the philanthropy space? Are you still getting the funding mainly from individuals? Or is it coming more from these days, the super funds looking at it? Are there other wealth managers who are looking at it? Who are who are looking for a return, but they're looking for a return in multifaceted way?
[00:34:39.520] - Suzie Riddell
Most of the investors are high net worth individuals and philanthropic foundations. And we do have some super funds who've invested, and a few re institutional investors. The challenge for those type of investors is the size. The whole bond is usually only $7, 8, 9 million. And that if you can have only up to 20 % of that, it's often not worth their while. So we are in general challenged in the social impact investing market with ticket size for institutional investors.
[00:35:12.270] - Camilla Love
Do you think you could get away with a $500 million bond? Or is it really just going to have only small bond issuance over time just because of the specific nature of the project?
[00:35:24.290] - Suzie Riddell
Because they're so specific and they work with really targeted cohorts and they're going to stay small. The opportunity for large scale is really to translate the lessons from what we learn from these programs into how government procure services in general. So the bond for out of home care is small. New South Wales spends 480 million dollars a year on out of home care. You don't need a bond at that stage, but you do need to have really good data and measurement and clarity around what outcomes you're aiming for in order to do more outcomes based p ritual amount where it's possible and appropriate. That's why we are interested in is shifting the dial on some of that government expenditure. The areas that are more scalable and definitely institutions are looking at these are in the funds management space. So not bonds, but managing funds on behalf of investors. We've run a couple of different funds since we started doing this work just over a decade ago. One of those funds is on behalf of an institutional investor and is a single mandate. And the way that they make sure that they're still upholding their fiduciary responsibility to members is that they have a veto over every single investment.
[00:36:38.960] - Suzie Riddell
They're really involved in that fund. And then the other fund is smaller and is more of a demonstration scale. And they can invest equity and debt. And that's a range of operating organisations that are supporting people who are excluded from the workforce into meaningful employment, quite a number of housing initiatives, affordable housing, dementia housing, etc. And sometimes those funds invest with appropriate separations of authority into the social impact bonds as well. So we have two direct funds and then we have one where we have a joint venture with an asset manager called Federation. And that joint venture has a fund called synergists, and we invest in specialist disability accommodation. And that is a really exciting area for SVA because we deeply believe that Australia is going to be a better place when people with disabilities are able to thrive. And that includes having a safe, appropriate, and affordable place to call home. A small number of people who are participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme need really specialist housing. And there's a payment under that scheme that can go to them that they can use for rental payments under specialist disability accommodation. And we have been partnering up with specialist developers and providing funding so that we can build brand new houses and apartments for people who have these special needs and are eligible for specialist disability accommodation.
[00:38:13.410] - Suzie Riddell
So that is an area specialist disability accommodation, which is going to grow enormously. It's expected that that market in 10 years' time will be about $10 billion. And affordable housing, absolutely on the radar of every government in Australia. Housing crisis. They're looking for more opportunities to have the policy settings in a way where private capital can be part of the solution in creating new stock that's really appropriate for people in the right places. And SVA is really interested in how do you measure the impact for the people who are living in these houses? So that it's not just about the financial return, it's also about the measurable social impact for the tenants or the homeowners, depending on how this is arranged.
[00:38:59.150] - Camilla Love
The social social and affordable housing is an interesting one because there are a lot of fund managers also looking in this space, right? But they have to partner. They absolutely have to partner because it is not necessarily their specialty. Their specialty is on the investment side, but actually the procurement and the management of the project and also the government relations. There's money to be made in there. So whilst there is the social outcome, which is what we all want, there is a return to be had in that segment as well, which I think is really exciting to see because it's such a burgeoning... It's just on the precip of of, as you mentioned, booming in that segment. I'm excited.
[00:39:50.640] - Suzie Riddell
You're absolutely right. And that's the remit of the government's social impact investing task force. And they have sent in their recommendations, actually, to the previous coalition government. It was reignited by the Albanese government, and they've done a bit of a refinement on their recommendations. And Jim Chauvin, as the Treasurer, has been writing about the role that private capital can play in addressing really challenging issues across the country in partnership with governments. And I think that's really exciting because we're never going to really make a meaningful difference in this country with just philanthropy. We absolutely need investment capital to be pointing towards outcomes that matter based on the evidence of what we actually know works and for governments to play their role in setting the agenda of what matters and in providing stability and certainty, particularly around pricing and return mechanisms so that investors can invest with confidence in what are, especially in housing, very long term assets.
[00:40:59.200] - Camilla Love
Yeah, absolutely. So then that puts Social Ventures Australia right in the centre of being able to coordinate all of this next generation of impact. Does that keep you up at night thinking about, I don't know, the footprint that you could have and the responsibility that you might have?
[00:41:25.060] - Suzie Riddell
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this.
[00:41:28.780] - Camilla Love
I'm sure. I'd be up at two o'clock in the morning on that one.
[00:41:32.080] - Suzie Riddell
Yeah, this and a few other things do keep me awake at night. Although, again, my coach has been helpful in teaching me some techniques to reduce the ruminating in the middle of the night and set good boundaries about when you're allowed to ponder.
[00:41:47.520] - Camilla Love
It gets the best of us.
[00:41:49.310] - Suzie Riddell
What I actually really am focused on is what can our small organization do that others can't? And how do we keep evolving and pushing the next frontier? So I'm I'm thrilled that fund managers and institutions and other players in the finance industry are looking at this really seriously. Come on in. Welcome all of you and all of your billions or trillions. Brilliant. And make.
[00:42:16.390] - Camilla Love
The pie big, right?
[00:42:17.830] - Suzie Riddell
Make the pie big. And there was an idea when impact investing and social impact investing or social finance, depending on how it was called, first began, that it would become its own asset class. And it was going to be a bit like private equity. That wasn't really a thing in the 80s and then it became a thing and now everyone has an allocation, small allocation to that. I think it's turned out quite differently, which is that it's not really an asset class. It's more a mindset and that we need to be able to deeply understand the impact of all the different investments across all different kinds of asset classes. And that's way better. It's harder, it's way better. But I am really pushing myself and our team and many of our stakeholders to think, well, where's the the next frontier? What does Australia not yet have that it needs to have in order to think about how returnable capital can play a role in addressing some of our most challenging problems? And we are going to be continuing to start with the evidence of what we already know works here and internationally to be really collaborative with different kinds of partners.
[00:43:22.070] - Suzie Riddell
You said it before that we're well placed because we are trusted partners of the not for profit sector who are often playing a role here. We know how to, I understand now, and not just me, we know how to work with governments.
[00:43:37.600] - Camilla Love
We learned our lesson.
[00:43:38.920] - Suzie Riddell
Back then. Yeah, well, we're better. Maybe we're not. We're not top of the class yet. I think we can be taken seriously in a corporate boardroom, and we do have philanthropists who are prepared to come and take risks with us. And that's unusual, and that's not what a typical fund manager would be able to do. So how do we use our special multi lingual skills and special positioning to be able to do things that only we can do and remain responsive and agile as well as a pretty small organization? We don't want to just grow our funds under management and become a big fund manager. We're not interested in that. We want to do the innovative stuff that hopefully will become a bit more commonplace in another decade.
[00:44:22.450] - Camilla Love
Great. Pushing the boundaries. I love that. That's something close to my heart. So we're going to ask this question of all my guests, so we're going to change tack again. You know I could probably pick your brain for a 1,000 years in this sector. So about advice, and you've mentioned your coach a few times. So do you want to do a shout out while you're...
[00:44:48.160] - Suzie Riddell
Well, yes. Elyse Cernick, she runs an organization called Leadership Space. She specializes with her team in coaching people in the for purpose sector, and she's a super star.
[00:45:00.650] - Camilla Love
Great. Good on you, Elyse. There you go. So what's the most valuable advice you've ever been given? And it could have been years ago versus yesterday. And the context and why it resonated with you so much.
[00:45:16.480] - Suzie Riddell
One of the things I found hardest in learning how to manage people is navigating legal and HR, people and culture, policy, procedure, what's the right thing to do, what am I allowed to do? I got advice from a mentor when I was first in one of those roles that the best thing to do is act like a human being and show kindness and compassion and just be your authentic self and try and do the right thing based on what you think the right human thing is to do, and the rest will follow. And if sometimes that means you made a bit of a mistake and you didn't do things in quite the right order, or you didn't use quite the right language, that's okay, you can clean that up. But trying to do things from the other direction, I'll just follow the rules and the policies and the procedures and act like a robot will get you into much more hot water and it will feel horrible as well. I think about that often. Just being a human being and try and do it in an authentic way and clean up the minor errors along the way, rather than trying to conform to policies and procedures.
[00:46:25.590] - Camilla Love
Yeah, I think that's a great piece of advice because we've all been there. We've all gone, Okay, what's the box to tick? Or what's the boundary that I need to work within? Rather than actually realise that the people that you are impacting and talking with are just people like you. They put a shirt on every morning and pull their pants on and put their socks up and they have families and all that stuff. And they are people with feelings. And it's important to bring your feelings, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable it is, to that meeting and room.
[00:47:08.200] - Suzie Riddell
Camilla, that's so right. And I think popular culture, representations and leadership are still.
[00:47:15.850] - Camilla Love
Really.
[00:47:16.740] - Suzie Riddell
Problematic in that I've had this idea that at some point I'd get my shit together and I'd really know what I was doing and I could be hard and authoritative. And I don't want to be like that. And I don't think that's what's needed. And I think it's harmful stereotypes for all of us. I don't think it's only harmful for women to see how those men represented in TV and movies, et cetera. But that's what I was holding in my subconscious about what leadership needed to look like. And it's been liberating to realise that that's not what leadership is. And to have made connections and form relationships with so many leaders, women and men, who don't behave like that. So then I can be reassured that there is a better way.
[00:48:03.000] - Camilla Love
Yeah, absolutely. I personally have been working on vulnerability in leadership, and that comes as a factor of authenticity. I'm quite an emotional person, so being vulnerable is difficult because you're actually putting your heart on your sleeve and saying, Hey, this is who I am and I feel bad that I have to make this decision, or h, I put you in a spot, but let's work this through together and we'll be better off. So it's tough.
[00:48:38.390] - Suzie Riddell
Well said. It is tough.
[00:48:40.940] - Camilla Love
It's tough.
[00:48:41.290] - Suzie Riddell
It's tough. And it's okay to do things in a values led way and feel really sad and upset that that's how things turned out and wish that it had been different.
[00:48:54.960] - Camilla Love
Totally. Now, we're going to go to the end bit where we have a bit of a laugh. Are you going to do quickfire questions?
[00:49:03.140] - Suzie Riddell
Yeah, I'll do my best.
[00:49:05.000] - Camilla Love
So it's the first thing that comes into your head. So you can't think too much, right? First question, how would your friends describe you?
[00:49:17.540] - Suzie Riddell
Extraverted, loud, optimistic, hopefully kind.
[00:49:23.440] - Camilla Love
Great. What is the most important money lesson you've learned?
[00:49:29.590] - Suzie Riddell
You need to earn more than you spend.
[00:49:32.760] - Camilla Love
That is an absolutely good one. We're all still working on that one, I'm sure. Okay, what movie do you absolutely love, but it's embarrassing to admit.
[00:49:48.070] - Suzie Riddell
Is it embarrassing? The Sound of Music. Top two. Movie for me. Top two? Wow.
[00:49:56.630] - Camilla Love
Not embarrassing, by the way.
[00:49:58.840] - Suzie Riddell
Okay, good. Great. Well, I love it and will rewatch it anytime.
[00:50:02.410] - Camilla Love
I will sing to everything, all those mountains. Exactly. Absolutely sing. I sing half of those songs to my daughter, Sabrina, to bed every night. My hidden talent is...
[00:50:18.480] - Suzie Riddell
I don't have many hidden talents. Is it a talent? It's not very hidden. I really like karaoke, happy to do it sober and in day light.
[00:50:27.910] - Camilla Love
What is your go to karaoke song? You ong, you can't just let that slide and then that's why that's what it is.
[00:50:34.280] - Suzie Riddell
My go to is Dancing Queen by ABBAF.
[00:50:38.730] - Camilla Love
I'm a Moderna fan, so I'm direct into the Madonna components.
[00:50:44.190] - Suzie Riddell
Vogue, that's the one with all the actions.
[00:50:50.880] - Camilla Love
Exactly. On my bucket list is?
[00:50:54.930] - Suzie Riddell
I want to take my kids on a multi day bush walk like backpacks tents, the whole thing when they're big enough. That's why it's still in the bucket list. They can't do it yet. They go bush walking for an hour or two, but yeah, camping out there in the bush with the whole family.
[00:51:12.980] - Camilla Love
Great. Fabulous. Fabulous. Tell me something no one else knows about you.
[00:51:17.670] - Suzie Riddell
I really wanted to be a dancer and wasn't ever flexible enough to continue past the beginning of high school.
[00:51:29.200] - Camilla Love
What type of dance? Ballet?
[00:51:31.240] - Suzie Riddell
I did a lot of ballet and then switched to jazz, did a bit of tap. I wasn't that talented. I just really enjoyed it. And I wasn't flexible. So I didn't really have any of the ingredients, actually. That's funny.
[00:51:50.990] - Camilla Love
If I was a superhero, I'd be...
[00:51:55.030] - Suzie Riddell
Jacinda Ardoin.
[00:51:56.250] - Camilla Love
Oh, boom. Totally. There's a woman who wears an invisible cape.
[00:52:01.910] - Suzie Riddell
For shales. Absolutely. When I was in my own head and hung up about being a young woman as a CEO, and when were they all going to figure out that I wasn't really a real CEO, I would just look at her and think, far out, you are running the country and dealing with volcanoes and terrorist attacks and COVID, and you have a young child, so I should be able to handle my small not for profit with a bit more grace.
[00:52:29.740] - Camilla Love
But you smash it anyway. Smash it. If you had to invite anyone alive or dead to dinner, who would it be and why?
[00:52:39.570] - Suzie Riddell
I would love to meet my grandfathers. They both passed away before I was born, and I'd love to meet them and better understand my parents through meeting them.
[00:52:49.510] - Camilla Love
There's a little back story there I won't ask. My favourite book is?
[00:52:54.980] - Suzie Riddell
I love Anything by Brené Brown. I'll try dare to lead.
[00:52:58.660] - Camilla Love
Me too. At Lis of the Heart.
[00:53:01.250] - Suzie Riddell
I'm all.
[00:53:01.630] - Camilla Love
Watching for the hell of That.
[00:53:04.140] - Suzie Riddell
She's the best. I'm so sad she's wrapped up her podcast. They just sucked every single one of those episodes into my brain.
[00:53:12.000] - Camilla Love
Me too. Me too. And I understand the reason why she did. But yeah, Atlas is the heart. Oh, my gosh.
[00:53:20.890] - Suzie Riddell
Anyway.
[00:53:21.520] - Camilla Love
That's a whole another story. We can come up to that as well. What is left for Social Ventures Australia to do?
[00:53:29.010] - Suzie Riddell
Well.
[00:53:29.880] - Camilla Love
This one word remember.
[00:53:32.450] - Suzie Riddell
One word. Innovate.
[00:53:36.910] - Camilla Love
That's good. Innovate the world. Well, yeah.
[00:53:40.880] - Suzie Riddell
I mean, the systems that we have in place are what is producing the level of inequality and disadvantage that we see in this country. So we need different systems, better policies, better funding, better practice.
[00:53:53.020] - Camilla Love
Push the boundaries.
[00:53:54.130] - Suzie Riddell
So we need, with others, to innovate.
[00:53:58.700] - Camilla Love
Great. And I always ask this at the end, so I'll complete this sentence, a career in finance is...
[00:54:05.840] - Suzie Riddell
Something that should be combined with purpose and making the world a better place.
[00:54:11.600] - Camilla Love
Big, fat heart and love for me because we talk about it all the time. And that is the absolute reason why I invited you to come along today because there is a lot of purpose in getting into finance and you need to find it. But you have epitomized it for a very long time. I'm really glad that you came along and visited me on Shares Not Shoes and actually told us all about how many people that you impact on a day to day basis. I couldn't imagine that weight on the shoulders too. And the many more that you could through your organization. So thank you. I'm very proud of what you've become and then what you're going to do. And yeah, I'm excited.
[00:55:05.710] - Suzie Riddell
Well, thank you so much, Camilla. I really appreciate it. Thanks for a great conversation. And I hope some of your listeners are intrigued. Look up Social Ventures Australia. If you want your donation dollar to be taking risk and having really large impact at scale, we're always looking for philanthropic support. And if you've got all these great skills in finance or whatever your career is and you're interested in moving that more deliberately into purpose, we're always looking for talent and people to join our team as well.
[00:55:38.830] - Camilla Love
Touchy. Thank you again. And it's been an absolute.
[00:55:41.870] - Suzie Riddell
Pleasure to speak with you today. You're a great host. Thanks, Camilla.
[00:55:51.360] - Camilla Love
The information that is in this podcast, we always talk about finance in this podcast, but it's not financial advice. It's actually really careers advice. If you really want financial advice, I recommend that you speak to a financial planner or a broker and work out your own personal circumstances with that. But this is all about careers advice and how finance would be a fabulous career for you.