My Path to Becoming an Impact Investor
By Linda Martin
I discovered impact investing shortly after my daughter Amy was diagnosed with severe chronic pancreatitis. Following decades of suffering from digestive problems and abdominal pain, Amy’s diagnosis odyssey included visits with over 50 primary care physicians and specialists and too many nights in the hospital. With little understanding of the disease, no treatment guidelines, no approved drugs or drug development pipeline, providers had no answers and often Amy was ignored, dismissed, mistreated, and misdiagnosed. In the meantime, she was getting sicker and sicker. Unable to tolerate nearly all food, on a good day she could handle a little chicken noodle soup but mostly, she subsisted on dry cereal and an occasional Boost.
Previously managing a large international team of telecom software developers, Amy could longer work and most days, couldn’t even get out of bed. She lost nearly 100 pounds and we thought she was dying. There were no answers and no hope and I had to do something.
My daughter’s health crisis moved me closer to impact investing but the journey began many years earlier…
My professional background was in business development, responsible for planning, launching, and managing cellphone markets for some of the largest national mobile operators. In 1990 I co-founded PC Management, and for over twenty years, my company managed independent cell phone companies, bringing wireless services to rural markets across the US.
I had extensive experience working with accredited investors- wealthy individuals who were seeking private equity opportunities to diversity their investment portfolios. In the 90’s and 2000’s, independent cell phone companies, managed by an experienced team, provided attractive opportunities with moderate risk, high earnings and relatively quick exits. Our companies provided investors with high returns and they typically re-invested in our next new markets, providing a sustainable, replicable, scalable model.
At the time I didn’t know the term “impact investing” but in fact, providing broadband connectivity to businesses, schools, hospitals and residents of rural communities made a huge impact. Every new network built, brought access to new jobs, education, and healthcare services, especially for those without access to transportation including seniors, people with disabilities and others without the resources to travel. Our investors made significant positive impacts on property values, community and economic development, while earning above market returns. The very definition of impact investing.
Fast forward to 2016 when Amy was diagnosed with end stage chronic pancreatitis. End stage disease in pancreatitis is not a terminal diagnosis. Instead, without any effective treatment and no research and development pipeline, end-stage disease means a lifetime of excruciating, nonstop pain, nausea and a high probability of malnutrition, diabetes, and an increased risk of pancreatic cancer. I had spent more than 30 years as an executive and serial entrepreneur giving me valuable experience in team building, problem solving and succeeding against large, deep-pocketed competitors, earning returns for investors.
I needed to use my experience to save my daughter’s life.
First, I had to find my people - others who understood the problem and were as passionate as I about finding effective treatments and cures and ending the suffering…and do so as quickly and efficiently as possible. Fortunately, Megan Golden, a long-time successful nonprofit leader with a history of solving big problems using innovative finance, and her brother Eric, a chronic pancreatitis patient and an experienced investment banker, announced the formation of Mission: Cure, a nonprofit organization with a mission to find a cure for chronic pancreatitis within ten years. Mission: Cure was going to demonstrate a new model for curing disease, starting with chronic pancreatitis, by using innovative financing such as impact investing and outcomes-based or pay-for-success funding. I joined Megan as co-director of Mission: Cure. We had goals, we had a plan, we had a timeline. We were going to find a cure.
New to the nonprofit sector, I didn’t know about pay-for-success funding. In my world, businesses lived or died based on measurable outcomes and were only paid for success. It seemed an obvious, irrefutable business model. I learned that was not necessarily the case for nonprofit organizations. Megan and I were determined to change the paradigm and focused on measurably improving patients’ lives.
With this solid but new approach to curing disease, it became clear that to reach our goal, especially with our sense of urgency (people are suffering), we needed an investment model that would motivate and incentivize researchers and drug developers to focus on chronic pancreatitis. And, we needed investors who wanted to change the world, demonstrate a faster, better way to cure disease, save lives and…make a financial return. We needed impact investors.
In early 2019, Mission Cure Capital was launched.