Two major talking points at this year's New Private Markets Investor Summit: North America were the transformative force of AI and the pressing need for liquidity in private markets portfolios.

While neither of these topics are unique to impact or sustainable investing, they are of paramount importance and dominated discussions on stage and off.

In this episode, Jennifer Kenning, founder and CEO of Align Impact who served as expert chair for day one of the event, joins New Private Markets' Toby Mitchenall and Michael Bowen for a 10-minute wrap-up of the event.

Optimism, a common trait of sustainable investors, abounds. "In the political environment we are in today, and how much the space has shifted in the last 12 months, there is a misnomer out there at the moment that it is all negative," says Kenning, who goes on to delve into reasons why, particularly in the areas of liquidity and AI, there is much to be optimistic about.

When Kenza Himmi, the head of impact investing and partnerships at the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, attends a pitch meeting with a fund manager, she keeps an ear out for a few non-negotiable items.

She wants to know the fund's intent and whether it is designed to direct capital to environmental and social solutions. She wants to know how the fund measures the impact of its investments. And, of course, she wants to know if a fund’s investments will create value over time.

Some managers have impressed; others, not so much. In this episode, Himmi, who will be a panellist at the Investor Summit: North America in New York City on 5 November, takes us behind the scenes and tells us what she likes to hear from fund managers during pitch meetings.

Is the field of impact investing growing in a healthy way, or is it being co-opted by firms for whom positive impact is secondary to asset gathering?

In this episode of The New Private Markets Podcast, we explore this fundamental question with Jed Emerson, a true veteran of the impact field, an author of multiple books and papers on the topic, and until April of this year, the chief impact officer for US wealth management firm AlTi Tiedemann Global. He's also the founder of Blended Value Group and holds a number of advisory positions.

The conversation was prompted by a lively online debate surrounding coverage of New Private Markets' Impact 50, in which Emerson had questioned the link between the dollar size of a fund and the size of its impact. You can read about the online exchange here, and you can read about the Impact 50 here.

We also touch on the distinction between NPM's Impact 50 and Impact Assets' IA 50, a different resource for investors in the impact space with which Emerson has been involved for more than a decade.