April 16,2020
We hope this communication finds you, your loved ones and your colleagues safe and healthy, and your communities resilient.
We write to update you on some significant institutional changes at the Working Capital Fund. First, after being launched and incubated within Humanity United, Working Capital has now transitioned from being embedded within the foundation to running independently. As of 2020 Working Capital began operating under a new, more autonomous and flexible legal structure. (This accounts for our new email addresses, in case you noticed those.) We will remain strategically aligned with the work of Humanity United and the two organizations will continue to collaborate. However, our new status will enable us to more flexibly deploy different types of investment capital and to deepen our impact.
We have also welcomed new staff to the Working Capital team this year. In February Paarul Dudeja joined Working Capital as a Managing Director based in Washington, DC. Paarul comes to us from Accion Venture Lab where she led a seed- stage impact investment initiative in fintech for the underserved in India and Asia. Her unique combination of investment expertise and deep understanding of impact makes her a great fit with the strategic orientation and culture of the existing team. And most recently we were excited to bring on Ivy Olsen as our new Operations Manager based in San Francisco, who brings a track record of helping start-ups scale efficiently.
With so many new elements being introduced at WCIF it is worth remembering that – as demonstrated in our most recent investment in Kenzen described separately – our core work remains the same: making impact first investments to reduce forced labor and labor exploitation. There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty ahead of us, to be sure, but we look forward to continuing this important work, in collaboration with you, in the months and years ahead.