The headlines suggest we’re on the edge.
Markets wobble. Technology flirts between hype and backlash. Heat waves and floods test our sense of control. Yet the greater uncertainty isn’t in the markets or the weather — it’s in us. Will we build toward belonging or retreat into division? Look closer, and you can see a quieter shift taking shape — one that suggests we might yet turn this turbulence into collective opportunity.
I’ve had the privilege to collaborate with two women who have helped spark that shift: Mary Ellen Iskenderian at Women’s World Banking and Suzanne Biegel at Heading for Change. Mary Ellen has built a global network dedicated to giving low-income women access to financial tools — and by doing so, making them powerful economic actors. Suzanne, in her last months, asked me to steward the next phase of her gender-smart climate work: she didn’t want a memorial; she wanted momentum.
What unites them the belief that investing in, by and with women isn’t a sideline, it’s a frontier; that inclusion isn’t a concession, it’s an advantage. And that managing capital wisely, deploying it at scale, and connecting innovation with purpose are the way forward. This belief is translating into investable opportunities today and revealing what could lie ahead: new markets, new technologies, and new systems where women are not just included — they are leading.
The opportunity hidden in plain sight
When Suzanne first proposed that we invest in 18 climate funds across sectors, geographies, and themes in just two years, it sounded audacious. Classic Suzanne. But that was the point: to challenge assumptions about what was possible in climate and gender investing. Her instinct was that the opportunities were already out there; they simply weren’t being connected. And she was right. Against all odds, we did it.
In two years, Heading for Change built a global demonstration portfolio spanning everything from U.S.-based advanced manufacturing to smallholder agriculture in Pakistan and nature-based solutions in Latin America. Each investment fund tells a story of innovation and resilience, but together they show something larger: that capital aligned with inclusion and sustainability can move fast, learn fast, and deliver real impact. We found the opportunity pipeline deeper than most investors assume. The challenge is not finding investable opportunities — it’s aligning the right forms of capital, at the right time, to meet them.
We also learned that context is everything. The same tools and metrics don’t apply universally. What worked for a climate tech fund in the U.S. required adaptation for a regenerative agriculture fund in Mexico or an accelerator in Africa. Due diligence, risk frameworks, and gender metrics all needed local translation. It meant we were adaptable and we designed and co-created flexible, context-aware tools — which are open source! That adaptability — far from being a compromise — created new insights.
And finally, we saw the power of systems thinking in practice. Across investments, patterns emerged: inclusion, local leadership, and resilience. The lesson was clear: a systemic lens isn’t abstract or idealistic — it’s pragmatic, and it works. Systemic risk assessment provides the starting point, with a robust and wide opportunity set and impact for those who go beyond risk.
This two-year journey validated Suzanne’s conviction that the opportunities are real, abundant, and ready. What’s needed now is collaboration, trust, and the humility to keep listening and refining. That’s how we’ll move from proof of concept to scale — and how the women and next generation innovators leading these systems are showing what’s possible when inclusion drives innovation. Moreover, what’s needed is unlocking capital at scale — for vehicles like Heading for Change, for the funds we identified, and the broader pipeline and the companies served.
This momentum is mirrored in another frontier where inclusion and innovation intersect: technology itself.
The next frontier–women as system builders
Technology is rapidly and radically reshaping finance. As disruption creates opportunity, we see a window for inquiry. How might innovation enable financial flourishing of women who have not yet accessed financial markets, rather than exacerbate digital divides? That question inspired a collaboration between Women’s World Banking and Franklin Templeton—combining decades of experience advancing women’s financial inclusion with deep market and digital technology expertise. Our joint research explored two transformative technologies — artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.
Here are highlights:
AI is already changing the economics of inclusion. In Colombia, a financial education platform integrated an AI-powered chatbot that guided rural women through savings decisions in real time. The result wasn’t just higher engagement — participants were 81 percent more likely to stay active in savings programs — but lower delivery costs for providers, proving that technology can expand reach without sacrificing trust. Similar tools are emerging in India, where credit algorithms now combine climate and income data to identify creditworthy borrowers previously excluded by traditional scoring. For lenders, these models reduce defaults and manual processing time; for women entrepreneurs, they open doors that data once kept closed.
AI also exposes risk: left unchecked, it can replicate the very biases it promises to remove. Across several pilot markets, financial institutions found that even gender-intentional credit models were sometimes rejecting qualified women.
New bias-auditing tools are helping institutions detect and correct those patterns – creating transparency, accountability, and more equitable outcomes. The insight is not just ethical but economic: fair algorithms improve portfolio performance and expand profitable customer segments.
In Bangladesh, an AI-driven financial advisor now helps match micro-entrepreneurs with the right loan products — improving repayment rates while freeing frontline staff to focus on relationships. The underlying lesson is clear: when AI is designed with care, it doesn’t just improve accuracy, it lowers the cost to serve, making it commercially viable to reach customers who were once considered too costly or complex to include.
Blockchain offers its own quiet revolution. In markets where remittances sustain families, stablecoins can lower transfer fees from six percent to under one percent — money that goes directly to women-led households and small businesses. And in community savings groups, tokenized contracts are helping women automate contributions and reduce fraud, turning informal systems into trusted digital ones.
Across both technologies, the pattern is unmistakable: when systems are designed for women’s realities — limited connectivity, shared devices, variable income — they not only strengthen inclusion but transform business viability. The cost of reaching new customers drops, and the market itself expands. Inclusive design isn’t just fair — it’s efficient.
Scaling the lessons
The momentum is real. Across the work of Heading for Change, Women’s World Banking, and Franklin Templeton, inclusion and innovation are no longer separate ideas — they can anchor how growth happens. What began as a series of bold experiments has turned into proof points that we can innovate in ways that benefit the collective.
The next step is about scale — and that will take all of us. We invite more investors to leverage our Heading for Change tools, to review our portfolio, and simply to embark on their own journeys. We hope that the map of insights and design principles from Women’s World Banking will guide new financial tools.
But more broadly, the principles that guided this work can apply anywhere: design for inclusion, stay close to the people you aim to serve and where solutions are emerging, and keep testing, learning, and adapting. Whether you are an investor, a technologist, or simply someone curious about what’s possible, these lessons translate beyond finance. They can be applied to how we build companies, communities, and systems that last.
This moment asks for conviction and imagination. We have the tools, the data, and the examples. Now we need the will to use them — to keep connecting ideas across boundaries and building the kind of systems where everyone can participate and thrive.
Article by Jackie VanderBrug, who is an author and Bridge-builder across finance, innovation, and inclusion. She serves as Head of Sustainability Strategy at Putnam Investments and Trustee for Heading for Change.
Ms. VanderBrug is responsible for leading Putnam’s ESG-focused business functions, including Stewardship, Engagement, Partnerships, and ESG Strategy and Integration and is a member of Franklin Templeton’s Stewardship and Sustainability Counsel.
A recognized thought leader in sustainable investing, Ms. VanderBrug joined Putnam from Bank of America, where she served as Head of Sustainable and Impact Investment Strategy in the Chief Investment Office. Previously, she was Managing Director at Criterion Ventures, where she helped advance the field of Gender Lens Investing.
Ms. VanderBrug is the author of a number of published works, including the book Gender Lens Investing: Uncovering Opportunities for Growth. She is a First Mover Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a Trustee of Heading for Change and of The Trustees of the Donations to the Protestant Episcopal Church
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