Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast, Luke. Great to be doing this with you.

Luke Roush: It is great to be on. It’s good to be on with Robert again.

Henry Kaestner: It is. It is, is great. In the last episode we had done. I recall that I talked about my very limited economics, background and capability at the University of Delaware. I just kind of stumbling through micro and macro as I was spending more of my time selling T-shirts. But I didn’t ask you about your background, and I don’t know that anybody knows on the podcast that you actually study public policy at Duke. You must have had economics at some point in time. Right?

Luke Roush: Me, absolutely. Yeah, there’s a lot of it more than I’d like to remember, but I really enjoyed it, particularly the micro, because you can kind of get your arms around it and you get to see it every day.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, yeah. OK, so speaking of economics, we have a guy that we’ve had on. This may be their first repeat customer on the Faith Driven Investor podcast, and we’ve got Robert Nazli in the house. And Robert has been a great friend of the movement and has been an inspiration to us and that he’s gone out and launched a firm against all odds, finding a need in the market and really just really launching something really special. We’ve had you on before, Robert, and where you gave a little bit of a longer biographical sketch, but I want to revisit some of that too. Who are you? Where do you come from? What is inspire?

Robert Netzly: Yeah, it is good to be back. And if I am the first be customer, wow, what an honor. I think unless you just can’t find another guest to be on here. And then so, you know, it’s absolutely one of those things. Yeah, no. My economic background consists of learning how to grow up on food stamps with a single mother with a younger brother who is autistic. And, you know, parents, you know, went through the 70 drug scene and everything and just not, you know, a typical background that you might think of as a business leader went to community college and dropped out my junior year, you know, done all kinds of different things along the way. A lot of ministry, you know, at our local church that we kind of helped start up back in the day and somehow by God’s grace ended up in the investment industry and really took to it, you know, so that’s my background, you know, in a nutshell, but I’m certainly not the guy you would have picked in high school or junior high or anything else is like, Hey, this is this is the guy who is going to start an investment firm. I got D’s in math, hated public speaking, and here I am, talking to lots of people about money. So there you go.

Luke Roush: Well, you know, the concept of biblically responsible investing is really something that you helped really to initiate, maybe to share a bit more about that and then maybe how the movement has evolved over time.

Robert Netzly: Yeah. And I certainly didn’t invent the idea, for sure. You know, my professional background was at Wells Fargo Private Client Service. Working out in Carmel, California really is happy as a clam there and then of learning how to do math and learning how to talk to people again by God’s grace. But then I stumbled across this whole concept of biblically responsible investing online one day. This idea that you’re not just looking at the financial returns of a portfolio, but you know, God probably cares about the kinds of companies we’re investing in. Are these companies manufacturing abortion drugs or selling pornography or violating human rights in their supply chains? What are these companies doing? What are you doing as an owner to profit from these things? And what does the Bible have to say about that? So that’s that’s typically responsible investing. When I first looked into that, I honestly the Holy Spirit has gripped my heart because here I was president of our local pro-life pregnancy center at the time, and I discovered I owned stocks in three companies that manufacture abortion drugs and got hit me upside the head with the fact that every time that young lady goes across the street has an abortion. Planned Parenthood. I just made money in that transaction. I literally profited, recommending all my clients to do the same thing, and that was my intro to biblically responsible investing.

Luke Roush: It was there. Was there a moment in time where all of a sudden or maybe an experience where you realized, like, I need to leave wells, I need to start a firm? You know, oftentimes in that formation story of a company, there’s some sort of injustice or something that’s, you know, just broken in the world that you feel called to fix. Let me speak a little bit to kind of that catalytic zero to one moment.

Robert Netzly: Yep, and it came really quick. Once I again stumbled across this realization, I just I could not do my job with a clean conscience anymore. In two weeks time, I was just dead in the water, which was, you know, troubling because I didn’t know if I could even stay in the business. I’ve never met anybody doing what we do now. I have no conception that there is even something else going on in the industry, you know, in other places, in a Christian sense. So I went home, told my wife, Hey, honey, I think the God’s call somewhere else, and I need to work somewhere else in a different industry. And here’s what I found. And she’s like, Well, we got two babies in the mortgage. So what’s the plan? Right? And ended up just was this close to going to seminary? I was honestly in conversations with multiple seminaries, and like that was I was just going to do a pastor thing. And the only way I could think of staying in the business was, well, I suppose I could, you know, leave the bank start an independent firm that only did some sort of. Look, gold type, you know, investing, but that’s crazy, because I don’t have the experience or money or connections or, you know, all the things that you’re supposed to have before you do something like that. But as we prayed as God does, he just made it unmistakably clear through a number of ways. But the compulsion was just undeniable that that’s exactly what I was supposed to do. So two months later made the incredibly frightening decision to leave the bank left my clients there with a team I’d been with previously started over or just need a laptop. Less than two months of savings, the bank fully prepared never to pay my mortgage ever again in my life and fully convicted. This is exactly what God is calling me to do. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be financially successful, so maybe I’ll go broke in six months and move on to the family with my mom and whatever and then go to seminary. But whatever God like this is your plan. I know this is your call in my life and I’ve got to obey. So that was, you know, a little over 10 years ago. So while the think

Henry Kaestner: Robert, one of the things that you’ve talked about a bunch is what does it look like to engage with companies and be kind of an activist shareholder? Having some skin in the game? Being a shareholder affords you a different opportunities to be able to witness and be heard. Talk to us a little bit about what that looks like in the investing you all do.

Robert Netzly: Yeah, and this is again, I mean, it was accidental almost that this whole business started. I got into this industry and then really sort of fell into this idea of shareholder engagement wasn’t something that was on our, you know, business plan to do. But as we, you know, as guidance really grew this business from those early days and started opening our eyes to there’s more Christians in this industry that God is doing the same sort of work in their hearts. It wasn’t mine and looking for ways to do this. It just became evident that there is a larger voice that needs to be shared with corporate America. And these companies were investing in, you know, occasionally a quote good company will sort of get off the rails or something. And now we got to dump some out of our portfolio or think of, you know, do something there. And I think the first time that we had a conversation around this idea was a friend of ours in the industry. Another Christian financial advisor was working with Chevron, kind of engaging with them to stop giving money to Planned Parenthood. They’ve been donating money to Planned Parenthood, and we live near the Chevron headquarters in the Silicon Valley area. And so he asked, You know, can we attend this meeting and stuff like, sure. And so you end up going to this meeting and happy story. Chevron stopped donating money to Planned Parenthood and, you know, the short version of that story. And that led us to sort of think of, well, what other companies might we engage with? And so over this time, when we’ve seen things at a business that we’re invested in or we like to invest in a business that needs a little help, we just pick up the phone and call investor relations, send an e-mail. Investor Relations and we’ve had amazing success that we never thought we would with many companies, huge companies that are actually interested in hearing from all of their investors, including faith based investors. And oftentimes are very receptive to integrating the feedback they hear from us into their business practices. So it’s been really encouraging and it’s become a bigger part of our business and kind of day to day here it inspire.

Luke Roush: So you’re kind of describing, you know, and this concept of kind of negative screening, positive screening, active engagement, which you’re kind of describing, is that third bucket. Maybe you speak a little bit to kind of how you’ve seen bride evolve over time along all three dimensions of how people might think about their faith being reflected in how they shepherd capital.

Robert Netzly: Yeah, I think historically the exclude part of that equation has been the starting point, going back decades and decades, and it’s absolutely essential. I mean, I do believe strongly converted from the word of God that it’s just like I should not, as a Christian, be making money from abortions, right? And a number of other things. So we have to be looking at the exclusionary criteria in our portfolios. But then we go beyond that. And really, the nexus of inspire and Inspire was this idea that well, in addition to excluding where the most glorifying companies, I mean, there’s companies out there that they’re not necessarily Christian or run explicitly by Christians or Christian values, but they’re operating in line with God’s principles like fairness and morality and ethics and things like that, right? Surprise, surprise. And I wonder if we could measure the relative biblical alignment of companies and then invest in those most biblically aligned companies. You know, the most inspiring, positive companies that are creating products that are blessings of people that use them, that have policies and practices that just bless their employees, that bless the communities they operate in a lot of different specific ways. And so we created what we call our Inspire Impact Score methodology, which is just our rules based approach to scoring companies from a negative hundreds of positive 100. We invest in anything above zero, anything below zero we exclude. But really, we’re looking for those highest scoring companies as a real, faith based approach to environmental, social and governance investing ESG. And that’s been a big trend as we’re seeing more investors. Is sort of ride the coattails of a broadly secular, you know, progressively secular, oftentimes ESG movement in the industry and say, Hey, you know, the Bible talks about environment, the Bible talks about social, the Bible talks about governance. What about a biblical worldview on those issues from a positive perspective? So we invest in those highest rated companies from a biblical lens in those categories? And then the third is that engagement where we have this, you know, as investors, we have an opportunity to call the companies that we invest in. We can file shareholder resolutions and get involved in proxies. If you want to or just very casually just off the books to have conversations, say, Hey, you know, I’m an investor, I’m a Christian, I care about certain things and you know, x y z like, please don’t give money to Planned Parenthood. That’s something that I don’t really want my company doing. Here’s why. In a number of other issues. So that’s that exclude, endorse, engage sort of framework that we use here to inspire. And we’re seeing a lot of other faith based asset managers and wealth managers get more involved in that, which is really exciting to think. You know, as Christians, as the industry, there’s a lot of money 20 trillion dollars plus that are controlled by Protestants, evangelicals and Catholics in this country alone. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds. That’s a lot of capital that can have a lot of influence if we just are intentional with those conversations.

Henry Kaestner: One of the things I want to do is just go off script just a little bit. We’ve got a great carryover audience with Faith Driven Entrepreneur and you are a Faith Driven Entrepreneur. You’ve seen an opportunity, a problem to be solved. You’ve leaned into it, you’ve created a business around it, a business that has grown very rapidly. What’s it like just to navigate through all that? As you know, your interview by The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, all of a sudden the spotlights on you and the more influence you have, the more critics you have. What’s that ride been like for the last five years?

Robert Netzly: Unexpected as everything else, and to flesh that out a little bit. Yeah, I mean, from the moment I left Wells Fargo and started talking to clients about this concept, it was obviously God was at work, people’s jaws at the floor, their eyes opened like, Wow, I’ve never thought about this before. How do I invest this way? I had to bring other advisors into the practice, not my plan. The influence and business just started growing, and I have no business training background, as I alluded to, and it’s been failing forward fast and trying to keep up with what God is doing. So there’s a whole lot of learning on the fly. A whole lot of build the airplane before you hit the ground, FDE jump off the cliff and all of those analogies that entrepreneurs are aware of. Our particular story around 2015 is when we started aspire as a standalone company and realize that there’s more of an industry and we need to create some products like our exchange traded funds and other asset manager products to really serve the financial advisors that we’re trying to go all in for God’s glory in the practice. But there was a dearth of, you know, product availability. And so in 2017, we ended up launching the first two ETFs in the New York Stock Exchange on a wing, a prayer hole, up top ramen beans and rice, you know, months without salary. Small, committed team that just knew that. We knew that. We knew that God was calling us to do this, and we had to bring this to market because God’s people need to be empowered to invest for us, and they weren’t empowered to do that. And so by God’s grace, we lost this to its 10 year goal ended up being like a one year goal somehow. And the next day, we’re yeah in the New York Times, on the front page of the business section in The Wall Street Journal. All these other hundreds of articles and interviews later, just trial by fire and what we’ve really learned from that process. Obviously, what we’re standing for is not really well embraced by many people in our world these days, and we’ve been called lots of names, you know, for believing things about the Bible. But we’ve just been encouraged also that there’s such an outpouring of support from people who do love God and do believe the Bible and are just so thankful that first week I got a Twitter message from a gentleman in Zambia and he was just gushing and saying how he’s been praying for us ever since he heard the news of the New York Times and that he bought shares in our ETFs in Zambia. You know that very first week we were trading, you know this hundreds, literally hundreds of other stories like that. So we’ve been incredibly encouraged that this is a work that God is doing. He is opening the eyes of his people all over the world, literally that he cares about how we manage his money and that when you step out in faith to follow God and something he’s calling you to do, he’s not going to let you get just get run over by the bus, right and say, Oh, sorry, you thought you were following my instructions, but you made a wrong turn? Sorry. Now he either protects us by correcting us when we do make those missteps or encourages on those correct steps that correct direction. But if you’re stepping out in faith, you can’t make a wrong step is the point. You’re not always going to have success when actually you’re not always going to, you know, avoid problems, but God will be with you, and he will take you through those things and faithfully follow his leading through prayer to the world through intensive to the Holy Spirit. Direction your life. Without a doubt, we would not be here if it was us trying to figure out a business plan. This has been trying to follow God’s leading in our life as a business. A lot of times as counterintuitive. A lot of times it flies against the business convention. We got a lot of advice from a lot of smart people who got decades of industry experience that our idea was terrible and we were going to be miserable failures. Some of them were Christians, but we just knew God was calling us to do it. And it’s not bad and thankfully miserable failure. You know, we were managing about $2 billion of assets right now or the third fastest growing registered investment advisory firm in the nation, two years running in 5000 top quartile. Like all glory to God because this was not our plan. And he is just doing a work and we’re trying to keep up and be faithful. That’s the calling is to be faithful. And that’s what we’ve learned.

Henry Kaestner: We started a new program with the Faith Driven Investor podcast. We’re kind of doing a pilot on it. It’s called Lightning Round, where we go through, and we asked our guests a series of questions maybe proceeding from easy to hard. But we want to try that with your new game.

Robert Netzly: I’m game. I mean, do I win a prize or something? And I do? Well, that’s big

Luke Roush: prize for those. We’re in and out burgers and the children’s prize?

Henry Kaestner: Yes. All right. Number one, there’s been much talk about the fact that the next generation, the next generation is just much more conscious about what matters to them. And I’m thinking about this as a father of a 17 year old and 16 year old and a 20 year old. Big name and teen fashion is Hollister, you move the company to Hollister, California. Is that the pander to this next generation of new investors

Robert Netzly: and move the company away from Hollister, California? To be clear, so we started the company in Hollywood, California, which has no relation to the clothing brand other than enterprising high school students selling their Hollister phys ed. You know the thing about $15 for $75 on eBay? So that’s the limit of the connection there. OK.

Henry Kaestner: So I was hoping it was more so for us. It was just brilliant marketing. You’re a fourth grade teacher. Give us one quick story 30 seconds or less about your favorite interaction with a fourth grader.

Robert Netzly: Yeah, I was almost the fourth grade teacher. Again, not to correct the host of the show twice in a row, but I went to school with the fourth grade teacher and I was this close. I did guest teaching during college before I dropped out. But an interaction that sticks with making those sort of student teaching things was clear. Today there is this little fourth grader named Paul in California, whereas doing my student teaching and there’s a little school garden. We went out there and we were pulling weeds in the school garden and this little kid, you could tell he just didn’t come for the best family. He had behavior issues. I was sort of assigned to sit with him like in the class because, you know, the teachers like, you just deal with this and that’s, you know, if you can deal with this kid like, great, thank you. So I can teach the other ones. But me and Paul just like, hit it off and I like I started saying, Do look at that, we you just that’s a huge weed. You are like a championship weed puller, Paul. And he just his eyes got big and he was pulling more weeds faster with more enthusiasm. Many other kids in that playground would bring every single one of them show me so I could like, give him an attaboy, Paul. And it just was so great. Is it a delight to me to see you when you encourage people?

Henry Kaestner: I imagine that translates into role as being a manager. Yeah, right? Because I’m not going to let the hostage thing go. I visited you in your office. It was on Main Street in Hollister, right?

Robert Netzly: No, we moved it from there. We started it there and we moved it. Now we’re in Boise, Idaho, so.

Henry Kaestner: Oh my goodness, I didn’t. Yeah.

Robert Netzly: Yeah, we moved. We escape California and are here. So we moved here in 2020. Super happy. We still have an office in California. I just we love our people there and it is a great community and

Henry Kaestner: you did teach fourth graders OK and I did. Yeah. Aside from your interaction with Chevron, what’s your favorite interaction you’ve had with a company in your role at Inspire?

Robert Netzly: That’s a hard one. I had some good ones. One company that will remain nameless, so I don’t throw them under the bus, but it was a different sort of conversation. It’s a major military contractor, major military contractor, and we called them because they had seemingly started moving towards endorsing, like LGBT activists, sort of legislations and policies that were also discriminatory against people of faith and things of that nature. And so we were just ERG. So I ended up having a conversation with the CFO. And after a few minutes of sort of getting to know each other, he’s feeling me on the phone. He realizes this is a safe space. He opens up and says, You know, I just got to be honest. I go to the Calvary Chapel in the next town over on a Christian. I love Jesus. I resonate with the things that you’re telling me right now and your concerns. But here’s my problem. I’m the CFO of this major military contractor, Fortune 500 company. I sit on the board, obviously, and we are just getting hammered by this really militant group that wants to push this particular agenda and push us in this direction. And I don’t know what to say, but I can’t just say, you know, I’m a Christian. I don’t believe in this stuff. I don’t want to support it. Like that would be suicide and wouldn’t be effective anyway. But he said, Thank you for calling and sharing your perspective because now what I can say in the boardroom is, you know, actually, I just had a conversation with this. Group of investors represent faith based investors all over the globe who see this issue in a different way. And so now I have some counter pressure that I can just say, Hey, you know, we need to serve all of our shareholders. Let’s just do our business and let’s stay out of the social politics arena and just do a good job for our shareholders and make good products that help our troops and everything else stick to the plan. And so it gave him something to, you know, to bring to the meeting. So I thought that was really cool, that we could have that effect.

Luke Roush: All right. I’ve got my three verses. You’re an early adopter in biblically responsible investing, and yet, you know, 10 years in or 15 or 20 years and you look at sort of the percentage of assets within kind of faith driven institutions that are managed in kind of a traditional British manner. And it’s still it’s really early. How do you walk alongside, you know, other investors that maybe kind of either on a different glide path towards a different way of doing what they do or maybe have different views? You know, I’ll always remember this time when Henry and I were in Texas talking about, you know, we kind of avoid alcohol, firearms, adult entertainment, all these things. I said, let’s go back to those firearms for a moment. And so there’s different. People who kind of see things differently, a couple that issues that we should all be able to agree on as believers. But then there’s also some kind of different perspectives, maybe just kind of walk us through and it’s maybe more than a 30 second answer, but walk us through how you have engaged with others in your own journey and then translated that to the journey that there are.

Robert Netzly: It’s a good question. And for us, as an asset manager who you know, you buy one of our funds, we can’t customize this fund for people, right? And so what we found is that having a standard approach to how we’re screening on the screens, we just screen out the same things for everybody. And we don’t do the whole custom screening thing. What we found is if you ask a client what’s important to you, I’m going to customize your screens. Usually it wraps around an . They don’t know how to think about that. And it just kind of it’s not a really positive conversation and it sort of stands out. So instead, we’re just like, what? Here’s the screens and we take the approach where we want to defer to our brothers and sisters who, you know, don’t have a problem with alcohol. I’ll drink a beer with you, right? But I understand I’ve got brothers and sisters who have alcoholism in their personal history. Maybe they’re had an abusive parent or something, and they don’t want to have anything to do with that. So we keep alcohol out of the portfolio. I’m a gun owner. I live in Idaho, you know? But I understand the other side of those issues. And so we add deference to our brothers and sisters. We screen out more than just sort of what, you know, our own personal conscience or whatever else may lead us onto. And what we found is a sort of counterintuitive that the people who care about those issues are absolutely grateful. It allows them to invest with a good conscience in your product. The people that were like, well, alcohol and I don’t really care about it. Well, it’s not like they want to invest in Budweiser specifically, and they’re not going to invest with you because you don’t own Budweiser. It’s just not really important to them. So as long as you can deliver a good product, the more you screen out, the more people you will actually attract and be able to serve is what we have found, and we see people having challenges and they try to water that down or sort of find a middle road. You end up not appealing to anybody.

Luke Roush: What’s something that you see differently than the rest of the world, but they would disagree with you?

Robert Netzly: Yeah. Well, I mean, as far as like the world in general, secular terms of the world, obviously lots of things we see differently. The whole approach to the ESG conversation, you could start with that. You know, we see that differently, both within the faith community and within the secular community. We’re a little bit of a pariah in both of those categories, sometimes because in very conservative Christian circles, ESG is, you know, synonymous with, well, progressive liberal. And they think, well, you know, ESG is evil. On the other side of the equation, you know, ESG does mean, well, the liberal progressive. And we’re not that. And so like, who are you guys to say that you’re is ERG like, you’re not like us, you can’t believe the Bible of Jesus and also see your ESG. So that’s a big differentiator. I think it just makes sense. The Bible tells us to take care of the planet. It doesn’t mean that we can’t pump out of oil out of the ground, but we should do it in a responsible way. Right. We shouldn’t just rape the planet, you know, indiscriminately. We should care for the stewardship of the planet does say how we should care for society people. You know, abortion is wrong. We shouldn’t do that. Those are social issues that are not, you know, the progressive ESG style and governance, corporate governance. Yeah, if the executives are stealing from the company, that’s wrong. If they’re bribing politicians, they shouldn’t do that. So having a truly faith based biblical worldview on ESG and using that terminology, I think is important for a number of reasons, but sometimes causes us to need to explain, you know, on both sides of the equation, you know what that actually means.

Luke Roush: What’s the new discovery? Since you remove the Boycie, you appreciate the most? And what’s the thing that you miss the most about Hollister

Robert Netzly: new discoveries in Idaho, Ben? Just freedom and just leave it at that in a lot of ways. I do miss. There’s just so much in California in general. I mean, you can drive to the beach and then later you can be in the mountains and you can be in the redwoods and it’s all around there, right? And it really is a special place. Just the diverse topography here. Here you’ve got mountains, you’ve got sagebrush, you’ve got topography, but it’s not quite the same. So I’d say I miss that. I was also, I’ll say I’ve been surprised to find that there’s phenomenal coffee shops and exquisite cuisine, including sushi. I had the best sushi in Boise, Idaho. We’re going to have anywhere else in the world. Come on, come on. There is some really good restaurants here and the coffee shops are like and is better in San Francisco or Santa Cruz or any of those other places. I challenge you to that test. That is absolutely true.

Henry Kaestner: All right. So I think you did well. I think you’re around 30 seconds, maybe forty five. But I thought the answers were awesome. We’re going to go back to a tried and true question that we’ve asked every guest across the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast and Faith Driven Investor podcast, and that’s something that you’re hearing. From God’s word, maybe it’s today, maybe it’s over the course of last week, but how is God speaking to you through the Bible?

Robert Netzly: Well, just recently, and this is related to the business where Jesus is really criticizing the Pharisees about use of the analogy that it’s like a cup this washed on the outside, but inside it’s all filthy and they’re just caring about the outside. But the inside is dirty. You know, there’s a lot of applications in our personal lives. We don’t want to look nice and shiny, but that our personal life is a wreck in our thought. Life is a wreck. And I’ve just been convicted that as the Supreme Court is looking at, you know, potentially rolling back Roe v. Wade and broadly expected, you know, ruling that just recently, I was given a statement from one of the most outspoken advocates for pro-life issues huge ministry, $200 million or some endowment. They own five stocks and companies that are manufacturing abortion drugs. Obviously some intentional, but it’s there and it’s across the Christian landscape. And so, you know, as we’re praying for an end to abortion, how can we not also be investing for an end to an abortion? So we really need to, you know, not just have a nice looking portfolio in terms of returns, risk adjusted or anything, but inside we’ve got to clean that up and things like abortion drugs do not belong, you know, in a portfolio like that. So that’s the stuff that’s been on my heart and God’s grace will we’ll get there?

Henry Kaestner: So you have been called the best dressed man in the world of faith driven investing. So that has nothing. So that passage in Matthew that you refer to presumably has nothing to do with you.

Robert Netzly: I hope not. But yes, in some sense, of course, my cup inside needs to be washed daily so that you’re

Henry Kaestner: not refuting the fact that you’re the best dressed man in Faith Driven

Robert Netzly: Investor. Well, I’m not saying that either. I don’t know anything.

Henry Kaestner: It’s awesome seeing you again. I’m sorry to have not known that you believed. I mourn the loss of another great, committed Christ follower that’s serious about faith and investing in this fine city, California. We’ve lost two great ones over the last two years, Luke and now Robert nicely. But I’m grateful for you. Spend the time and in via Zoom and and share with us.

Robert Netzly: It is my honor. Thank you guys for having me.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to Faith Driven Investor, it is awesome to be back here with Luke, my great friend who has abandoned me, has moved to Nashville and some really great guests that we’ve got today, Luke. It’s good to be back in the saddle has been a little while since we recorded a podcast and it’s good to be back with you, brother. It is good

Luke Roush: to be back and it’s good to be here with old friends.

Henry Kaestner: So indeed. And so today is another one of those special editions. You know, I talk about this all the time as we meet this great special edition. And indeed, today is just that. I love you one for many reasons. Just got a great heart for the Lord. But I also love the way that we’ve been able to challenge and encourage each other over the course of the last four or five years as we’ve gotten to know each other better. I can’t remember when I originally met Johan, but when I did meet Johan, I really felt like I met this kindred soul, a guy who had been an operator who is now an investor who was really just leaning into his faith and trying to understand how he might honor God. But he was doing it, not in Silicon Valley, where I live, or Nashville, where Luke is or some of the other locations he was joining in South Africa. And I was just fascinated by that. And as Luke and I were talking about expanding the work of Faith Driven Investor to highlight fund managers people that were serious about their faith and who wanted to have spiritual integration and how they invested with excellence, I could think of no better story than Johan. And so as we get ready shortly to launch the African version of Faith Driven Entrepreneur and investor, we’re going to do Faith Driven Entrepreneur Africa. We want to spend a lot more time focusing on the continent of Africa. We want to change the narrative a bit to help people understand the opportunities that are there. I don’t know what your preconceived notion might be of Africa. Maybe it is one of great opportunity in a marketplace that is thriving and it’s young and it’s vibrant. But we’re going to try to scope that out over the course of this year periodically by visiting Africa like we are today to understand what’s going on in the marketplace in a way that hopefully you, the listener, might feel encouraged to participate, or at least pray about how you might be involved. So without further ado, Johan, thank you very much for being with us.

Johan du Preez: Great to be here. Thanks. And they always encouraged by this information.

Henry Kaestner: Thank you. So we’d like to do this, of course, with all of our guests. And we actually this is a special edition because not only do we have Johan, our great friend and fund manager, but we’ve actually asked one of his portfolio companies Job Jack Christian, to come on board as well, to talk a little bit about what it looks like to have a fund that invest and the relationship that a fund manager can have with a portfolio company. And ultimately, what happens on the ground? What is it the job Jack does? And then what does that relationship look like between the entrepreneur and the investor? So, Christian, welcome to we’re looking forward to hear more from you at the end of the program, but glad you’re here. Welcome.

Christian van den Berg: Thanks so much, Jan. Super blessed to be a part of this conversation.

Henry Kaestner: Awesome. Thank you, brother. OK, Johan. Who are you? Where do you come from?

Johan du Preez: Hey. So I was born in rural South Africa. Very small, actually on a farm closes town, probably 10 miles away. Great place to have an upbringing, I must say. My first recollection from my family were that they were glad to see me, that they liked me, and they probably believed I was going to do something good in life. So I never actually realized how big a blessing that was until later in my life. Yeah, so I grew up there, dad. Good business guy. One word for him would be integrity. You always wanted to do the right thing. Always did the right thing. Passed away about 20 years ago, but my mother is still alive and she’s a woman of prayer, so she prayed for us as children. She’s praying for us today. She’s praying for this business today and for our investee companies. So that’s just a brilliant privilege to have.

Henry Kaestner: Christian, did you know that we’re going off script here? Did you know that Johan’s mother is praying for you?

Christian van den Berg: John, as mentioned it every now and and I just feel it in my spirit. So, you know, when you get that deal, it’s all right.

Henry Kaestner: So when we’re finished with this podcast, I’m calling my mom, OK. Let’s go back to the story, Johan, please. By the way, when you’re growing up on a farm in South Africa, is this one where you might be visited by wild animals?

Johan du Preez: No, not quite. So I can claim that one. But yeah, it was pretty rural, also the primary school. So we don’t have middle school road. We have primary school high school in South Africa. The primary school that I was in, grade one to seven would have one hundred and eighty pupils in total, so we were like seven boys in a grade. So needless to say, you were pretty good at everything, right? You were an athlete, you were a leader, you were whatnot. So that’s good for your self-esteem. So, yeah, that was rural and that was good. And then I went to Pretoria, which is a city in South Africa, to study pharmacy. Don’t quite know why I studied pharmacy, probably in the town that I live. That was the only professional guy I saw. You know, we did some business on the side as well, so pharmacy was good for me, though no one. I met my wife in pharmacy school, which was still, to this day, the best transaction of my life. I’ve done a few, but that was the best one. I guess I’ll do another few years of organic chemistry to get that privilege. But it also paved the way for me to get to the US, ultimately, which I didn’t foresee because I developed a shortage of pharmacists in the US at some point and they were recruiting internationally. So that would pave that way for us there.

Henry Kaestner: Okay, so Johan, you’re based in South Africa. And in the intro, I talked a little bit about how unique that is. And there are folks who are having a mental picture here of what South Africa is like, but you not only know it well, you also know the United States really well. So you’ve spent enough time in America and being an operator to have a perspective of what business looks like in America and what it looks like in South Africa. What are some misconceptions that people might have about what commerce looks like in the marketplace looks like in South Africa and does share a little bit about the landscape you’re seeing?

Johan du Preez: OK? South Africa is an incredible country, as you well know, having visited here and before I get into the investing side just to say the people, I just love the people of Africa. I mean, people have real servant hearts. That’s probably our number one asset. You know, you think about different countries like Israel being well known for inventing stuff like the US being having that gift of commercialization. And you think of Africa and people really have a heart to serve, which of course, have been misused over the years as well. But it’s a great asset. I think from a misconception perception, you know, you have a first world infrastructure in South Africa, you have an excellent banking system. From a technology perspective, I would say superior to the US because we started later. So it’s more mobile friendly and just advanced. The regulatory framework is excellent. Good central bank, good markets, very liquid markets. That’s why our currency tends to fluctuate quite a bit because it trades so well. That’s on the one hand. But then on the other hand, you still have a bit of a regulatory arbitrage in terms of not, you know, it’s not that difficult. You don’t have to have five licenses to operate, one business type of thing. You know, you still have a bit of room to move in. You can still do a lot with a little bit of capital. So that’s the beauty of it in terms of significance on the African continent. Number three, in terms of GDP after Nigeria and Egypt, and number four in terms of GDP per capita. So it has huge influence on the continent, although it’s only 5.5 million people. But we have a fair amount of challenges. We sitting with an unemployment rate of about 30 percent with the GDP of it, was just forty six percent a few years ago. Now we’re sitting at 70 and heading for 19 three years from now. And that is a consequence of really a period where we had a corrupt president between 2009 and 2018. So great country all together. People probably underestimate the infrastructure, but if they think about Africa and they have a mental picture about South Africa,

Henry Kaestner: OK, that’s good. OK, so before we go on, I just want to make sure that we share with our audience these two funds you run. Can you just describe what Saad is and what Tree of Life is, please?

Johan du Preez: Yes. So coming out of the first half of my career, which was as an operator and a turnaround CEO, then when God stopped and called me out run about 2006, I wasn’t exactly sure what I should do. But I understood that it was about capital and I understood that it was about not owning it and just hitting it. So essentially created two entities a not-for-profit entity called the Tree of Life Foundation, which is a classic nonprofit. But that entity owns 100 per cent of a cutting edge investment company called Solid Investment Holdings, where we do investments, where we had a fund manager with a vision to actually be like an investment bank one day a significant player in South Africa in the financial services field. We call it the Hobby Lobby or the Chick-Fil-A of financial services. That’s the way we’re going. Although at the moment we are focusing primarily on private equity.

Luke Roush: So one of the things that was really clear on from the first time that you and I met and I believe we originally met through Christian Economic Forum, but you are a relational person, and it’s true, I think globally that relationships matter in terms of how we invest. But as you just think about your own work as an investor and some of the relationships that you’ve cultivated over. Years, you know, maybe just give us some observations in terms of what you look for in those kind of partnerships, in those relationships.

Johan du Preez: Right? So look, I mean, that’s spot on. I think we all deal with relationships all the time, but you can never over emphasize the importance of that. In fact, I didn’t actually have a clue. You know what Tree of Life meant when I named the foundation Tree of Life? And then because God just gave me that name, and then years later, I said to the pastor friend, and he explained to me the difference between the three of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of Life being a relationship with God rather than a contractual and transactional one, rather than a knowledge of good and evil being a father son relationship. So it’s the foundation of what we do in terms of business first. All of the investee companies, but then also with co-investors, with ministries locally that we fund. I over the years have learned, you know, if someone doesn’t have an ego, if they are willing to objectively look at themselves, if they don’t see others as role players in their movie, but they have an outward mindset of seeing the bigger picture, then you know, you can go a long way with people like that. And it’s one of the main criteria we look at when we invest is not only whether this would be successful or not, whether this would be a partner, that we can walk along the road we have that we can learn from. But then we can also sometimes share some knowledge with and they will objectively consider that.

Luke Roush: So that’s helpful. And you know, I love the Paul Christian in here as well just to get his take. But you know, different ways to think about relationships and kind of building community. Some people do it, you know, based on proximity. Some people do it based on, you know, similar interests or different causes that you’re drawn to together. Others do it in a way that’s very tied into their church or to their faith. Any observations Christian from you in terms of what you’ve seen work well, what you want to do more of maybe what you want to do less of?

Christian van den Berg: Yes. So thanks for the question. I mean, you know, speaking of the father son relationship, you know, outlook and we’ve really come to appreciate that in English, it’s not, you know, not coming to us for the country. You know, I’ll take that really coming for the relationship behind it, for the discipleship behind it. And I think once you can put away those monetary politics, it’s so beautiful to be able to move freely in a space where, you know, going for mentorship, where you’re receiving feedback, choosing to accept that feedback or not. And so it’s really been super liberating space to operate in. Does that make sense?

Luke Roush: Yeah, it’s great. And maybe speak just a little bit on the on the length of time that you know, folks before you choose to partner with them.

Johan du Preez: So I think they also Praxis of could shorten their time. So I mean, oftentimes it would be great to know them for three years or so. But like, for instance, with Christian, I think our relationship via Traeger, which is the South African version of Praxis, you know, that’s just shortcuts, because by the time someone has decided to take a year and enroll in a tree, pay good money to do that, but also that they want that in their lives. You know, if you meet someone in that type of forum, I think, you know, you don’t need the same amount of time elapsed before you actually know them really well.

Henry Kaestner: So I want to go back to Christian for a second and Christian. You’ve got a company called Job Jack. So what is Job Jack? And then you also mentioned Trigger two, and maybe you can explain to us what triggers an organization that I’ve gotten to know well and admire a lot. But I’d love to hear about it through your lens. So why don’t you give us like a little bit of a flyover about how you got into trigger, what trigger did and then what job Jack does?

Christian van den Berg: Yeah, cool. Awesome trigger. I mean, I was a little reluctant when I heard of another accelerator. It’s the buzzword for tech startups. But so what triggered is it’s this amazing organization with the heart behind redemptive business to call entrepreneurs, to cool business people that have received the vision, whether they know it from the Lord or not, and to realign them into seeing what is the redemptive purpose behind why God is giving them that vision for that specific business. And so it’s just accelerated. That takes a group of 18 to 20 entrepreneurs for profit and nonprofit and leads them in a space of a year with a few gatherings. That includes, I think, 40 mentors that have dedicated their time to really come and showcase life’s lessons and what God’s taught them as well. And so it’s just incredible space where relationship is both in building business together, but also respecting what God’s called each individual to do. And so that was an amazing blessing for us to be really opened our eyes into the differentiating factors between what we believe is your typical sort of pop and reasoning for growth as opposed to, you know, why God’s called us to do something. Yeah, it’s just it opened our eyes as founders, microfinance myself, but also we could relate that to our employees and to why we’re doing what we’re doing. To have that his base behind each decision and drug, Jack, as you go, Jack is a sort of tech start up company that focuses on automating entry level recruitment. So our hardest to see the world, the employed, we’ve noticed that there’s a massive gap between your lower skilled type of jobs, jobs that don’t require qualifications above high school, where there’s a load of money being spent and wasted for job seekers that have to print out paper CVS and take public transport to try and find jobs. John alluded to it earlier, so unemployment rate in South Africa is bordering between 30 and 40 per cent. And if you include people that are despondent that on issue, even looking for work, it’s close to 50 per cent. And so with this, this massive disconnect and loss of hope, we’ve come to see how we can remove those areas to access for opportunities for a market that has been overlooked from a technology perspective and to see how we can facilitate the marriage between employers, large employers in South Africa or small and large and the very living jobseekers that are looking for those opportunities. So we’ve made it legal for any data free for these types of jobseekers to get profiles and to get connected to a relevant job opportunities. And on your company’s site to automate the entire process for them so that they’re not struggling to find someone relevant. And you can place someone in a sustainable opportunity so that they can then look after their families and kind of the economy can grow from that point on.

Henry Kaestner: So my life as an investor, I like to look at deals from both the bottom up and top down if I can. And you spoke a lot to the bottom up. And Johan, I think I chose you very, very well for the program. And I love the trigger conference. When you get a young man or young woman who’s so captivated by this sense of being able to make a redemptive product or service and just having faith be such a part of their life and their work. But there’s also a top down element. This really intrigued me too, is, as I’ve heard, there are going to be more entrants into the job market in Africa over the course of next 20 years. And I think India and China. I mean, so it’s a it’s a big opportunity that’s really growing. And so you’ve got this redemptive service aspect of what you’re doing, but you’re also in this massively growing market. Johan, I’m wondering if you could speak and just give us some more illustrations of some of the opportunities you see for, say, Western investors or non-African investors that are looking to participate in Africa and have thought their, gosh, you know, African investments. It’s just it’s another fair trade coffee deal, right, that I’m going to go ahead and we get bags of and I’m going to sell at church. There’s something completely different that you’re looking at. Give us a flyover about how you look at Africa, how you look at opportunities. What are the top down opportunities you see?

Johan du Preez: I think capital is scarce in Africa, specifically capital in certain pockets. So if we just talk about the investment landscape in South Africa for a moment and again, you know, the equity markets are really well structured and operate well. The big private equity funds operate well, listings, mergers, the listings, all of that stuff. But as soon as you get to a market capitalization of 20 million U.S. dollars and below, there’s just a scarcity of capital. And the reason for that is also because you need some non-financial investment to unlock the financial capital. You know, these are typical entrepreneurs that have done something right and they are building a great business, but now they’re running into those type of things that they’ve never seen before. You know, they’ve never put together an executive leadership team. They’ve never registered a patent. They’ve never had to think about how to structure the balance sheet for growth. They don’t know a corporate banker. They haven’t made a good merger lawyer. So I think you know where we see the great opportunities that actually come alongside those entrepreneurs and help them before you get to is different industries just generically in terms of size of the company. That’s where the jobs are being created. That’s what could change the country as well. But it is from a pure commercial investment management business perspective. It is messy. It’s not as scalable as just investing capital and getting some reports. Every quarter of how the company is doing. It means seeing companies on a monthly basis, being there for them, rolling up your sleeves a bit. So I think that probably is a little bit different from the first world because we don’t have the same level of social capital. Many of the entrepreneurs didn’t grow up in a family where the dad was speaking about business at the dinner table, and that is where I see the biggest void.

Luke Roush: Mm hmm. So maybe just in terms of that context, recognizing that you have capital that you’re providing to folks who kind of have a dream or a vision of how they’re going to change society, how do you try to get to the answer of your ability to bring value beyond stroking a check, which is something that you know, makes a ton of sense to me? So we don’t just want to be seen as a capital source, we want to be seen as. Someone who can really pour into other aspects of the business beyond just financial needs. And yet sometimes it’s hard to unpack that when you are the one that’s actually writing the check. Maybe just speak a little bit to how you approach that in terms of process in an African context.

Johan du Preez: I think, look, the first common sense thing to do is to not invest where you cannot add value beyond capital, right? So really, to be honest with yourself as well, when you look at a company and realize, do we have what it takes to make a difference in this company? That’s the first thing. The second thing is that you guys do so well at Faith Driven Athlete mean, you think about it as a movement and not an organization, right? And if you have the mindset of a movement rather than an organization, then don’t try and just find everything in your company. We just did a retail investment enough last year. Go look and see that none of us have deep retail experience. Look for someone that she is your values. We found the ex financial director of a listed retail group have him co-invest with us and bring that benefit to the company that you’re investing in. So looking then we as a country want to help you, not just we as a company and help those entrepreneurs find people in the economy that they wouldn’t normally have access to to come and help with that.

Henry Kaestner: Are you on you talk about this concept of co-investing with people who are experts in an industry and look at my investment experience that’s been really successful as we’ve looked in investing in foreign markets. I think especially in Indonesia, having local co-investors was really important. But then having people who have specific industry knowledge in on the deal with you seems to make a lot of sense. Is that something you look for in most of your investments? Just talk us through that a little bit.

Johan du Preez: Yeah, for sure. I think we have as we have a wide experience in the financial services industry. So for most of that, we have it within our closed network in terms of board members, in terms of employees and all of that. But as soon as we go outside of that, our default mindset is actually to look for people that’s going to help. And I’ve just been amazed at how willing people are, especially people that may be retired, have sold the business and they are very keen to give back, but also at another level, sometimes just with a due diligence. You know, I’ve had asset managers just give me and analysts. The bank analysts had a company to give me their bank analyst for a week or two just to help us on the due diligence. People actually want to make a difference. And you must just create the opportunity for them to make a difference. So I think to answer your question, that’s our default mindset is that we actually expect someone out there that’s going to be able to help us and that we’ll do a better job than we can and we must find him or her.

Luke Roush: You have to understand just your basic philosophy of investing and how you approach capital markets in putting capital to work.

Johan du Preez: So we think about capital a lot. You may have heard that we say capital always has an agenda. It’s we like to make things simple for ourselves and for us. Capital always has an agenda, and our biggest job is to make sure that that agenda is Christ. So if you think about capital in the application, that all of it facilitates a lot of things. And if you think about capital markets or financial services markets, it really helps you to achieve something with your capital that you wouldn’t have really been able to do on your own. But by coming along with other people that have the same agenda, you can achieve that. And that could be as simple as you want the 20 per cent IRR, but it may be as complicated as you want to change the world, and you may not be able to build an airport on your own. But if you join an infrastructure funds, just sure enough you can build an airport. You cannot insure your own health risk. But if enough people can join the pool, then between you, you can ensure each other. So for us, the notion of collective capital leaving behind a common purpose is just so attractive and such a no brainer for the Christian community as well to come along and say, Let’s pool our like minded capital. For us, the sweet spot is really donor advised fund capital for that reason, because someone has already decided that they want to set aside this capital, that this capital is not going to be for them in their family. This capital needs to make a difference of some sort. And then you find that about 80 percent of what we manage is donor advised fund capital. The expectation for excellence is no less. The competence requirement is nothing less than what you would expect in a cutting edge private capital business. But the outcome is somehow different because whatever we can generate in returns, whatever impact we can have on an investment is in that realm of the like minded. Set aside capital and maybe briefly, if I may, you know, we see a few themes emerging as we thought experiment. With this type of capital, you find this thought up like Christiane, this is this is a business. This is a great idea, but I know the author of this idea is God, and I want to honor him in this business and I need access to capital. But I don’t want capital with another agenda, someone that’s just going to set the speed of my treadmill and, you know, doesn’t want to hear about our purpose. So start ups, you see that early stage companies, you see it often in replacement capital to Christian brothers sort of business. It’s all guns blazing and no one wants to retire now he or she wants to get fair commercial reward for what they’ve built. At the same time, they don’t want to compromise, you know, on what they allow into the business. So, you know, that is really important. And I think to step into the shoes of that exiting shareholder, the most recent transaction we’ve done is a 74 year old gentleman who wants to go on and run this business until he’s 90, but just in case something happens, which he sees as very unlikely. You know, he needs some other shareholders that can step in to that shareholders shoes of his. He’s got the succession planning in the business, but he doesn’t have the shareholder succession. But he’s all about culture, all about Christian ethos. And it was so just so great to do a transaction with him where we buy 30 per cent, but we can also take up the risk over time. And he has peace of mind, but he can continue to run with it.

Luke Roush: So, yeah, as powerful, you know, I love that. And you know, we talk sometimes about the capital markets and the cycles that businesses go through are oftentimes more of a relay race than they are an individual race. And so there’s times when you know individuals need to be able to pass the baton to someone else who hopefully has alignment, not just in terms of the potential for the business, but also in alignment around the values and the culture that underpins much of the business of success. So I really appreciate you sharing that powerful Christian.

Henry Kaestner: Did you have any save rounds?

Christian van den Berg: Yes. So I think something that I’d really like to emphasize the value. And John spoke about capital having an agenda, the value of having your first large investors having a kingdom mindset has been so crucial because it’s the first time you have possibly someone else sitting on your board, you know, another director that’s already a tough transition for anyone. And now you’ve got someone that shares that like mindedness that can keep you accountable to why you’re doing what you’re doing because things get sticky on a good month on a bad month. The first thing we have a discussion about when we walk into a board meeting is not how’s the business going? I’m proud of you because you’ve made money or I’m disappointed because you’ve lost my money. How’s it going with your family? Are you putting them first? How’s it going with your relationship with the Lord or you’re putting him first? And I think moving into a growing business, it’s so key to have someone from the outside that if walked the hard yards, really be able to keep you accountable in that. And as we start taking on new investors, that’s formed our base. And so it’s immovable, established in God’s ways as a do.

Henry Kaestner: That was really good. That’s really good. I’m really glad we asked. I’m really glad you answered.

Luke Roush: You know, one of the things we like to do on Christian is just cause each episode by hearing what God is teaching you right now. So what are you found in God’s word that has stuck out to you recently? And how does that maybe impact the work that you’re doing day to day so above for both of you to take a cut at that one?

Johan du Preez: So I’m in business and otherwise I go narrow and deep rather than wide. So, you know, that is helping business with focus. It has its downsides as well. So I’m stuck in the Book of James this year so far, and I think I’m going to be there for probably a few months more. And what just strikes me and challenges me about James and that book is about the conversion of a belief system into real practical deeds, the outward mindset, again, that we spoke about earlier and the dependency on the wisdom that we receive from God and the humility that we need in order to unlock that flow of wisdom. So there’s a bunch more in that book, but those are probably the highlights this fall for me, and I’ll have a few more in a couple of months.

Luke Roush: That’s good. Christian, how about for you?

Christian van den Berg: Yes. So I think something that’s hit me quite hard in the past few months is that the tough decision making when it comes to business, I’m still quite young. Twenty eight, and you get faced with quite a few tough decisions, whether it be having to let someone go or having to make the tough financial decision. And what really struck me, especially with the wisdom and the discipleship that we’ve received, is that because God’s given us this mission, it’s ours to steward and it’s our steward excellently. And so if I can approach every day with that mindset as to this is not mine to mess up or mine to again, for myself, it’s mine. Just do it for the Lord. It just makes this decision so much easier to operate in freedom and in wisdom instead of guilt and frustration. And so still practicing with the application of it, but it’s been super liberating to. Richard, that mindset as well.

Luke Roush: Well, I love that and you know, there’s a narrative at times kind of within this intersection of faith and work that that somehow kind of alleviates or makes it too that you don’t have to make difficult choices. But you know, the reality is when you’re leading an organization, as you said, stewarding an organization, you’ve got to be able to make difficult decisions for the health of the organization in the mission. And so what really comes first is not necessarily individual people, but the mission. And sometimes that means hard conversation. So I appreciate you sharing on that.

Henry Kaestner: Christian, Johann, Christian, it’s great to have you guys on board. Thank you for helping us to understand your investment philosophy, what it’s like to invest in South Africa. Hopefully, our listeners have a little bit of a different perspective. Hopefully they’ve heard some things, whether it’s about thinking about co-investors or just top down versus bottom up. And then just just a vision into what it looks like to have this relationship between the entrepreneur and the investor, which I think is really, really key. And what I heard from Christian and picked up from him is that he’s grateful that you’re involved in his company. And I’m grateful you’re both involved in our podcast. So thank you.

Johan du Preez: Thank you very much.

Christian van den Berg: Thanks so much.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast, as always, I’m here with Luke. Luke, you’re calling in from Tucson, Arizona, so you’ve taken the show on the road.

Luke Roush: We haven’t been out here with Kyle Pratt and Vermeer Southwest, but it’s great to be on the show.

Henry Kaestner: That’s awesome. That’s another great Faith Driven Entrepreneur leading the business, creating making it happen. Lebanon employs Lebanon customers in a way that points to a God that loves them and loves big machines. And I’ll tell you, I love the tour that Carl is taking us on. There’s something about the little kid in me that just loves these kind of ditch digger type of big machinery. I got in the cockpit of one of those front end loaders. I felt like at five years old again, it was time. Travel was awesome.

Luke Roush: That’s why I’m here basically for that feeling yet again.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, yeah, that’s super cool. So today is a special edition of the podcast because we are introducing the world to our great friend and partner John Coleman and John is such an encouragement to us personally. And then, of course, professionally. And John is joining the podcasting team, and he’s going to be taking over as co-host. And many times he’s going to be the lead host. And one of the things that you always want to do whenever you’re involved in a project is to bring other people on board that are better than you are at whatever the task is that you’re accomplishing. And this sounds like false modesty. And maybe you thinking, maybe it’s not. Maybe you think it’s actually a really low bar, and it probably is that, but John is a guy who really gets the space around and understands it at heart level. He, of course, is a committed follower of Christ. And it’s just really encouraging for me. And maybe, Luke, you’re speaking this a little bit too. But you know, when you have had your hand at the plow for a long time, as we have with sovereigns and then Faith Driven Investor, when somebody that has John’s type of background and has been doing investments at such scale but says, you know, gosh, what you’re doing is really important and kind of the zenith of his career, he comes over into what you’re doing. That’s amazingly encouraging.

Luke Roush: It is, indeed. You know, and I think the movement that we’re all part of that all of our listeners are a part of is increasingly able to recruit, retain and excite some really world class folks from secular asset management firms that I think feel a sense of calling and purpose in mission to do something more. And there’s certainly, I think, a lot of asset managers, a lot of advisors, a lot of other players in this space that are increasingly developing products that are interesting and sort of worthy of pulling a broader group of folks over. And like you, Jon also has a face made for radio and voice made for print journalism, so we’re excited about that.

Henry Kaestner: Well, yes, true about me, very much not true about Typekit. We’ve already established that going to need to do some sort of a video release you get, I think, the best beard in the feature of an investment labar LaVar. Maybe also a low bar, I don’t know. But you know, the other thing that gets me excited about Jon is that there are some number of national champions in the mix of what’s going on in the Faith Driven Investor ecosystem. I immediately am thinking about Geoff Johns, who went to Duke University, where he was a national champion skydiver. Most people don’t know about that.

Luke Roush: Yeah, I mean, that’s a good bar bet. What was Geoff Johns, national champion at No. One, when the bar would guess sky diving? I don’t think

Henry Kaestner: I mean, I think, well, it’s going to be a good test of whether people are listening to Faith Driven Investor Praxis. Yeah. So he was a national champion skydiver, which I think is just crazy, crazy, cool. He, of course, for those of our listeners who do not know, co-founded the Impact Foundation with Amy Minnick, which is an incredible organization that helps people to invest their philanthropic capital. So I think if you’re donor advised, fund money, your foundation money supporting ERG money, that money might do an incredible amount of good for God through investing. In some cases, the causes that have got is put on your heart to give money to. In some cases, you may go pretty far by investing, and most people don’t know you can do that with your philanthropic capital as what Jeff does or what you mean and they’re expanding can do remarkably well. It impact foundation and he, as you now know, is a national champion. But John Coleman, also a national champion and something that’s a little bit more germane to what we’re talking about right now, and that is he was a national champion in debate. Am I getting this right, John? By the way, China is, we’re putting you on the spot with this kind of awkward question. Maybe it’s not that awkward, dude. You’re a national champion. That’s incredibly cool. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the program. Welcome to the ministry. You’ve always been a part of it, but we’re this is your coming out party.

Speaker 3: Oh, I’ll thank you all. Look, I was going to say thanks for the kind words until Luke jumped in with the face made for radio comment partner, so on. But you guys know I’m just so humbled and honored and grateful to be working with folks like you and the rest of the team at sovereigns and the folks at Faith Driven Investor and just really excited about the mission that we’re on together. So I feel remarkably privileged to be in this position and working with the all. So. Thank you for having me on the show today as well.

Henry Kaestner: Yes, yes, OK, pleasantries aside, national champion yes or no? Tell us about it.

John Coleman: Wasn’t debate actually. So debate is more for people who are willing to respond to others. I was a speech national champion, which meant I just got to monologue for ten minutes without anyone responding, which is, as Luke knows how I prefer it these days as well.

Henry Kaestner: Oh, that’s awesome.

Luke Roush: That’s all that sounds like a good podcast host.

John Coleman: As long as you don’t challenge anything. I say Luke. Yes.

Henry Kaestner: And so as Luke and I like to do with every one of our guests, we try to get an autobiographical flyover. So who are you where you come from? What motivates you? We’ve got a whole bunch of different questions. You are a investor. You’re a family man, you’re an author. We’re going to get to all of these things. But tell us about where you come from.

John Coleman: Yeah, gosh. So I grew up in Georgia and Florida. I was actually born in Florida while my dad was at the University of Florida, getting his college degree. He was a rodeo cowboy at the time, although my mom made him retire from that profession when I was born and had a great upbringing, lived in the Panhandle for a little while, which is where my dad’s family is from. Grew up mostly in Columbus, Georgia, which is about two hours south of Atlanta, and my mom’s family’s from all over Georgia and most exciting Vidalia, Georgia, known for its sweet onions, which hopefully people have had and, you know, had a great upbringing. There grew up in a Christian family and so was always raised around Christian principles. Like a lot of kids, I had my own ups and downs in my faith, you know, as I went away to college and those sorts of things, but never really found myself very far from it. You know, there were points in time where it differed a bit, but I got to go to a Christian high school. You know, it was really brought up around the habits of the Christian faith. And so a wonderful foundation there that I can thank my family for and my community for. After school, I really had no idea what I was going to do. I should have a better story about my lifelong calling to be an ambassador here, but I actually thought I might be a journalist or a think tank person or a professor and stumbled into my first real job after college. I was desperate for a job. I was ending a summer job and needed an apartment in like two weeks. I was losing the apartment they had provided. And so I took the first job that was offered to me as I interviewed, which was as a quantitative energy trader at a little hedge fund up in the D.C. area. It took me about a week to learn that I was the world’s worst quantitative energy trader. It fortunately took my firm a little bit longer than that, so I had some time to prepare. But, you know, I was then able to know to explore a bunch of different stuff for my career. I spent some time at McKinsey and Company. I did some graduate studies in both public policy and business and then spent about nine years at a firm called Invesco that did diversified money management globally before coming to sovereigns. In the midst of all that, I managed to meet a lovely woman who became my wife, Jackie Coleman. She has traditionally been in education and counseling. She was actually a marriage counselor when we were dating, which led to the most stressful application process of my life, which was to be Jackie’s husband as she was grading all my, all my tests that she put me through as we were thinking about getting engaged. And and yeah, we’ve had four kids over the last nine years, so we have four little kids. We love to write. We love the outdoors. We love to travel. We actually just got back from Israel yesterday, my first trip to Israel, which was really life changing, and we have a great life. And then I was fortunate enough to run into Luke a few years ago, and he didn’t scare me off before I met you, Henry, which is the good news. And reconnected with you guys a couple of years ago and was just really, really fortunate that you all invited me to join the sovereign’s team about 13 months ago, now last February. And I am just so grateful for that and have had a blast so far

Henry Kaestner: was a no brainer. And I’ll speak for Luke. Absolutely some number of people that listeners may not be familiar with Invesco big institutional player. Tell us a little bit about what Invesco does and then the role that you played there.

John Coleman: Yeah, I had a few different jobs there, so Invesco is about a one point three or four trillion dollar asset manager globally. They manage about that much in assets, and they do basically everything from kind of ETF and index provision on one side, as the S&P 500, they have the QQQ. So if you’ve been watching the NCAA tournament, you know the Nasdaq QQQ all the way over to actively managed mutual funds, fixed income and then into private markets. So things like direct real estate and private equity and fund of funds and venture and those sorts of things. So really, a full spectrum investment manager, I have. A few jobs over the course of time while I was there, I was our head of strategy for a while globally. Worked a little bit on our digital businesses, things like robo advice, et cetera. And some of the acquisitions that we did as a firm and then really ended my time there working in two areas. One was our global institutional client business where I was a member of that kind of operating committee there. We managed about $360 billion for institutions around the world, things like sovereign wealth funds or insurance companies. And then on the other side of the house simultaneously held a job in private markets, helping build out our capability in real estate, private equity, private credit, etc., including running our fund of funds in secondary capability there for a while. So I had a great, diverse experience. There is a big global firm, so I learned about all elements of the business, which was incredibly helpful and it was a great platform. I think for the work we’re doing now, just giving me a good understanding of that marketplace.

Luke Roush: So John, on the one hand, you know, having a job like that with a firm like that would seem to be, that’s kind of what everybody aspires to, right? That’s kind of the goal. That’s the end game. What led you to feel as though you really wanted to be doing something different? Maybe share a bit about that.

John Coleman: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it was a great firm and really appreciated my colleagues there, you know, at this stage of my career. There are a few things driving my professional decisions. One was will come to it in a little bit. In 2019, I actually started writing a book on purpose for Harvard Business Review. And in the midst of writing that COVID hit and was thinking about career things, and it really convicted me about just making sure that at this point in my career, I was really aligning my personal values and my sense of mission and my purpose with an organization in a deeper way. To be honest, before I started talking to you all, I didn’t know that I could have the kind of integration that I have now with my faith and with investing, you know, that seemed like a pipe dream. I thought I might have to go to a nonprofit or something like that, and at the intersection of those two wasn’t. I wasn’t able to do that right until I found y’all. And I also had this belief that I wanted to go out and help build something to join a smaller firm where I could be a part of the team that was really helping to grow and build it. And again, you know, the path to sovereigns was even greater than I expected because we’re not just building a firm, I think we’re trying to build an entire type of investing in and we have a mission that’s broader than us in a movement. And so, you know, those two things coming together with the idea, you know, I’m a little bit further along in my career now. I know how important it is to just love the people you work with every day and to be excited every morning to get up and work with the people you want to work with. And you know, the mission alongside the opportunity to build along with working with the best people that I could possibly hope for, really created just the perfect situation for me to want to come over.

Luke Roush: One of the things that I think you’ve pushed us on and stepping back actually from sovereigns, I think you’re starting to push a broader dialog around. Is this idea that as investors, we aren’t in a kind of values neutral arena, that’s not the space that the world pushes us into. Would you mind just sharing a bit on this construct that all investing is impact investing, which I’ve heard you give that talk? Others who are listening to the show probably heard you give that talk, but maybe just unpack that a bit.

John Coleman: Yeah. You know, I think in popular language right now, a lot of people think of the term impact investing as concessionary investing, right? It’s where you have a mission and you’re trying to accomplish that mission with your money, but you might be willing to sacrifice return in pursuit of that mission. My belief if you look at the mainstream world of ESG investing, environmental social governance investing, which is now sweeping the world, is in fact that all of your investment dollars already have an impact. There’s really no neutral portfolio, right? And this has been true throughout history, but I think people are becoming more aware of it. Every dollar you put to work has an impact for good or for bad. And the only question is whether you’re going to direct that impact or you’re going to leave it to chance or you’re going to allow another institution to have that impact on your behalf. You know, what’s interesting is I think the mainstream investment management world has realized this in really dramatic fashion recently, and it’s actually the faith aligned investment ecosystem, particularly the Christian investment ecosystem that has been a little slow to come around to this. So some of the statistics I like to throw out there, Luke, you know, if you look at managed assets in the world in 2020, there were about one hundred and three trillion dollars in managed assets around the world. Now that’s probably north of there. I guess it’s somewhere around 120 trillion or something like that. Fully a third of those assets. So thirty five trillion were in explicitly ESG, environmental social governance investment strategies in 2020. So fully a third of the managed assets in the world. We’re explicitly targeting impact of some sort. And I would argue that even outside of that, that other 60 trillion in assets was similarly having an impact. So if you dig into what makes an explicit environmental, social and governance strategy that can be things like carbon neutrality, it can be negative screening like keeping fossil fuels out of your portfolio or positive screening, like supporting renewable energies on the environmental side. On the social side, it can be things like pursuing diversity and inclusion in your company or diverse boards of directors, or it can be excluding companies based on human rights issues in the mainstream ESG world. And then on the governance side, it can be diversity in the executive suite. It can be incentive systems, et cetera. But those are explicit strategies that has really blown up, and there are a number of approaches to that now around the world. And so you get this $35 billion, everything from basic negative screening to positive screening for the types of companies you want to invest in somatic investing where you say this is a renewable energy fund or this is a fund that focuses on carbon neutral companies all the way up, then to activism right or control like you would see in private equity. And so this ESG ecosystem in the mainstream world has really flourished. And as you dig into that, you know, a lot of your institutions on the Christian side, they would agree with some of those things, right? I think very few of us don’t want a great environment, right? We may have different approaches to that, but that’s what we want. But be there may be unaware actually of how they’re having an impact. And I won’t drone on about this too much. But if you look even at the rest of managed assets, you know, think about passive investing like your ETF or index exposure. A lot of people view that as neutral. I’m in the S&P 500. But if you dig under that and look at what constitutes that, you know, the top 10 investment managers in the world control 30 percent of the S&P 500. So there are 10 investment managers that control a third of the biggest publicly traded companies in the world. And if you look at the big three, which are BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, which control most of the big passive holdings, they’re around eight point eight percent of each S&P 500 company in the country, and they’re the largest shareholder, taken together of 88 percent of the S&P 500. And if you look even beyond their ESG, what they’re doing with that is they’re using their proxies to vote, they’re issuing corporate resolutions, they’re pressuring companies to do things. And so I encourage people to unpack their portfolios and they’ll see even if they think they’re not really doing anything. For the most part, all of us are having some impact with our portfolio now, an explicit ESG strategies or other strategies. We often just don’t realize it.

Luke Roush: So one follow up on that, John, a lot of our listeners and I would put myself in this camp up until, you know, only a few years ago would think that whether it’s a public company or whether it’s a privately held company of really any size it, what can I do right? Like how much am I really going to hold? Am I really able to kind of have my voice be heard? Maybe just kind of unpack, because there are a couple of noteworthy examples recently of relatively small stakes swinging a big stick within large companies. Any comments you’d make on that?

John Coleman: Yeah, you know, I do think it’s overwhelming to kind of look at BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, these multitrillion dollar companies, Invesco and say, of course, they can have influence, but like, what influence can I have? But I think one of the most remarkable things about public and private markets is that with a relatively small pool of capital, you can have a massive impact to sort of the public company side because that’s the hardest to get your mind around. When you buy a company in private markets, you kind of get that you can have influence on that company. But public markets, it seems like I’ve got to move billions and billions of dollars to have an impact. There was a great example recently of a group called Engine Number One, which is a hedge fund effectively located on the West Coast. That hedge fund is around the size of Sovereign’s Capital, the firm that you two founded, and that I’m happy to join today and with a $58 million investment point zero two percent of its shares. They invested in ExxonMobil and were effectively able to get three board seats at Exxon to try and push a more radically pro-environmental policy within that group. So 0.02 percent of shares if memory serves. And yet, because they were able to lobby a number of passive holders to vote with them, they issued a series of corporate resolutions. They were able to lobby for board seats and they were able to effectively take over not majority control of the board, but a substantial plurality of the board to try and enact this new, more radically pro-environmental set of policies at Exxon. And so that’s an example of what in the grand scheme of things is a very small asset manager and activist hedge fund that was able through a pro-environmental activist hedge fund that was able to take over one of the. Largest energy companies in history and really dramatically change its policies. And then on the private side, look, I think it’s something you and I see every day, right, which is when you own 10 or 20 percent of a company which Elon Musk now does of Twitter, which we could get into, I guess, at some point. But in the private sphere, or if you’ve taken a majority, you get a board seat, you may even have control of the board. You’ve got a close relationship with the CEO of that company or the founder, and you really have an opportunity to shape it. And, you know, in the context of the sovereign’s portfolio, what that means is we want to demonstrate love of God and love of neighbor through everything that we do to lead to human flourishing. And so that’s hopefully employee friendly policies is building an inspirational company with a real vision for the world, and it can be different from a culture perspective. And so I think it’s easier to look at the big numbers and get a little pessimistic about your ability to have an impact. But once you unpack those both in private and public companies, there’s just a remarkable opportunity to have an impact.

Henry Kaestner: So I want to impact that a little bit more with sovereigns. So if people are following along right now, they may or may not know a lot about. One of the things that there probably are pretty sure of is that it doesn’t have one point three or one point four trillion dollars of assets under management. So you’re going from running strategy and one firm with a lot to something that has something much less. And yet there must be some sort of working theory of change and impact that you see at sovereigns. You hinted at it there in just a little bit ago. But just unpack it more. What do you see as the future of Christian led companies and the ability for investors to come alongside them? Why is this something whose time has come?

John Coleman: Yeah. Henry, you’re great about reminding us that the two greatest commandments are love god and love your neighbor. Right? And Jesus reminded us, Well, Jesus first reminded us of that. I guess in the new you provide, it’s somewhat, Jesus said. But you know, and then he elaborates that everyone’s your neighbor, right? There is no one who’s left out of that. And I think that is actually a really inspirational vision for the impact that investment dollars can have. Because ultimately, what are you investing in? You’re investing in people and leaders, in the employees of companies and the customers that they serve and the vendors that they serve. And I think we live in an environment now where too often those relationships are transactional or they’re not founded on any sort of values or morals. And so they lead to environments like we’re seeing now with the great resignation where, you know, I write a lot on purpose, which will come to you. Some surveys indicate that only around 15 percent of people one five percent of people globally are engaged in their work. And that’s because companies and employees have chartered a mission or a culture that they feel is compelling. That’s bigger than them. I think his Christian investors, you know, the message of the gospel is good news. It’s good news. And I think our responsibility is to try and translate that good news into the way that companies work right in the way that companies live out their mission and values. They had the good fortune of sitting down recently with a guy named Michael Eisenberg, who I know has been on the podcast before an extraordinary investor in Israel, a person of Jewish faith, a really sincere Jewish faith. And you know, he was postulating that capitalism, which I think we all believe in here really was difficult to have exists in a flourishing way outside of the context of a deeply value centered society. And some might even say something like a Judeo-Christian society, although there are other sources values that those values really anchor society so that capitalism can flourish within it, and capitalism without those aspects can actually become a very transactional thing and can become something that takes advantage of people if you’re not careful. And I think what we would hope to chart is a philosophy of investing at sovereigns, whether through public markets or fund of funds. Invest in your private equity or venture where we can partner with founders who are sincere in their faith and companies that are sincere in their faith to create better environments for employees and companies that charter a bigger vision for the world.

Henry Kaestner: Indeed, bringing about God’s kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven while bearing witness to the king and just fired up to have you on board and running the firm with Luke on that. One of the other things that, of course, Solomon’s gets his opportunity to do is to come alongside men and women who are running in leading companies and helping them to borrow a term craft their purpose. And when I think about somebody who might know something about that, I go back to see if somebody might have written a book on it. Indeed, as it turns out, you have talked to us about the concept of helping somebody to craft their purpose. And this book that you’ve brought out with the Harvard Business Review.

John Coleman: Well, this all dates back. You know, you and Luke are athletic guys, Henry. I know your your family’s got a great one of

Henry Kaestner: us, more so than the other. Like, like the audience. Try to figure that out by Googling Luke Roush is 40 time.

John Coleman: Yeah, it was, you know, I think he said it was like a four. One or three, nine or something, Henry, these

Luke Roush: stories, it’s like it’s like fish stories, they just get better over time. I’m going to let Henry be my publicist. I might get drafted this year of Henry, where my agent

Henry Kaestner: yelled, I saw Terrell Owens this morning. Terrell Owens, at age 48, is going to come back at us as if Tom Brady can do it. I can do it. That means that, Luke, I think Terrell Owens is older than Luke.

John Coleman: Luke, you got your chance here.

Luke Roush: Most people, I can’t remember how old I am.

John Coleman: I heard he might be signing a contract with the Dolphins, so we’ll keep an eye on that. You know, when, when instead of sports, he were good at speech in college, you have to find nerdy hobbies. And so my hobby since I was a kid is writing. I love to write, I love to communicate. And so it’s been something I do in my spare time. My first book was actually a Christian book that I wrote in my early 20s.

Luke Roush: Well, tell us about that book before you get into the other book. Tell us about that book.

John Coleman: Well, again, the intersection of Chip Ingram.

Henry Kaestner: I think about it right now.

John Coleman: I wish, I wish. It is a book called How to Argue Like Jesus from crossword books and a friend and I, Joe Carter, who I had actually met online. This is the golden age of the blog and I had met online. We’re both really interested in this idea of rhetoric and Jesus in the New Testament. And so we we talked about the intersection of kind of an Aristotelian model of rhetoric in the New Testament. The way that Jesus communicated is you might know just from the fact that probably no one listening to this has actually read the book. It did not sound like a purpose-driven life. And so that set me off on my career journey. I had to keep my day job. But, you know, it kept me writing in about 10 years ago. I developed a relationship with a publisher called Harvard Business Review, and I was in school at the time at HBS in 2009. Actually, when we wrote our first book with them, we published a book on next generation leadership called Passion and Purpose. And that started me on this topic of purpose first as an investigation. And then secondly, writing with HPR. And they were really kind to kind of let me partner with an editor there. I’d write maybe five or six articles a year for NPR online, all about leadership and personal development, professional development. They’re extraordinary at those topics. And in 2015 or so, I started writing about what I thought of as kind of a new way of thinking about purpose. Right? The idea that you don’t find your purpose, you build it or you craft it, that it’s not some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that you wait for, but it’s something that exists in all parts of your life that you need to take responsibility for. Those articles became really popular. And so as I was talking to my editors about writing another book, they asked if I’d flesh those out into what became a book called the HPR Guide to Crafting Your Purpose. So if you’ve been through the airport and you’ve seen the little guides that HPR puts out, it’s one of those in the whole book is kind of a practical approach to how people who aren’t getting a great enough sense of meaning in their personal and professional lives can rethink the way that they view purpose and begin to craft it more in their lives and live more fulfilling lives, both both at work and away from work.

Luke Roush: What I love about the book I love a lot of things about the book, but I love the fact that it moves from being sort of this like passive. While I hope I find it someday to being an active kind of shaping, reshaping and a continual discovery. We talk a little bit about it being actively faithful versus willful in that movement to more of kind of an activity that individuals and leaders are engaging in. I think was really impactful for me as I went through the book.

John Coleman: You know, that’s at the core of it, Luke, is to help people restore a sense of agency. You know, I think it is easy these days, especially you work in a big corporation or you’re in a country where you don’t feel in control and you can lose a sense of agency. The idea that you actually do have some say in the way that your life turns out that you do have some control over it. Not in a negative, prideful sense, but in the sense that you can take actions that can improve your life in the way that you experience life. And obviously, as a Christian, I believe that every single life has extraordinary value. Right? We are all created in God’s image. We’re endowed with this dignity as a result that everyone has, that they have a purpose and a mission for their life. And I think unfortunately, through popular culture, we have been induced to believe that purpose is a thing that you find that it’s passive. Right? It’s I think of it as like the Hollywood version of purpose, which is actually kind of romantic when you see it in a movie, the kind of destructive when you’re trying to incorporate it in your life. And what I mean by that is there’s this great Mark Twain quote that’s attributed to him. I don’t think it’s actually his quote that the two greatest days in your life are the day you’re born. In the day you find out why. Right? And you’re like, Oh, that’s really romantic. But on the other side, it induces a ton of angst, right? Because you’re just waiting for that one day to find out why you were born. Right? We can talk about there’s a faith interpretation of that. That’s different, but that’s not what Twain is talking about, I think. And you see the movies, right? It’s Luke Skywalker kind of live in a boring life until he finds out he’s a Jedi or neo living in The Matrix in. It’s disrupted and, you know, a purpose falls in his lap. And so there are all these people out there looking for that one thing to fall in their lap to change their lives. But in doing so, they’re getting a lot of angst about finding that one thing. And so instead, you know, the core of my message is threefold. One is purpose isn’t a thing that you find. It’s something you built, right, that you have agents and you have control. Purpose exists all around you. It’s up to us to take control of that and build a life that’s meaningful. The second is that purpose isn’t singular that one thing you’re waiting for, but plural. Right? Most of the people have a lot of angst about their purpose, already have a lot of purpose in their lives. They’re just not seeing it right. It’s your kids. It’s your family, it’s your wife, it’s your friends, it’s your community. It’s the homeless shelter down the street that you serve soup in. It’s your hobbies. It’s all this beautiful stuff in your life that if you’re too anxious about your professional purpose, you can lose sight of and even in your profession, it can be multiple things like relationships with colleagues, etc. So it’s plural. And in the final myth I deconstruct is this idea that purpose is a single thing, you know the two greatest days in your life for the day you’re born. In the day, you find out why. It’s like one thing that will change your life forever. And instead, I think that purpose changes over time. Right? Our purpose is a high schooler or as a college student. It’s different than when we’re young professional. It’s different than when we have a family. It’s different than when you retire and move into our second mountain, as David Brooks describes it. And then instead of feeling anxious about that or like, we’ve wasted time that we would just embrace those shifts of purpose. And so really, in those three ways, I encourage people to fundamentally rethink the way that they view meaning and to embrace their agency in terms of how to achieve that.

Henry Kaestner: John talked to us about the role that we, as investors, can play in helping entrepreneurs craft their purpose and just in different leaders in the marketplace. What’s that dynamic so that we can get involved earlier on in a Luke Skywalker career and earlier on and working with Keanu Reeves? Just refine it a bit more.

John Coleman: Oh gosh, I’m the new kid on the block, so I hope you too will chime in. You’ve been at this even longer than I have, and you’re extraordinary at it. Henry, you might even say that you wrote the book on this, so I hope you’ll all weigh in as well.

Henry Kaestner: You know, I would look for riding the Ford. No, but we collectively wrote the book. And by collectively, I mean, there are lots and lots of people in this movement that and I think about Chip Ingram, I think about Tim Keller, I think about Andy Crouch, Dave Blanchard there. A whole bunch of different people who are really fired up about this concept of what is cultural change look like in our entrepreneurs. Indeed, the tipping point the point end of cultural transformation in the marketplace was that look like and I may be one of very many authors in that collaborative book, but this is a movement. Aslan is on the move. A whole bunch of people are waking up to this. You did so much so that you left this incredible job in Invesco. But what role does an investor and whether they invest in a firm like a faith driven investment fund or they do individual angel investing? What is the call to working with these entrepreneurs and leaders?

John Coleman: Yeah, I see it a couple of ways. And look, I’d actually love to hear you riff on this a little bit, too. One is, as you said, to help encourage an entrepreneur, you know, be an entrepreneur or a CEO is a remarkably stressful job. It is a remarkably stressful job. There are a ton of constraints on your time. You’re responsible for a lot. The world moves quickly, you’re working very hard, and it is easy to get sucked in to this idea that your identity is your job and that you either fail or succeed as a person based on the success of your job. You know, in the book, I talk about this in the context of one reason it’s important not to have your purpose be a single thing is because when that single thing falls apart, your company fails. You lose your job, you lose even a relationship. Your whole identity fails if it’s not anchored in something broader. And I think in the Christian context, what you articulated, Henry, you know, the one thing we can be certain of is that the thing that won’t fail is our identity in Christ. And so that is probably the one thing that you can anchor to that can be certain won’t fail. And then that can exhibit itself in multiple ways. And so I think helping entrepreneurs to anchor themselves in that identity and the dignity that they have in Christ. And then is an outflowing of that in this idea that they are whole people, right, that they have families, that they should have families, that they have a faith, that they have communities that they’re investing in and that their entire identity doesn’t rise and fall based on the company. The second is that they can shape the values of the company in a way that they know to be true aligned with their values. I think many people feel very shy about that, bringing their personal values and morals to work. And I think instead, it can be the good news of shaping a company. And then third is encouraging those folks then to take that seriously enough to help the individuals within that company also craft their own purposes, also find their own identities. And also live more full lives, just as the investors are encouraging the entrepreneurs or CEOs, and so it had this ripple effect where if the CEO or the founder of the entrepreneur is that way and can help everyone within the company live that way, you know, they’re then a witness to everyone else that they come into contact with and you can impact thousands of lives.

Henry Kaestner: So, John, one of the things that we do in all of our podcasts, of course, is to point people back, just as you are doing with these entrepreneurs to God’s work, believing that the Bible is alive, God speaks to us through it, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be something this morning, but maybe something recently about something you’ve read through God’s word that has really impacted you and that you might offer up as an encouragement to others that might also continue to seek out God through time and scripture as well.

John Coleman: Yeah. So one of my favorite verses that I encountered again the other day is quite a popular one, so I won’t claim points for originality. But it’s Micah six eight where God commands us to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God. And I think what’s convicting about that for me is there are so many ways to overcomplicate our faith and our Christian walk, right? And it’s such a simple command which is just to do the right thing to love mercy, not just practice mercy, but love mercy, to feel joy in giving mercy to others and to receiving mercy and to walk humbly with God, right, which is to submit yourself to him and follow him. I felt that acutely when we were visiting the garden to get Simone, where Jesus submitted himself to God’s plan and humility and to think, Oh my gosh, how much easier for me to see myself in humility than it was for him the burden that he was taking on. And so that verse has really resonated with me lately just because of its simplicity in kind of giving a command for how I should live my life. That can be incredibly practical. It’s the way that I deal with myself and others.

Henry Kaestner: Yes, no points for originality. I’m glad you didn’t go with John 3:16, although John three six. Amazing, but you did a great job. You did a great job of unpacking Michael six eight. And that is really cool, and I’ll jump on your bandwagon. There is something really special about going on to the Holy Land, and it shouldn’t be a requirement because I know their faith traditions might have is a requirement. And yet you kind of understand and appreciate why they might. There’s something really special about being where these different stories that we read about goes by will actually happen, and I think that God speak to us through his word. I’ll never forget reading the Beatitudes with my father overlooking the Sea of Galilee from this sermon on the Mount from the Mount. Yes, thank you for sharing. It’s awesome to have you with us. I’m so excited about your leadership and hosting on FDE. I am grateful that we gave our audience a chance to learn a bit about you. And God bless you, brother.

John Coleman: Thank you all very much. Great to see all today.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. I’m here with my co-host, John Coleman. John, good morning, Henry.

John Coleman: Good morning to you.

Henry Kaestner: Indeed, although as I look at it is afternoon for you and as evening at night for our guests. Today, we’ve got a real special podcast and as we’re getting ready and we’re talking kind of quote on quote backstage, I was talking about this guy that I love like a brother and I really do, and he’s the real deal. He’s been encouragement to me. He’s challenged me appropriately in the past, so I’ve known him for maybe a dozen years and just really helped strengthen my commitment and resolve to knowing Jesus. And he’s been living this incredible life that he’s going to tell us a bit about. And my hope today, John, is that we might give our audience a different perspective and a different viewpoint that helps them understand what it looks like to invest in Africa. Our time, our experience, and yes, of course, the capital that God has entrust us with. So I’m fired up.

John Coleman: Yeah, it’s such a such a remarkable topic. I mean, the ability to impact a billion people. I know this is something you’ve gotten really fired up about recently too, right? Henry Yeah, it is.

Henry Kaestner: It is. We had gas. I guess we’ve gone now to Africa four times over the last two years. I mean, even with COVID and we had our Faith Driven Investor Conference Mini conference in Nairobi, we’re going to go back in September for the Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Investor Conference in Africa. God is doing incredible things there. I’m personally compelled. We’ve done so much. Of course, John, you and I know Southeast Asia so well and we’ll continue to love Indonesia and Singapore. And yet there is something about the continent of Africa and just the demographics and how young the population is. The joyfulness that comes from meeting, maybe that’s the selfish thing for me. I just and we’re going to get to the media podcast in a second, but there’s some amount of selfishness that I have. I want to know God, I want to know your own experiences, joy. And when I spend time on the ground in Africa with my African brothers and sisters, I see the joy of knowing God. And for them, the Holy Spirit is a very real active thing. Jesus is somebody who can be known and celebrated and loved and be loved by. And I just get really excited and every time I’m there, so we want to do more of that. No better person to help us on a tour of Africa than somebody who’s given his life to the continent. Neil, welcome to the program.

Neil Holzapfel: Thanks, Henry. And you’re far too kind, but it’s great. Great to be here. Thank you. Henry and John,

Henry Kaestner: excited to have you.

Neil Holzapfel: I think about Africa. And yeah,

Henry Kaestner: I think back to the time when I first met you, you know, we don’t do this on video, but I remember. And I think there’s a metaphor in here somewhere. But I remember when I met you is at the UK. Prayer breakfast is probably 12 years ago, so it was at the House of Lords and it was just a really kind of a buttoned up affair and it’s a little bit stuffy. And Byron Laughlin, our mutual friend, took us out for lunch afterwards. Maybe I met you before I came here, but I remember this time. I remember that you’re like, You know what? This is just too stuffy and you, you know, because we’d been at this really nice thing, kind of a suit and tie type of thing. You stripped down to a t shirt right there at lunch, and I’m like, I like this guy. This guy’s is like, all pretenses aside, let’s be real with one another. And that started our friendship, and I’m grateful for it. So one of the things we like to do, or the thing we like to do with all of our guests on the podcast is understand who they are and get an autobiographical flyover. How did you come to know Jesus? How did you come to the vocation you found yourself? And how did you come to investments? You’ve got a great story, and I’m hoping you’re going to just share with us. Bring it.

Neil Holzapfel: So I’ll start with some of the high level, right? Neil’s my name. I’m from New Hampshire. Born in the Boston area, St. Thomas grew up in New Hampshire and then went to school in Boston, in the UK.

Henry Kaestner: And oh, I need more than that. We need more than that.

Neil Holzapfel: No, no, no. I’m a bring it. OK. Right now, I’m married to a woman who’s just completely shaped and changed my life so dramatically. Less so. We live in Cape Town. We have three sons Bonilla, Joel and Pascal, and we’ve been based here in South Africa for a decade this year, actually, and just celebrated our 12 year anniversary. We spent a couple of years in New York and then a bit of time in London, but been based here since then. And you know, my story, Henry is, you know, really starts with my father because my father was abandoned by his alcoholic dad when he was a child and grew up in an abusive single-parent home in a housing project in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. And, you know, the 70s were a bit dazed and confused for my parents. Well, they had me and my sister smoke. A lot of pot, drank a lot of beer and used, you know? Recreational drugs, but it was in the brokenness of their own marriage and their divorce and splitting up that, remarkably, my dad, someone gave him a Bible at work and told them that Jesus offers hope, forgiveness and new life. And he grabbed a hold of that for two years, wrote my mom in to the church. She had a Pauline conversion experience. And, you know, very much road to Damascus type ended up in church for the first time, and who knows how long they had both spent time around a Catholic church when they were young, but they were at a Pentecostal church and at that service. My mom didn’t remember anything that the pastor said. Except if you think you’ve done things you’ll never be forgiven for. I’m here to tell you, Jesus will forgive you for it. And she couldn’t help thinking about the first child that she aborted against my dad’s well before they got married. And so that was about 1983, so I went from having a pretty traumatic first six years with deep trauma. Then I’m still working through now in some ways to seeing my parents come to faith. And yet never really kind of breakthrough into for healing. So my dad is now and as you know, Henry said, I stripped down to my T-shirt, I’m stripping down here about my dad, who’s 73 this year, will start drinking today at probably noon beer go to hard alcohol in the evening. And he smokes pot all day and he’s on to prescription opioids. That’s today. Wow. So he had about a 10 year run of trying to follow Jesus and stay in community, but could never really break free of his past and the trauma of his past, his orphan spirit. And then my mom has stuck with Jesus. She’s really clung to Jesus and been the emotional and spiritual center of my family. And after my sister and I and they came to faith, they had three more children with his five kids. And now, I think, 17 nieces and nephews. But I think in my own journey as a young man, one of the big questions for me has been What if a man, a godly man, had stood in the gap for my dad when he was a boy who had no man in his life? No uncles did it, no coaches did it. You know, he went to Catholic school with nuns who beat him up. So how would his life have changed if someone had stood in the gap for him? And I think that’s been one of my big questions. So a lot of the drive. And part of my own journey is this passion for boys mainly and girls and young men and young women that don’t have fathers. And that comes through in. I work with raised the children and elsewhere. And as you know, where some people might know, South Africa in particular has been in the middle of an orphan crisis for the better part of the last 15 years, given what’s happened with HIV and AIDS. But the other thread to jump into a bit now is just what my experience of my dad and my mom and my birth family has meant for my own family and my own journey. Because I think for much of my adult life, I have been energized by the trauma and the suffering in my family, but also the joy and the strength and the loyalty and commitment that we share as a birth family. But also, you know, having to as a married Lazaro when we started our own family, really having to own some stuff and grow and understanding who I really am and who my real father really is, how Jesus brings me into a family with a perfect father who loves me and says, I’m worth it because he says so. Period. So that that’s that’s one way to kick off. Get right into it, I hope.

Henry Kaestner: No, that’s beautiful. And that’s what I was looking for. And that’s a perfect descriptor and the encouragement that we all need to hear the beauty out of brokenness and hope. And Heavenly Father right now, just all of our hearts are broken for Neil’s dad, and we just asked that you’d hear him. You were the god of healing and the God of miracles. And so we ask that you bring him back in and just be the father for him, as you are for all of us, the wonderful and infinite love. And he’d feel that today and pray for that Jesus, his name. There’s nothing better about the background of your story than that message. And yet there’s also some interesting aspects to when you get somebody comes out of that type of a background. You ended up a capital group with one of the most premier money managers of all time. How you got that, the opportunities that presented themselves along the way are very, very interesting story that go back to extra in New Hampshire. Can you give us a flyover just of your educational experience? The way you ended up at an Ivy League school is a little different than most, and I find it fascinating.

Neil Holzapfel: Yeah, it’s a great story in one rooted in what we just talked about. So that’s a good Segway. Just because when I kind of started, you know, going through puberty and noticing women around me, young women, I realized most young women I knew were interested in athletes small town, New Hampshire. And obviously my dad, who didn’t have a father, really benchmarked a lot of his view of masculinity around physical strength. You know, so I started freshman year had just started, you know, puberty probably 10 months before or five £850 pretty slow on the feet decided to go out for the freshman football team and got beat up so badly with that combination of, you know, lanky, skinny and slow. I got beat up so badly I went to the starting tailback. His name was Brett Rossmann, a little Jewish kid, but he was stacked and I’m like, Dude, what are you doing? He’s like, I lift weights. I’m like, Can I come? He said, Sure. Little did I know that his stepfather was teaching Driver’s Ed at the summer school of an elite East Coast boarding school called Phillips Exeter Academy. And Brett had a gym pass a week, six days a week for two years, we pumped iron in there and I packed down about 50 pounds of muscle and got kicked out by the security guards a few times and kept on going back. And I was pretty friendly, so befriended people and smiled and said, Hi, and I just like none of the prep school kids use the weight room, so I just blew it up in there and eventually an admissions officer was like, You were like one of the strongest kids in the school. How come you don’t play any sports? And I’m like, I go to the public school in town. She’s like, You’re a townee. Like, Yeah, she’s like, You do well in school. I’m like, Yeah, it’s like, Do you want to come here? I’m like, I don’t know. I never thought about it. So she she sent the application. I mean, this is when you come from my kind of bad. No one in my family had been university educated. You know, I went home, told my parents, I’m like, Should I go? And then something something the application. They gave me a scholarship. They’re like, I don’t, we don’t know, do what you want. So I went to Phillips Exeter in Grade 11, and it was a life changing experience, as you can imagine. And for whatever reason, it was a really smooth transition for me. You know, I didn’t feel and I think this is where I see God’s favor. I’ve always been a bit of a grinder. So, you know, I took to it like a duck and water, both the academic work and the sports work and my like junior year, they’ve got 10 college counselors. They’re like, Yeah, you’re not going to cut it at the Ivy League. It’s too competitive from here. But senior year, as captain of the football team and we won nationals in rowing and my test scores came back great and ended up being able to go to Harvard for undergrad where I spent, you know, a big chunk of my time rowing. I rode for Harvard. I was captain of the men’s heavyweight rowing team and then on the servant leadership team of Christian Impact as well. And that’s coming from a small town in New Hampshire. That’s really where I found just some brothers that we actually experienced a mini revival there. And I think I have a theory. We’ve spoken about it recently, but Christian Impact, which is the campus crusade at Harvard, I think it had four people a year. My cohort got there and the year we left at a weekly meeting just for athletes in action, there were like 70 to 75 people. Wow. Which is a big number for a campus of six hundred undergrads, right? Like, that’s a that’s a sizable it’s a of the population. And I think part of my theory and you know, how God moves, the Holy Spirit moves in certain times, but I think the core of what happened was real, raw, just intimate sharing confession of sin and a real passion for worship. In that cohort, that Bible study I was in my freshman year, that was pretty awesome. And then I went for Cambridge, for graduate school. I thought I was going to be an Olympic rower at Cambridge, where kind of the truth came out that I just wasn’t that good. So, you know, I was fine, but I wasn’t Olympic material, and I had about thirty five thousand dollars of debt from all my education, and I had a Ph.D. place at Cambridge in international studies and thought I was going to do development, work in the international, you know, whether working for the U.N. or as a missionary, but as God’s providence would have it, I figured, let me pay off some debt before I do the Ph.D. send out my CV to a bunch of investment banks and financial companies because I figured they had the money to pay off my debt and capital was the only place that gave me an interview.

John Coleman: Wow. You know, Neal, it’s a great story about finding Phillips, Exeter and Harvard. I will say the only other similar interesting story I heard was the commencement speaker. The year that I was there, the student commencement speaker had found Harvard because he used to steal bikes on campus. So at least you found a more reputable way to get introduced to the school. Now I know you went to Campus Group and you talk about that because they gave you an interview and you had this debt to pay off. But at that time you discovered an interest in Africa as well, you know, studying international relations? Or would that come later?

Neil Holzapfel: Well, I can tell you, John, it’s a good question exactly what happened. I was in the history library at Cambridge University, working on my master’s dissertation, and because I was in the UK, I would, you know, I had the internet back then. I’d flip up the BBC before I dig into my masters because I was focused on international studies and a headline came up on the BBC. This would have been May of 2001, and it said the headline was very simple three to four million people had died in the Congo since 1996. Wow. And I kind of had this moment just I’ll tell it like it is, and this is probably anger. It’s kind of my issue in life. Right. It’s my super strength. And it’s like, think about rowing and rowing. It’s the only sport that was once a form of slavery. You sit on your butt pulling in or going the opposite direction, right? It’s basically a hurt contest. This is going to take it to the wall and hurt the most. And I think I just had so much rage inside of me. It was a good way to air it out. But when I read that, I was like, I just went to Phillips, Exeter, Harvard University and Cambridge. And I haven’t even heard about this. And I’m sure maybe some people in the podcast might have the same experience. But after the Rwandan genocide, which most of you have heard about, there was an internet saying conflict. At one point, seven African countries were involved in the northeastern eastern part of the Congo because the Hutus and others perpetrated the genocide against the Tutsi and sympathizers. They fled into that part of the Congo, so Kagami has been going after that area and the people there for the last year until now. And Zimbabwe and Uganda and a bunch of other countries sending troops, and basically there was a civil war that it killed three to four million people. And I had never heard about it after just finishing, you know, what is it, seven years of complete elite education. And I’m like, There’s a problem with that.

John Coleman: Why do you think that is? Neal, you know, because it is glossed over, I think, and it’s treated differently. I mean, what’s behind that? How can people so educated be so ignorant of what’s happening to such a huge group of people in the world?

Neil Holzapfel: Well, John, there’s been a civil war in Ethiopia in the last 17 months that’s probably killed many multiples of the number of people that have died in Ukraine in the last month. How come no one knows about that? Yeah. So to answer your question, I don’t have an answer. But what I do know is say is the father of lies. So there are lies and there’s untruth that subtle. There’s some that’s more obvious. You know, one of my favorite examples, I don’t want to get distracted, but I really believe that the evangelical and when I say evangelical, I mean, people who believe the Bible is God’s word, they believe in a conversion experience, a choice to follow Jesus, and they believe that God is active in our lives. Right. That’s theologically a broad based definition of evangelical. But the Evangelical Church in America should be the most powerful force for kingdom change and salvation and redemption and renewal in the history of the world. But I don’t think we’re doing it. And I think because people have bought into and I’ve done this on my own things that aren’t true. You know, for example, I’m not sure if anyone out here is down with the Bible project, but man, am I just having a blast with the Bible project this year? So shout out to the creators of the Bible project. I mean, we’ve got three boys 10, nine and three, and every night bar tonight, I’m like, All right, we’re doing a Bible project. VIDEO And they are so down with it. Even my three year old is like, Let’s watch the Bible, and it’s just so good. But it’s been so refreshing to really get stuck in the Old Testament again and in the Old Testament. And with the reading program like God’s Passion for the fatherless, for the foreigner and for the widowed, it’s just all over the place. Yet in America, there’s like over a hundred thousand children who are in foster care, right? And foster care means no one wants you in their family, right? Like, if you’re in foster care, you haven’t been adopted. So for me, the concept of having orphans in America, where there’s tens of millions of evangelical families who know who Jesus is, it’s just unconscionable that there would be any orphans in America that places the lonely and families.

Henry Kaestner: That’s a great challenge, and I think our audience now can see how when we started this off, I said that Neal has done a great job of challenging me. Neil, I want to get back to the work that you and let’s say, ho do with orphans. But before we go there, because that’ll be a little bit more in terms of real time, although you’re doing a bunch of things now you’re doing the raise, the children, you’re doing investing. Walk us through your time at Capital Group and what you learned about. So you came to understand, of course, that there are all these people that have been dying in the Congo. You want to get involved and then you do and you get involved in the investment side. Walk us through that time about what it was like to invest in Africa and what God taught you through that.

Neil Holzapfel: Yeah. So I read this article and just became just totally intrigued by what was happening in Africa and reading about it. But there was no runway to get here or do anything here or anything like that. So I go to capital kick off and the Associates program, a training program. And I was based in L.A. for almost three years. And just really, I love numbers and I loved the culture of capital and the people. And it is. It’s a phenomenal place to work and a great place to be. It’s gotten really big. I think that brings its own challenges, but. Halfway through that training program, I read another article that said South Africa will have five to 10 million orphans in the next decade. This would have been 2002, and my younger brother, who followed me to Harvard and was also captain of the rowing team at Harvard, he’s a real rower. I was like the prep squad. But he he said, Let’s do something for those orphans in South Africa, let’s do something and I’m like, Let’s do it. But there was no runway. And then the next year, providentially capital came to me and said, Hey, we’ve got an opening for someone to cover South Africa and invest in the public markets. Do you want to do it? And I was like, Absolutely. So I came to South Africa. The capital gave me a few and a million bucks was like, Go invest it, you know, hang yourself a couple of times. I’m like, Where do I start to like, that’s up to you? And I came here for the first time in two thousand and three and started coming down once a quarter or three times a year and meeting public companies in Africa and the Middle East and investing in them, which I did between 2003 and 2012 before we relocated down here. So it’s just I mean, there was no plan. God had the plan. I mean, I I am so grateful. Looking back at his providence. Amazing, he’s so good, and she’s so not that stuff goes right, right, because the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous, and I feel deeply humbled saying that, but I can see that there was a plan that I just couldn’t have seen or understood.

John Coleman: Neil know what’s striking to me is just how much of a passion you have for people and for the people of the African continent. Specifically, you got handed a big pool of cash to invest at a relatively young age. It sounds like a capital group, and I know what that’s like in big organizations. You know, three or four hundred million dollars is quite a lot of capital to manage. For a big organization, it doesn’t feel like that much. And so they can give young people a lot of responsibility early. Talk to us about what you learned investing in Africa and for someone with your passions, you know, a lot of people pursue ministry or a service rather than something like investing. Why was investing fulfilling to you in the context of your passion for the people of Africa? And just tell us some stories of what investing there was like and and what you learned about being successful and investing across the African continent?

Neil Holzapfel: Oh man, that is. I could talk all day about you. Just ask like five questions. But what I will say is capital. One of the wonderful things about that culture is it’s high responsibility, high accountability framework. So because you were in the multiple portfolio manager system where everyone’s managing money, you got basically assessed on your results, which are mainly quantitative and somewhat qualitative. So no one could kibosh your career. You could say, I want to buy this stock if people are like, you’re dumb, you go and buy it and it goes up well, everyone thinks you’re a genius and you get paid. And that collegial environment really was powerful to witness and be a part of. And you’re making decisions because investing is making informed decisions based on people and businesses with limited information. And the beauty of the public markets is if the story changes, you can exit, you can sell. Right. Private businesses, we know that’s not so easy, especially in a place like Africa, which has very undeveloped capital markets and significant risk. So, yeah, I learned a lot about thinking about economies from the macro economic picture and what makes them systematically competitive. So for instance, let’s take a snapshot right now. Up until Ukraine happened, the war in Ukraine kicked off a month ago. My favorite macro country on the continent would have been Egypt, right? They free flow to their currency. They just devalued it by a bunch last week or a few weeks ago because they’re a big wheat importer and all that wheat comes from Ukraine. So they knew they were going to have problems on their accounts, but they free floated their currency. They cut their deficits dramatically. Their fiscal deficits are running a primary surplus. They investing in household formation massively at the moment because they need to. Cairo has a shortage of housing, and they’re just doing all the right things right now, and they’re growing four or five percent a year. I mean, kind of hectic that it’s a nominally Muslim dictatorship, whereas South Africa has just gone through a terrible decade with such a corrupted top leadership structure. Well beyond my expectations, they’ve set us back here 10 to 15 years from a macroeconomic point of view. Now that being said, both places still offer investment opportunities, but they’re in different places because one of the great things about being here, it’s kind of like. It’s a bit of open canvas, there’s still so much room to build. In core industries, whether it’s agriculture, whether it’s energy, renewable energy, whether it’s, you know, food production, there’s financial inclusion, there are pretty big blue sky opportunities where if you back the right people in the right sector and continue to back them, you can really grow things to scale. And so I think macro has to be part of the analysis, and I think Egypt, the next five, 10 years are probably going to be great there. And anyone investing in the public markets, especially after this devaluation, should feel good about it. Once you leave Egypt, it gets a bit trickier because when you’re in the bigger economies like Nigeria and South Africa, you have to be much more selective on what you’re doing, who you’re backing and what the opportunity is.

Henry Kaestner: By the way, I love that you mentioned Egypt. We had a Faith Driven Entrepreneur meetup in conference just meant to be reasonably small in Cairo, I guess, just two weeks ago. And the community got so behind it, it was way oversubscribed. The national news came and reporting on it, and it got distribution all throughout the country. God is doing something there in the entrepreneurial climate in Cairo, and that’s super encouraging. I didn’t know about it against this macro economic backdrop that you just talked about, but that’s a no.

Neil Holzapfel: It’s about six weeks ago again after this wheat issue. I mean, literally, Egypt, like I said, is the largest importer of wheat in the world, and they subsidize it. So they’ve tried to reduce subsidies for petrol and for bread, but they’re just going to get crunch right now. But previous to that, it’s that place has got so much going for it at a macroeconomic level right now.

Henry Kaestner: OK, we’re going to go through a time of the podcast. We’re going to do kind of rapid questions and think about this. Just real, real quick answers kind of like pardon the interruption, which is near spin program and ask you a couple, Joe, ask you a couple and then I’ll close. And we always close with with my favorite question, which is what are you hearing God through his word recently? OK, so number one question answer is 30 seconds or less. OK, give us three things that an investor needs to know before they consider putting money into Africa.

Neil Holzapfel: Who am I backing? Who am I co-investing with? And. What do we do together when things go well or go to plan or things don’t go to plan?

Henry Kaestner: Good. Next. Give us a 30 second pitch on why Africa makes sense for a crisis. Fowler listening to this podcast that’s been entrusted with Sterling Capital. Why should they? Why should they look at Africa and what’s a good way to get started?

Neil Holzapfel: I think that 30 seconds on investing in Africa, I would say backing the right people, you have the right experience and the right industry segment with the right capital, the right kind of capital and the right support you can you can build wonderfully redemptive businesses at scale and make a lot of money as well.

Henry Kaestner: So you talked about AG being one of those,

Neil Holzapfel: I think agriculture, agriculture is not a place to make a lot of money. I think it’s a place to make. You can make a bit of money because it’s the wrong end of the food chain. Right? But the impact you can have when you get it right can be fantastic. I think energy is very interesting. I think financial inclusion is very interesting. I think education is very interesting and I think those are all areas where LEAP Africa is kind of behind or in some cases in renewables has moved quite far, quite quickly. But you can build big businesses at scale when you get things right.

Henry Kaestner: OK, my third one and this kind of lightning around is I want to spend 30 seconds unpacking financial inclusion. And if you channel your inner John Staley on this, I won’t be disappointed.

Neil Holzapfel: Yeah, well, that’s all I’m going to channel because he’s one of the guys I’d back any day, but he effectively we don’t have financial inclusion, right? It’s still very much a very poor place. It’s still very cash full of physical cash, which is a disaster and a lot of people on our bank accounts. So if you can get every African, a digital identity and you can create ubiquitous and easy way to pay or be paid electronically and you combine that with data connectivity, you can dramatically reduce the cost of any financial service.

Henry Kaestner: Digital identity, micropayments, connectivity When John rolled that out and it’s just like cash I love a simple framework makes all the sense in the world.

Neil Holzapfel: It’s a very simple framework, and John’s the guy who can pull the pieces together. So that’s something we’re working on actively now, and we’re really excited about it.

Henry Kaestner: You say working on. Does that mean working on get him on the podcast? I’m just kidding. Now I know you’re working on a new venture,

Neil Holzapfel: so he would he’d be great. Well, John, John might. He might be harder. He’s not as good of a storyteller as I am, so

Henry Kaestner: nor is good looking.

Neil Holzapfel: Well, he’s a little bit older than me. The African sun’s been hard on them.

Henry Kaestner: They like Geoff Johns listening to this. John, you look awesome.

John Coleman: Maybe so I’m going to jump in. Henry with a couple of lightning round questions in mind, Neal, you talked about the importance of backing people on the African continent. Maybe talk about one company and one fund that you think are really exciting right now.

Neil Holzapfel: Well, I mean, the fund, the guy that you got you, this team knows who I really we’ve talked a journey with and I really love working with him and trust him. Is Richard Tim Keller and Sango. So I love what he’s done. He’s he’s been a very long thinker with his approach and done things the right way, and he’s fantastic. And I’d say that being the one saying, go,

Henry Kaestner: he is amazing and I should just throw in there. You get a guy who is partners with Ray Dalio of Bridgewater, goes back to Africa, brings what he’s learned in the United States. He’s he’s the real deal. Let’s get to his. One of his partners is a pastor. The guys, he’s outstanding.

John Coleman: And where is he investing? What are the themes?

Neil Holzapfel: He’s a mid-market and mid-market private equity initially fund of funds, but now making direct investments and set up a permanent capital vehicle.

John Coleman: Awesome. And what’s a company? So if there’s any top of mind you?

Neil Holzapfel: Yeah, I mean, I know, I know on the private or the public side either one. Yeah, I I’m pretty I don’t want to talk my own book, so I’m going to try to talk about something that I’m not involved with. There’s there’s one of we have owned one business for years that’s really growing rapidly at the moment. It’s pretty exciting because it’s it’s it’s got the potential to drive decarbonization at scale and help help supply energy here in South Africa. I’m excited about that.

Henry Kaestner: But can you say the name? Can you see anything we can say to them on this podcast?

Neil Holzapfel: Sure, sure. It’s called Power X. We’ve owned it for a long time. It’s the only well, it was until last month the only independent power trading license in South Africa. It’s actually fascinating, right? Because we talked about macro, but as disastrous as macro has been in South Africa, they have basically completely liberalized and deregulated the energy industry. So there was a state owned monopoly which owned the distribution of generation and the transmission lines here and in the last two years, they’ve broken it up into three entities and they just issued another trading license and they’re, you know, really changing own generation kind of limits so anyone can build up to 100 megawatts without having to go through the brain damage of getting a generation license. And we just happened to be positioned right in the middle of that. So that’s a good one. I’m very, you know, fired up about what we’re doing with John Henry in buying this payments company. I think that could be fantastic. I, you know, when when COVID kicked off, there were a bunch of public companies. I was fired up about MTN was my biggest and the one I was excited about the most. But that puppy just been ripping it up like. Probably like two hundred and fifty percent now it’s a lie, it’s up five hundred percent, it like bottomed in March of 2020 at like 40 or 50 rand, and I think it’s over 200 now. But then there was a logistics company I really liked called Imperial Logistics that just got taken private by DP World a few months ago. So they got a buyout offer from an Emirati, an Emirates listed company called DP World. But there were a basket of public companies I like back then. Right now, I’m just trying to think I like. I’m nosing around in some small caps here, but I’m not particularly fired up about them. I’m more excited about what I’m working on.

John Coleman: That’s awesome, Neal. And then to close us out, you know, Henry mentioned, we’d like to ask people what God’s teaching them and especially anything that you’re encountering in God’s word that’s been an inspiration to you recently or helped you learn something. Does anything come to mind just a lesson from God’s word that that you think has really struck you recently?

Neil Holzapfel: Well, I think like I referenced the Bible project earlier and going back, you know, through the Pentateuch and then Samuel and now in Kings and just realizing, I mean, John, you got it all in there, right? You know, you’ve got murder and you’ve got adultery and incest and all this kind of you’re like, What a disaster. And on one level, you look at the world today, look at Ukraine. What a disaster feels like. We haven’t moved that far, right? Yeah. And yet, what a disaster I am. You know, for instance, we didn’t dig into this too much, but when my three year old disobeys me and I get angry and I speak to him with an appropriate tone, John, what am I actually angry about? He’s three years old. Yeah. Right. There’s a part of me that’s angry because I think there’s there’s right and there’s wrong. But most of my emotion is tied up in me, in my story and my past and my wounds from my dad. So learning and thinking. Daily minute by minute, moment by moment and letting the Holy Spirit and the truth of the gospel. The good news about what my real dad did for me. Bring me home to a family. Say that I’m a son. I’m a treasured son because he says, so send my brother in in that family. Jesus, the god of the universe to die on the cross, to bring me home, and then to send the spirit to be with us. Like, That’s that’s life. That’s love. And I want more of it. I want my family to have it, and I want people. I’m around to have it. And if I can share that with them, I need to. I realized I’ve lost, so I used to be a really friendly person. I’m not friendly anymore. I want to be friendly and I want to smile at people minute by minute, moment by moment. How can I love the next person around me or is my friend? Tim Keller says. Wash the next pair of feet.

John Coleman: Wow, Neil, that’s a great word, great word and a great place to end. We’re so excited for the work that you’re doing in Africa and with vulnerable kids, and we’re just really grateful that you spend time with us on the FDE podcast today.

Neil Holzapfel: A pleasure and I love the work you are doing and John and the team, and thank you so much for having me.

John Coleman: Welcome to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. This is John Coleman joining you today and I’m here with my good friend and partner, Luke Roush. Luke, how are you doing?

Luke Roush: I’m doing great. It’s going to be on. I love the story we’re going to be able to profile today. I love seeing entrepreneurs and investors coming together to further the mission that they’re on. So I’m excited for our story here.

John Coleman: That’s awesome. I think we all are. And we’ve got three fantastic guests today, all coming together with a similar mission. They actually met through or at least started interacting through the marketplace, which we’re going to come to, which is a really exciting story. But we’ve got Colin and Jared and Tom here coming from different walks of life to really invest for the kingdom. And so maybe just to start off, guys, give us the two or 3 minutes on each of you, just your backgrounds and how you got interested in this space. And then let’s start to talk about how you got introduced to one another and came together, maybe lead off. Jared, let’s start with you.

Jared Fulks: Yeah, awesome. So, Jared, folks, I’m based in Atlanta, Georgia. My wife and I live right outside the city. And my story began in Columbus, Ohio. I grew up a pastor’s kid. And I thought I went to college to play basketball and I thought that was going to be the end all, be all, become a college basketball coach. I quickly learned that there’s a lot of steps between dreaming that and actually doing that and after an injury in college, ended up transferring to Liberty University in Virginia. That’s a part of the story later. But after college, God did let me live out the dream a little bit, coaching semi-pro basketball in England. And the reason I got pulled back to the States was I was now dating my now wife and so came back and we got married four years ago and quickly jumped into entrepreneur space here in Atlanta in the tech space. And I loved it. I had this tension, though, full time ministry, full time business. God, what did you want to use me for while you’ve given me this life? And so my wife and I started praying. And after about three years of praying, God reconnected the dots with the fellow peer from Liberty, which was Colin. So I’ll kick it over to him. But that’s how our stories got reconnected five years later, after we’d both gone our separate ways.

Collin Wenrich: So my name is Collin Wenrich born and raised Bay Area out in California. And my story really starts when I went to school at Liberty University. And so when I was over at Liberty University, I was pursuing an electrical engineering degree. The Lord quickly rerouted me, sent me on a commercial corporate aviation path, and admits that after about two and a half years, he then sent me on a wild adventure to Uganda. And at that point I teamed up with 15 other young adults based out of actually right outside Atlanta. I think it was over in Gainesville, Georgia, through adventures and missions and sent us for four months to Uganda. I had no idea what I was going to be doing other than I was going to be in Uganda for four months. So we ended up partnering with some local organizations, some local churches out there, and I quickly fell in love with the culture, quickly fell in love with the people. I had no idea how my skill set or what I was passionate about in life was going to align with the future in Uganda. And the Lord did His work in the near future after that. But I knew quickly that it was going to be a part of my future. So I called my parents, called my family. After three months, I said, Buckle up, it’s going to be a wild ride because Uganda is going to be a significant part of my future. So I finished up my four months, came back to the States, finished up my degree, moved over to Uganda to start a ministry. And this is where I had some of the similar tension points that Jared It was like I was full time missions, but then people would always ask me about the sustainability aspect. And so two years after being a full time missionary in Uganda, I started to wrestle with God on what it looked like to start a business. And then we’ll fast forward to Pureflow here soon.

Luke Roush: Awesome. It’s awesome. Awesome.

Tom Lernihan: Guys, good to be here today. My name is Tom Lernihan based in Indianapolis and I lead a venture fund called His Fund as a reference. These are God’s resources and we’re here to steward them on a way to bring him glory. And we focus on investing in faith driven entrepreneurs that have a social mission and an opportunity to create jobs in under-resourced communities. And I can’t think of any better example than Pureflow in what Jared and Collin have built over the last several years, we’ve built up a portfolio of investments that are industry agnostic. They’re focused on four main geographic regions, US, primarily, East Africa, Southeast Asia and Central America. And what we’re really looking for is just partnering with entrepreneurs that have, you know, an opportunity to do incredible things. And we get the blessing to work with great guys like what we’re here talking to about today.

Luke Roush: So the beginning of every great love story or every great investment partnership, there’s a spark usually. Thank you for sharing a little bit about each your backgrounds, but I want to hear about the spark when you guys first connected and what caused you to want to learn more and get to know each other and do life together.

Tom Lernihan: Well, I’ll start first. If you haven’t heard the story of Pureflow, what they’re doing. A great place to start is by going to their website and watching their founder story. That’s my first exposure to what they’re building, what they’re trying to do, and it’s an awesome example. It’s a four minute video and I can’t recommend it higher. It gives a great lens into just the mission and the focus on what they’re trying to do at Pureflow. And after watching probably 2 minutes of this four minute video, I was hooked. I said, I’m in, I’m ready to go. Let’s do this. And then got an opportunity to connect with Jared and Collin shortly thereafter and just was instantly connected and aligned with mission and what they’re doing and just was really passionate about finding a way to join on and help in the mission, what they’re trying to do.

Luke Roush: And so what was the original inspiration around the idea? Maybe Jared and Collin share a little bit about what got put on your heart or what you saw that then forced you to say, Hey, we’ve got to do something here, which is usually what creates new companies. Great companies are born out of an unmet need that an entrepreneur resonates with and then wants to do something about. Maybe just share a little bit about that founding vision story.

Collin Wenrich: Yeah, absolutely. So when I was full time ministry out in Uganda, I had about it was about a mile and a half walk to and from our partnerships every single day. I did not have a vehicle and I wasn’t riding motorbikes at the time, so it was like good old fashioned two feet. Took me everywhere. And during that walk, I would just stop and talk. You know, I didn’t really have a lot of time constraints. So all along the way there would be these Botha stages which are like these areas where the motorcycle taxis would group together, they’d hang out and that’s where their business would be focused out of. And so I would just stop and talk with them, just shoot the breeze, just catch up, get to know their names, what they’re doing, their families. And I knew a little bit of the local language at the time, so I would say a few things and make them laugh and we’d joke around and then I’d continue, you know, after building some of those relationships through some months into the years, you know, I started to ask more in-depth questions and started to realize that, you know, these guys were on these motorcycles. Some of them looked absolutely terrible and they didn’t own them. They had no ownership, no equity within these motorcycles that at that point had no idea how much they cost it. But when I soon started to figure out, like, you know, what are the values of these motorcycles, it was raising some red flags and some questions that guys have been paying seven or eight years on these bikes, but there were only 12, 13 hundred dollars to acquire. And so really it was just through walking up and down town, asking questions, building relationships with these guys over a period of two years. Then we started that’s when we started to address the issue that was literally right in front of us the whole time.

John Coleman: That’s wild. So you got a sense of this market that most people probably wouldn’t even know exist, or actually it’s a market failure over there where there’s not really local financing available in the way that we’d think about that in the U.S.. How did you start to identify the way in which you could engage with this problem, and how did you begin to set up that business in its infancy?

Collin Wenrich: Yeah, so it was that was the fun part of it. When we saw the issue and I say we at this point it was a business partner. He was actually working on the ministry side with me at that point and myself. And we knew at the centric focus of why we wanted to do what we were doing, it was all Christ based. It’s like we want to share the gospel with these guys. You see them working day in and day out and I mean seven days a week, 14, 15 hours a day. They’re driving people, they’re driving things, they’re putting bunk beds on the back of hundred cc motorcycles, and they’re going and there’s no time for rest. There’s limited time for family, and there’s absolutely no time to sit and worship. And so it was one of these instances where it’s like, okay, you can rent to them, you can make some money, you can pour it back into the ministry. That’s great. Okay, we can sell these bikes, but we’re still not doing anything of significant value here. How do we give them a chance to own the bike but go on a journey with them? And in that journey, how do we teach these guys, teach them about their finances, teach them about how to lead their families, and ultimately, how do we get them around the table to share the gospel with them? And so it was all based around how do we get these guys together at a table to share the gospel?

John Coleman: That’s awesome. And at some point, you know, every business for most businesses come to this point where they can’t bootstrap it anymore. Their personal finances aren’t going to cover the model, which is where the investment community comes in. Maybe Jared and Collin talked to us about how you got to that point and when you needed the capital, when you realized you needed to go out and find capital to support the business, what was that decision making process and how did you decide to go where you went?

Collin Wenrich: Yeah, so originally we had started with $6,000. We bought a six bikes at that point, and so we would inject revenue as fast as we could to get another member on the bike, because as soon as we launched this program, it was a hot commodity and people were signing up. We had over 100 applications. Within ten days. So at that point, it was inject revenue as fast as we can and then it was do it again, get to bike seven, get to bike eight, get to bike nine. Then Grandma came on board and was like, I love it. I was like, All right, let’s do it, grandma. So Grandma buys Bike ten. But we started to grow and we kept growing organically for a while until we got to about the 100 bike mark. And at the 100 bike mark, you know, Jared came on board and this is where we really started to analyze our finances and our growth and a whole different line of sight.

Jared Fulks: I saw the business for the first time and like you guys would be if you watch the story, as Tom did, I’m in the same boat as Tom. I was just inspired by the story. And so at the time, my wife and I agreed that I could just give 40 hours of work to Pureflow for free because I was about the vision. And I said, this is going to serve a lot of people. And so that’s how we started. Collin was back stateside because of the pandemic. It was early 2020 and the businesses is kind of in this uneasy ground of does it grow organically? Does it scale now? And I saw the model. I said, look at the numbers and come out of the tech startup space where we had raised money. I was like, I think there’s funds here. But we battled the back and forth of nonprofit or for profit. Could we crowdfund motorcycles? And the challenge with that is, is, you know, how do you move the money? How quickly can it scale? And are we just trying to put heart strings to tell the story to people to get crowdfunding? Or on the flip side, do we go to investors? And Collin and I had no idea about the impact investing space. I mean, Faith Driven Investor Faith Driven Entrepreneur was not on any of our radars, and so we started just doing a little digging in and that’s how we got into the space and sort of finding the right partners to partner with.

John Coleman: That’s awesome. And I think you all actually connected with Tom via the marketplace. If if if I’m correct, Tom, maybe just from your perspective, talk to us about why you got involved in the marketplace and why you viewed that as a platform where you could find great entrepreneurs like this and how you came together with this team.

Tom Lernihan: Yeah, absolutely. The marketplace has been an excellent resource for the work that we do. We built up a network over the last several years where most of our investments have come through some sort of warm introduction into a business. But the marketplace is quickly replacing that for us, where we can go on and find really high quality investment opportunities that are very much right in our wheelhouse and the types of deals that we like to support. And one of those that we came across was Pureflow. It’s just really easy to see the impact and alignment on what they’re trying to do with square in the center of what our fund is set up to achieve. So it was a very seamless process for we’re able to connect with Collin and kind of reach out via the marketplace and get scheduled on a call. And from the very first interaction, we knew right away that this was a business that we wanted to partner with and help them grow to, you know, significantly more bikes than they had in the first round.

Luke Roush: So there’s always these choices to make around how quickly you want to grow and the pace of expansion of the business versus sort of control and the ability to kind of measure carefully before you have to start cutting. How have you guys modulated that sort of desire to have more impact, but also desire to understand the mission in the model of the business? Maybe just speak a little bit to how you’ve regulated on that front?

Jared Fulks: Yeah, it’s a question we ask often, and guys like Tom, Luke, you might know from spending time over in Asia, but there’s a lot of bikes, there’s a lot of guys that don’t own the bikes. So the market’s big. You don’t have to look very far to find market opportunity. And Tom, having spent a good bit of time in East Africa, understood that more so than I think most partners would understand if you haven’t set foot on the ground there, and honestly, more so than I understood until I first saw it. And so you would then ask that question how fast you scale. And to be honest, when we first did our first round of debt financing, we really didn’t know what the end goal was. And we still don’t really know what the end goal is. But what we knew was that we want to scale where our culture doesn’t get lost in the scaling. So we kind of measured our scale speed based on our culture and our people. That was kind of from day one. It’s about the people on both sides of the coin. And now we’ve kind of refined that more specifically and our growth strategy around this concept that we never will out scale the table. So Collin mentioned earlier that the goal is to get these guys around the table every week because they’re not in a local church. A lot of them are not in relationship with Jesus. I mean, a lot of the places we work, you have many different religions represented. And so the heartbeat of Pureflow is to get guys to the table. Because if we read through Jesus’s life, that’s where change was happening. That’s where brokenness was revealed. That’s where he was able to be love, light and speak truth to people. And so our goal is to get people around the table as often as we can so our guys are paying off their loan over two years. 104 payments. That means 104 times they’re getting fed spiritually and physically for 30 to 45 minutes at a table with ten other guys. And there’s no misses. So that’s for 104 weeks. Again, have been worked in the church before? That far outweighs a lot of the small group models that I’ve tried to implement. And so we love that. So at this point, yeah, we want to scale to more markets, but we don’t want to out scale the table. And in order to serve people at the table, it requires the Pureflow team to be understanding of our core values, which the number one is serve with purpose. And so if we outgrow our values and we outgrow the table, it’s our indicator, if you will, of or out scaling the impact we want to have.

Luke Roush: So I want to ask the question actually, it’s a little bit awkward and I’ll go ahead and acknowledge the awkwardness on the front end. But I want to hear actually challenges maybe Jared and Collin, from your perspective as you progressed through the last couple of years and then maybe also from Tom’s perspective, key obstacles, challenges that you’ve had to overcome.

Collin Wenrich: Yeah, I can start on like in the beginning when we first launched this program, we had a little bit of backlash from like local loan sharks and some guys who are running some mom and pop shops with spare parts and fixing bikes. And especially when we built our first permanent building, you know, day one of opening, they shut us down and they shut us down for about two and a half weeks as it was kind of there was a lot of like petty litigation that we had to proceed through. And so really on that part, too, it was getting the community to understand, like, why we’re here and what we’re doing. And it wasn’t because we wanted to sell more bikes than a distributor, right? It wasn’t because we wanted to take the other loan sharks and take all of their bikes. Our core focus. Right, was to disciple these guys and get them financially literate to get them and savings groups and just give them and allow them the opportunity to become the godly men that we see in them. And so once we really built some platforms for the community to also get involved and for us to get integrated within the community, we started to see those type of challenges subside. So that was like the first, probably first two years. And then I can let Jared share on the most recent ones.

Jared Fulks: Yeah, anytime you run to come to an organization, you guys can imply some of the challenges that you might face, starting with, you know, the Zoom stuff that we all love. And so that’s one thing. And structuring our leadership to scale was a big shift that we made over the last 18 months, putting people not only in the right place in the bus, but also ensuring that their understanding of what that role and responsibility entails. Because our team is really young, we have 27 full time team members now, which is awesome. I mean when I came on, I think we at like maybe seven or eight two years ago and so scaling that along with the member side of it, again, we really want to focus on our team and now we have five branches, three main branches and two sub branches. And so the dynamics of that are a great healthy challenge for Collin and I on a daily basis of how do we best serve our team, how do we best cast a vision that pulls the people and our team towards the vision and it develops leaders? Because what we realize is that we’re going to promote from within. And so we need people that are focused on developing leaders and not just ensuring that we we get paid by our members. So I think that’s a good challenge to have, but nonetheless a challenge that we’ve come across.

John Coleman: So I love that y’all have talked about the spiritual impact on the individuals that you’re working with, and that’s such a neat engagement model. Talk to me about the broader impact. So obviously you’re filling a need in the community. What is that doing to these communities, the kind of economic and social impact on the community itself, on the individuals involved. And maybe, Tom, as they describe that, I’d love to hear you describe how you think about this difference between the social and individual and spiritual impact in the financial return that you’re getting. How do you balance those things as you look at the model that they’re creating?

Jared Fulks: I think the four big things we look at in the community that happen as a result of these guys owning this asset, which just for some frame of reference, when they own it, they double their take home income. So I kind of ask the question to everyone listening and I ask it to myself when I think about the impact financially is what would happen if you double your take home income? What would you do? And it’s surprising enough they do the same things that we would do. And it kind of comes in these four buckets of build. They build things, they invest in things they give and they save. And I think those are the same buckets that we would find ourselves in if we doubled the income that we took home. And so you can imagine what that does. Downward effect for families, multi-generational impact around kids not getting private education. They’re growing up under a roof now that’s stable. I mean, you can hear the stories of our members that have finished move to ownership. They’re now getting meat on the table more frequently. And a big thing that happens very, very common. Either they come back for a second bike. So what that means is they’re taking the first bike and they’re going to somebody they’re serving a market that we wouldn’t serve that needs to pay for a used bike. So they’re creating more jobs downstream, but they’re also creating a second source of income either through that second bike or their spouses starting a shop that happens a lot where they have now two incomes for their family because they’ve kind of gotten the chance to get above water to breathe for a little bit.

Tom Lernihan: And from an investor perspective, we came into this investment at the onset really excited about the opportunity to create jobs and really substantially increase their income, as Jared had mentioned. And that was our first lens, right? That was what we were really excited about. And you asked a question about how we balance the financial return and the social and spiritual impact. We’re blessed that our fund is set up in a way that we don’t have any financial objectives on what we’re doing. We’re trying to really achieve excellence on finances, but we’re not tied to any sort of metric to hit or to achieve. And so we get the opportunity to deploy capital with a social and spiritual lens first, and they just knock that out of the park. So if we were just looking at this from a job creation perspective, the opportunity to change the communities of these serves is exponential and something, you know, we could totally see this being replicated in many more cities around Uganda and East Africa and encourage that. But it’s really exciting for us when we see the intentional ness that’s there, focus on really investing into the lives of these drivers and focused on how they can serve them in their kingdom lens and really be partners with their drivers. And that was just an incredible experience for us, something that we aspire to replicate in other investments in our portfolio. They’re really leaders in this space and really pouring into the opportunity that they have.

Luke Roush: What you’re also speaking to that resonates with me is just this idea that and it’s sad, but it’s a very rare thing in an emerging market, particularly with jobs or individuals at this level that are not using private cars but are instead using bikes. It’s very unusual for people to actually, you know, care for them, to reach out for them to invest in their kind of growth and development as individuals, to help them think about what is my pathway going forward from here. And so, you know, my guess is that you’ve got raving fans with a really high net promoter score on the individuals that you serve as clients. Is that often the case?

Collin Wenrich: Yeah, I would definitely say that once you are embedded and integrated within the Pureflow family, I mean, it’s a beautiful thing and we love to invite and we love just to remain in relationship with them. You know, one of the hardest things, too, is when you bring new members into the program, is really sometimes getting past the barrier of the core essence of why we’re doing what we were doing, and that is bringing people to the table. Right? So they’ve got to come from where they’re at and we’ve got to come to the table. And sometimes they have to disrupt their daily schedules. Could be 30, 45 minutes to come sit at the table and conversate with us and share a meal. And sometimes it doesn’t make sense, right? Because of their lifestyle. It’s hustle, bustle, go, go, go. And every lost trip, right? That’s the money out of their pocket. That could be less lunch or less a soda or something small, but it’s still less something. And so, you know, Jared and I talk about that to what’s the value add of these touch points, these 102 and 104 touch points that we have with these guys through the duration of their loan. So sometimes is that pushback, right, of I can pay you for this bike, thank you for the program. But I don’t really want to show up at the table to where it’s like you come to the table, you have a meal, you meet with some great guys. Okay, I love it. But you have to do it again. Yes, we got to do it again to really like you start to build the trust, you build the relationship, and then they just keep coming because they want to. And then they get their buddies and they call you from another town and they’re like, Hey, I’ve got buddies who want to do this as well. We want to be discipled. We want to sit around the table like we’re hungry for more of what God has to offer. And those are the beautiful things that we love to experience and be a part of. But sometimes you just got to push through that first barrier.

Jared Fulks: Yeah. And Luke, I’ll say too, you raise an interesting question about the neglection that this part of society faces across most developing countries. And I’ve got a chiropractor friend that I spent some good time with, and he always talks about how we, especially in America, we neglect our backbone, a lot of vertebrae. And so but it has a lot of bad effects. And what people fail to see is that if you look at we estimate there’s over a million boda bodas in Uganda population around 4850 million. So that’s a lot of people doing this one thing. It is the backbone of society. We talk about homes and we talk about health and food and education. Those are all big things. But a lot of times we leave out transportation and you’ve got to have transportation. And so they don’t have a train system and people don’t own cars themselves. And so they have to get around these bodas. So you have two options. You can neglect them or you can figure out how to serve them in the way we look at it is every one of these bikes has a big light on the front of it. That’s the style of the Bajaj Boxer. And what an opportunity as we aim to disciple these guys that they could truly be light moving around the city in thousands at a time and the amount of impact that they have is far greater than we could ever have because they’re touching 50 people a day, giving rides in the back in a pretty intimate setting. Honestly, as close as you are, especially if you pile a whole family on the back of a motorcycle. So yeah, it’s often that neglected part of society, but. So important because they are the backbone of society.

John Coleman: So in a moment, we’re going to pivot and we’re going to ask each of you guys, if you don’t mind, just to comment on a scripture that you’re reading right now and what it means to you and just what you’re learning in the word. Before we do that, just one more thing. Tell us what’s next for Pureflow and is additional capital going to play a part in that as you think about further investment?

Jared Fulks: Yeah. And I’ll pass it off to Tom real quick, because Tom is such an integral part. And I mentioned we raised a little bit of money in 2021 and we saw that and we forex in 2021. And a lot of those great things happened and a lot of the challenges came as well when we did that and we were really not certain what was next. But Tom, can I pass that to you to kind of share maybe a bit of how you encouraged us in the growth stage? Because this really came around that the partnership that we found in Tom and their fund.

Tom Lernihan: Yeah. From the very early days, the vision that Collin and Jared had cast and how many bikes they were hoping to serve and what they could see as their their big, hairy, audacious goal. I looked at and I said, Guys, we can do more. We can serve more drivers. I know that there’s plenty of capital in the market that’s looking to support visions exactly like this. Let’s dream bigger, let’s move faster and let’s go crazy. And it even got to points where Jared and Collin has. Hey, we’ve got a real back, time a bit here. We want to stay laser focused on serving our customers and making sure that we are excellent at Kingdom Impact in everything that we do. So they’ve been really pouring in to me and like at myself, just making sure that I know we’re impactful, focused investors, but still we want to do it with excellence and we want to make sure we’re moving at the right pace. And so I think we’ve gotten to a point where we have a great plan moving forward. I think they have an excellent opportunity to serve a tremendous amount of drivers, and we’ll grow at a pace that’s really sustainable and allows them to continue this for many years to come.

Jared Fulks: Yeah, and to speak to the partnership side, John and Luke, it’s Tom was a huge asset for us in this next stage of funding. We are finishing up 2021 and we’re looking ahead to say if we’re going to continue growing at the pace we are, we’re going to need more cash. So raise a little more debt. And we had a call with Andrew Firman at Faith Driven and he encouraged us to go back to our partners because that’s what they are. They’re partners. And so we went right back to Tom and Tom once he saw where we wanted to go and he aligned again. When you have alignment in this partnership, you can have a lot of fruit that comes from that. And it took us, I think, maybe six months to raise the first bit and we raised like three exact and about six weeks to start off 2022 thanks to the partnership that Tom brought to the table and and being able to connect us to other people on the side of the table he’s on that we don’t spend as much time on. And so we can’t speak highly enough to the value of the partnership and what that means and why we look at our investors as partners and not investors, because we truly are trying to steward resources. That God is given us on all sides of the table to advance the gospel in places all over the world.

John Coleman: And that’s an awesome word. I mean, we see that all the time where, you know, folks will chase the highest value or they may think about their partners in the wrong way, capital partners in a more transactional way. But finding the right capital partner at folks like Tom and others that y’all probably met in this process can be transformational, both on a personal level for an entrepreneur who’s struggling through a ton of problems every day and, you know, encountering things, and then also on an organizational level where they can really help to cast vision, connect you to others who share that vision. And so I think it’s wonderful that you highlighted the depth of that partnership before we close out today. We do like to close just with what you’re learning from the scriptures, what you’re learning in your own spiritual walk, and maybe start with Tom and then go through to Collin and then Jared. Tom, what are you learning from Scripture right now that you want to share with the group?

Tom Lernihan: Yes. Now, I’m always learning, but right now I’m working through Hebrews and it’s the idea that God is an anchor in my life and all that we do, and that we tether that rope tight so that as the world drifts us and as we find ourselves ultimately following that flow, that the anchor, he’s the center of our lives and that we continue to stay on that path. And I share an example earlier. Jared and Collin have been great at just reinforcing that and the work that we do and keeping him central to our investment strategy. And just as a man of faith, keeping that central to my life is what I’m working on right now.

Luke Roush: Love that. You know, if there’s no current, then we don’t need anchors. Except there is a current. The current of this world is not the current that the Lord is necessarily want us to move in the direction of. So I love that word. That’s a good word, Tom.

Collin Wenrich: Yeah, thank you very much. Tom that’s good. I would say, you know, this has been a crazy season of life in such, so many beautiful ways. We were just over in Uganda for the past three months, my wife and myself, and just got back to the States and we found out that we’re pregnant with our first. So we’re very excited. But through that journey and through this time of prayer to have been. Praying and proverbs and Lord has put Proverbs 14 on my heart actually the last few days. It says, Whoever fears the Lord has a secure fortress and for their children it will be a refuge. And it’s really this like my hearts cry, my heart’s call on to the Lord of light. Man, I want to be just one with you attached to the vine. But also, as I raise my children, that they get to see that right, that they seek refuge under their father, who has submitted first and foremost to the Lord. And so that’s been my prayer. Navigating through a future fatherhood here soon and just seeking wisdom in the Lord.

John Coleman: That’s awesome. Congrats, Collin. What a great word. And Jared, I don’t know how you’re going to top a birth announcement to close us out here.

Jared Fulks: I’ve got nothing, man. Can someone closes in prayer? You know that that might be my role here. Now, I have been reminded, and this is part of the journey that I’m so grateful to. Collin, if you talk about partnership, there’s no other word. I would define what happened two years ago after literally stone cold silence for five years, no conversation. I would never have thought of Collins name again. Honestly, he probably wouldn’t have mine other than God intervening at the right time and reconnecting us. But I’m grateful for his partnership. But in this journey to have some perspective shift, when you work with people that live in a different culture than you every day, your perspective just shifts. And I praise God for His grace in allowing us to see that in different ways, that before we didn’t and the psalmist I was reading the last few days is Psalm 48, and it just says like your name oh God, your praise reaches to the ends of the earth, and sometimes the task can seem a little overwhelming. Thinking about Thailand and the Philippines and Russia and Ukraine and and Uganda and the challenges and then looking at, you know, the United States. And that has been a reminder to me that he sees way further than we see. And he’s a creator of it all. And his praise will be made known across the world. And so that’s been a great refresher for me to know that, yeah, there are challenges out there and yes, there’s a urgency to go show the gospel. But but his creation is going to sing his praise, whether we do or not.

John Coleman: It’s a great word, guys. And look, it’s been awesome to learn about Pureflow. Tom, it’s been great to learn about your investment strategy. Great testimony to the marketplace and to faith driven investor broadly bringing folks together like this. And we wish you great luck. I know the prayers of the community are with you, as well as a number of other good capital partners out there, hopefully as you encounter the next wave of growth. And we’re grateful for your time today. Thanks for joining us.

Luke Roush: Thanks, Colin. Thanks, Jared. Thanks, Tom.

Collin Wenrich: Thank you, guys, for having us.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. I’m here with Luke. Luke, good morning.

Luke Roush: Good morning.

Henry Kaestner: It’s good to see you. It’s not even morning here in California anymore. It definitely isn’t in Tennessee. So I just I spaced out one. But I just want you to know that I’m thinking about you and I’m missing you and I’m fired up that we’re going to do this podcast because it’s hits on something that’s really near and dear to both of our hearts as we get involved in investing together. We wanted to do something other than just just a regular private equity fund or an index fund or something like that. We wanted to do something that was more innovative and participated more in what God is doing in the world. And we’ve got a guest today who’s written about that concept, the concept that we’ve kind of tried to live into very, very imperfectly. But when we think about the backdrop about us living and allocating capital and seeing entrepreneurs get out there and create redemptive products and services, it’s in this larger framework or matrix, if you will. And I think that all too often I’ve been thinking about it in an incomplete manner and just I didn’t do great my micro macro classes at the University of Delaware. I was too busy selling t shirts, but I remember just these different principles, like, this is the way the market works, don’t mess with it, just kind of get on and you know, it just there’s something bigger and there’s a guy who’s written a book on it and we’ve got him with us on the podcast. Welcome, Michael Rhodes.

Michael Rhodes: Thanks, Henry. It’s great to be here.

Henry Kaestner: So, Michael, what do we like to do with every one of our guests as they come on as get a biographical sketch? Who are you? Where do you come from and what’s brought you to today?

Michael Rhodes: Yeah. Thanks, Henry. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, I’m Michael. And right now I’m in Memphis, my home where I have lived for most of my adult life. I grew up here and sort of a lifelong follower of Jesus who was really taught early on that the key to a full, abundant life was to live under the Lordship of Jesus, guided by Scripture. So I took that on board pretty early, but I was a part of a church community with a really ugly racial history and a very wealthy church community in a very poor city. And when I was growing up, the church was trying to grapple with both of those issues. And so as a result, there were just some incredible leaders who came into our church and opened God’s word and really exposed me to his heart for the economically poor and the heart for reconciliation and solidarity with all people. And so I kind of went into college, really fired up about participating. Living a full life under the Lordship of Jesus in line with Scripture in those areas. So I went to Covenant College. I studied community development with Brian Ficker, who we co-wrote Praxis in the King’s Academy with. And it’s always fun to write a book with somebody that you would have dedicated the book to if you hadn’t written with them. And that was true of writing the book that we’re talking about today with Brian and my pastor, Robby Hall. But anyways, I was at Covenant, learned about three developments, got married right after college and was headed to Kenya for two years. But sort of by what looks like an accident, it was definitely God’s plan. I ended up for six months in this one very poor, predominantly African-American community in South Memphis, and I was working for an organization almost by accident that was doing job training and financial literacy and helping people get their GED. All adults, almost all African-American in this one shop, in this community. And it just totally blew up my world. It wasn’t any credible experience. And so after two years in Kenya, my wife and I came back to Memphis. We moved into that neighborhood, and I went back to work for that organization called Advance Memphis for about five years. And that experience of living here in this neighborhood and working among economically poor people and being a part of a church that was trying to be involved with that has driven really all of my adult life and all of the kind of questions that I have. And so those questions that I have from living here and working here drove me back to seminary and then a Ph.D. program. Eventually, I left advance and worked for five years for an organization teaching community development and mission at a Bible college for adults predominantly black bi vocational ministries here in Memphis. And then the really crazy left hand turn in the last two years is that through a long process that caught Rebecca and I completely off guard. God now seems to be calling us to New Zealand, to Carey Baptist College in Auckland. And so the pandemic has made that complicated. But for the last year and now a little bit of some change, I’ve been teaching Old Testament to students who are in New Zealand. So that’s a little bit about me. I have four incredible kids, Isaiah Amos, Nuba and Jubilee. My wife is Rebecca, she works at our church and. Yeah, Jubilee.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, what an awesome name.

Michael Rhodes: Yeah, that’s kind of fun because you know, when you write a book, people are asked to come talk about it. And I was out talking at a church and I was giving a talk on the Jubilee and Rebecca was pregnant and I came off the stage and she goes, We’re going to name our little girl jubilee. And I’m like, We are. That’s amazing.

Henry Kaestner: So it’s pretty cool.

Michael Rhodes: Yes. I got two prophets As and Amos, one legal institution, Jubilee, and then Nova, the hippie name is actually named after Rob Holt’s wife, whose name is Nova. Christine Holt. So my coauthor, Robby Holt, his wife is the namesake for our third child.

Luke Roush: It’s exciting. How excited are they to go to New Zealand?

Michael Rhodes: Really pumped. The history of Rebecca Nye’s relationship is that I come up with a crazy idea and then kind of get cold feet right at the edge and she like takes the ball and runs it into the end zone. And so I applied for the job in New Zealand. She was the one who was like, No, we have to do this. And the kids, you know, we’ve been teaching them words like bittersweet to try to think through this move. But they’re really excited to me. Six months decide to do it. And when I came out of the room and I was like, I just wrote an email to New Zealand, I’m going to take the job. You know, Rebecca knew that, but I was sort of saying it and I came back a few hours later to the house and the girls, my two girls had packed their bags already. They got their.

Luke Roush: Wires crossed about what.

Michael Rhodes: It meant to say we were going. So, yeah, they’re pretty pumped.

Henry Kaestner: That’s all. Is there a chance you actually go from winter to winter, though?

Michael Rhodes: It is very possible. We’re hoping that we’ll be able to be there by this summer, our summer, which would be their winter. So, yes, that’ll be kind of a maybe a worst case scenario on the move. But at this point, we just be happy to be there and for me to not be teaching online anymore.

Luke Roush: Yeah. You know, Michael, you talked a little bit about just what inspired you to write the book on practicing Kings economy. If you had to pick sort of one thing, you know, many great companies are born out of just a sense of calling purpose, maybe frustration with the way the world works. And then entrepreneurs want to do something about it. And I think many great songs, works of art books, are kind of out of that same kind of calling a sense of purpose and need to speak into it. We had to pinpoint that on one thing. What would it be?

Michael Rhodes: Yeah, so that’s a great question. I have seen my whole life, adult life under this sense of call to help the church hear and respond to Scripture summons to become a community of justice and mercy and righteousness for the economically poor. So that’s the big mission. That’s a subset of God’s mission that I feel particularly drawn to. But this book has an even more narrow sort of inspiration. So when I was working at advance, I was going out trying to help people with stuff on their criminal background find jobs and whatnot. And because I grew up here, I would get asked by churches to come who supported the nonprofit to come talk to Sunday schools and whatever. And, you know, I was used to giving the giving talk, right? And I had done that a lot, you know, raised money as a missionary. God wants to give your money so that we can go do this thing. But I realized working at advance that people could give us $16 trillion, you know, but if nobody was willing to hire someone with a violent criminal offense on their background, we didn’t have a model, right? We could not do our work unless people were living differently in the way they hired and managed, not just in the way they gave. And that was the transformation point because, you know, I think if you think about our economics, your life or my economic life like an equation, and on one side of the equation, you have all the inputs, all the stuff that goes in our work, what we own, we invest, what we save, blah, blah, blah. And then on the other side of equal sign is profit. We take home the vast majority of the time when Christians have talked about our economic lives, we’ve laser focused on that take home pay, what Christians can give from what they’ve earned. And that is a huge piece of Christian economic discipleship. But from a biblical perspective, it is just one piece. If you look at the Bible, the Bible talks about how you work and with whom you work and how you treat your workers, and for that matter, how you treat the land and the animals that you interact with. It talks about how you interact with other farms, if you like, other small farmers, the whole of economic life. Right? That’s the subtitle of the book Work, Earn, Spend, Save and Give. The whole of the equation is what God is Lord over in Jesus. And so economic discipleship then isn’t just about what you do with what’s left over. At the end of the day, it’s about bending all of that towards Jesus’s Lordship and Jesus Kingdom. And so on the one hand, you know, you can hear that it’s like bad news because it’s like kind of more stuff where Jesus is getting in my business literally. But on the other hand, it’s like the most exciting news ever because it means that every aspect of our economic life can be an opportunity to experience God’s presence, to participate in His mission. And that’s like the most exciting thing. So when I was at Advanced Memphis, working with this company and I would see business guys who’d been asked for money for their whole lives get asked for, Hey, would you hire this guy or this woman? And when that worked, all of a sudden it’s like a new aspect of my life has become a site of God’s generous kingdom. People’s eyes light up. They get super fired up. And that’s the kind of joy that I wanted and desired for myself and for my neighbors. And so I really got disappointed that so much and I don’t mean to be uncharitable, but so much Christian stewardship material, so much faith and work stuff, so much entrepreneurial. It just misses this idea that all of your economic life God cares about. And secondly, all of your economic life can be bent towards God’s kingdom concern for the vulnerable and the marginalized. So that’s why Robbie and Brian and I wanted to write this book and felt like, you know, I mean, it came out of talks that I started giving at these churches to say, look. God cares about it all. And it was largely as a way to get them to try to partner with this organization to help invest in. One of our entrepreneurs that we were working on were hire one of our job training graduates or whatever. So that’s really the laser kind of catalyst for the book in a lot of ways.

Henry Kaestner: And it since I have is you just talking to us is that not only does God care about these things, but that as we look at these multiple dimensions, that we have this opportunity to step into something that’s much more complex and beautiful and is less black and white. It’s more like Technicolor. And presumably the joy that some of these employers experience when they’re a part of being involved in relationship with some people, just gives them a new dimension and more joy, right?

Michael Rhodes: Yes, I think so. And it allows for connection. So one of the laws that has really animated me has been the gleaning walls in the Old Testament. I just love the gleaming walls. I think they’re so cool because, you know, at one point when I was working at Advanced, the statistic that we were using was at six or seven out of ten adults in our neighborhood were not working right. So in a context where six or seven out of ten adults are not working, and then we were seeing the transforming power of a good job. Not just any job, but a good job can really be transformative in a person’s life. You know, and this idea in the Old Testament that farmers who are kind of the family firm, if you like, are supposed to leave some of their harvest, which is functionally their profit in the field to create opportunities for the vulnerable, to work the orphan, the immigrant, the widow and the poor. That just blew me away. And that sort of became kind of one of the things that I would talk to guys, men and women about is like, Hey, what would it look like to create space, right, for the outsider in this company? And, you know, again, that can be a hard message, you know, because not only do we like money, which is maybe okay, some of the time and profit, but we’ve sort of been taught that the very purpose of a business is to maximize profits. Right. Which the gleaning laws just they just don’t work along those lines. They require a different sort of framework. They don’t reject profitability. The farmer wants a harvest, but they don’t maximize it because they create space. So the one thing that seems like a hard ask, but then you look at a book like Ruth, right? The whole book of Ruth only works because of these cleaning walls, because the gleaning laws exist. Ruth, who is this like complete outsider? This outsider’s outsider becomes a fully invested insider in the community. She’s inspiring the neighborhood. When Boaz sees her in the field, he says, the entire Israelite village knows what you, foreign outsider, have done for our widow, Naomi. So the gleaning laws allow Ruth to become a fully invested member in the neighborhood. They allow Ruth to become the just woman who takes care of the widow, her mother in law, and the farm. All of a sudden it becomes this site for connection, where Ruth and Boaz meet right to the most powerful men in the story. Boaz and the least powerful person in the story, Ruth, meet in their economic life because of these cleaning walls, which I just think is a vision of what you’re talking about. Henry, where like when we get that multi technicolor, you know, we complicate the picture a little bit. All of a sudden, every aspect of our economic life is an opportunity to encounter God and our neighbor, including some of the neighbors that we often don’t meet. Right. That we often screen out, which is really important. You know, we live in an age where just economic segregation, right? Forget racial stuff. Economic segregation in our neighborhoods is on the rise. And there’s some argument that economic segregation is on the rise in the workplace. And so it’s more important than ever that we ask how can the spaces of our economic life be places of encounter with God and neighbor?

Luke Roush: Are there any specific examples just in terms of companies that you’ve interacted with or storylines that you’ve kind of watched unfold? That would be a great manifestation of what this looks like practically.

Michael Rhodes: Yeah, I love that question. So I mean, one of the huge privileges for me has been to get to know companies, not because of me who are living this out, you know, whose stories we kind of some we got to share in the book and some I’ve learned since, you know, and I’ve been working on a project with the Chalmers Center for a while now where we’re gathering some of these stories as well. So just name a few. One is my friend West Gardner out in Colorado. He’s a serial entrepreneur. He started this thing called prime trailer leasing.

Luke Roush: Love was an awesome story.

Michael Rhodes: It’s such a great guy and his, you know, the youth pastor, his church at the time, Dave Runyon, you know, helped him kind of think through some of this stuff. And so they started hiring single moms from a halfway house that Wes had been giving to. Right. So they’d been generous with what’s on the profit side of the equation. But now they’re saying, how do we be generous? How do we bend the way we work towards those same concerns? And now all of a sudden, these single moms are coming in to work in the company. And I talked to Wes one time. This is the thing that has stuck with me from West Side Story. He said, you know, Michael, I used to see payroll as a liability. You know, I go look at my pal and payroll is, you know, a problem. Now I go look at all the money that we pay people, and I see my payroll as profit. I look at that number and say, look how much money we’ve earned, right? I think that shift is like so radical, right and powerful. And, you know, that company did great work. They didn’t stop being a business and start being a nonprofit, but they did figure out how to bend their workplace towards these single moms. Cascade Engineering is a company I believe they’re in Michigan. Their chief talent guy, Dave Barrett, and I have spent a lot of time on the phone together. They’ve helped, like more than 800 workers get off welfare through working in their companies. And one of the things that shifted for them was they made every single person in the company do some training on material poverty. Because what Dave would say is we tried several times to make this shift and we failed again and again. And finally we realized the reason why we were failing was because we looked down on poor people. And when we stopped doing that, we started seeing transformation. And these are all sorts of crazy stuff. They’ve worked with their local government to get a social worker like on site in their business and all this stuff. And then there’s like some cool local stories. A couple of years ago we put on a conference where we were talking about some of these ideas and company here. Bryce Core in Memphis heard what we’re doing and came and listened and they heard about it. And organization here called Economic Opportunities that takes men and women coming out of prison. And they have a model where they bring in a group to your company and you sort of pay the nonprofit and they pay the guys, the men and women. And it’s sort of a transitional work opportunity. Now, this Bryce Care, they heard about this opportunity at the time. As I understand it, they were throwing away any resumé that anyone had any kind of serious criminal record on. Well, they went and got in partnership with this nonprofit. And a few years later, it’s like 10% of their local workforce has a criminal record and they’ve promoted people into management and they’re taking our guys. So it’s really cool stuff on the employer side that I think is just really phenomenal. And I course tell stories about guys who said, You know what, I’m going to start seeing wages as an opportunity for generosity and I’m going to bump starting wage up to $15 an hour. I had a friend who called me up and said, Hey, I’ve been listening to you. I’ve been listen to your boss. I’ve been reading about the civil rights movement and one of the guys who was striking in the sanitation workers strike here in Memphis, which is a big part of our city story said, I just believe a full day’s work ought to allow man to put food on his table. And he’s like, I’m just going to bump up my starting wage as an act of just commitment because it seems like the right thing to do, you know? So there’s all sorts of stories like that, you know. And in the book we tell lots of stories, tell stories about worker owner cooperatives and people who are sharing profits with all sorts of fun stuff at the level of the firm, the business for how we can bend our economic life towards God’s good news, particularly for the economically poor, which is a real focus of the book and of Robby and Brian and us.

Luke Roush: That’s great. I’m excited for Lightning Round, but I don’t know if it’s the right time yet. Henry We’re.

Henry Kaestner: Almost there. We’re almost there. You know, Michael, at the beginning of the podcast, the interview, you’re talking a bit about your time in Kenya. Yeah. And as I think about this alternate imagination for how you run your business across these six themes that you have in your book, the worship and community, etc., I think that you’ve done a good job of scoping out what that can look like in cities like Memphis. Talk to us a little bit about your thought about how those of us in the West and this is actually a quote from you, but the church in the West is rediscovering the fact that God cares deeply for the poor. More and more churches and individual Christians are looking for ways to practice economic discipleship. But it’s hard to make progress when we’re blind. Our own entanglement in our cultures, idolatrous economic practices talk about that through the lens. Just any wisdom you have about a Westerner realizing things like they’re going to be more entrants into the job market in sub-Saharan Africa over the next 20 years. Then like India and China, I mean, it’s a big place. And yet there’s also 50 years history of colonialism, right? So you want to kind of go in there and then, you know, you read a book like with your coauthor, Brian Fricker, you know, when helping her out. So what’s a framework from your time in Kenya so that those of us are listeners and say, I think we need to invest in sub-Saharan Africa. How do we do it? But how do we do it? Well.

Michael Rhodes: Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot there. I do think that in the first part of that quote from the back of our book about we in the West, I think it’s worth saying and Henry, I think you were getting at this earlier, that the dominant economic picture of what humans are like in the West has been what Brian Ficker, who’s an economist, calls the homo economicus, the economic man. Right. So, you know, this is going out of style a little bit, but most of us, if we took economics in college, we had books that talked about homo economicus. This is what people are like. And what Homo Economicus says. Is that what people are? Fundamentally is we are individuals with limitless desires in a limited world who are constantly seeking to maximize our own consumption of goods and services and experiences. So we are fundamentally individual profit maximizers. That’s who we are, right? And Scripture has a very different view of what people are and what we’re called to be. But our economic way of thinking has been based on a kind of homo economicus idea. So in our book, the first thing we say about our economic lives, first principle is what you worship God with your money. Right. That’s the background is you love God. Right. To worship key is the first. The second here is the community care, which basically says that I am always part of a we and my economic well-being is always to be oriented towards that way. And, you know, we have this metaphor that we use in the book where we say typically when we think about care for the poor in the church, our functional metaphor is of a soup kitchen. You know, I have some leftover profit on one side of my equation, so I’m going to give that away to people who don’t have whatever the resources. You think about soup kitchen, you got soup scoopers on one side and empty bowls on the other. And that’s the theory of change. And we say, okay, food insecurity is a real thing. There are definite times when we want to do that kind of one way giving of goods and services. But the Bible’s fundamental vision is not a soup kitchen where everyone gets fed, but a potluck where everybody brings a plate. So, like, if a soup kitchen divides the room up into givers and receivers. You can’t have a potluck until everyone’s a giver to everyone and a receiver from everyone. And that makes the community fundamental. Now, that’s a long way around to say. My friends in Kenya know that deep in their bones and I’m on like baby step kindergarten level, learning it because we’ve been disabled into that western homo economicus. I am fundamentally a pleasure maximizing individual. We have trouble getting just how communally oriented the Bible is. My friends in Kenya do not have that problem. Right. They get it. And so the first thing I would say is when we’re interacting with saints in the Global South, we should expect that in many ways their economic discipleship, they will be further along that journey than we will be because they have experienced less deforming discipleship from this kind of hyper individualistic economic way of being. And so I was part of a phenomenal church in Nairobi, and it brought together people from all these tribal and ethnic groups that really don’t like each other outside the church. And we would have these potlucks and you would see everyone giving and receiving, and you would see the community becoming central to who we were. We were becoming family. And I think that picture of becoming family is central not only to the Bible’s kingdom vision, but to the Bible’s kingdom economic vision. And so, you know, one thing I think is when we think about how to invest, well, we need to defer a lot to the folks on the ground from the places where we want to participate. So often the and I say this as a former missionary, so, you know, I’m not trying to cast guilt somewhere else. It is so easy, so often for us outsiders to come, assuming we have all the answers because we are wealthier. And wealth is the sign of success. So really deferring to the folks on the ground, not only because they’re closer to the issues, but also because sometimes they’re just less screwed up than Jared comes. The money is really important. Also, I really am excited about folks who are investing in people in the global South’s ability to bring their best plate to the potluck through their economic lives. Right? So there is a ton of need for food aid. There’s a ton of need for health aid. There’s an argument for direct giving in a variety of contexts. But I also think it’s really exciting. And Christians are involved in the Global South in the way that allow people to bring their best plate to the potluck through their own energies and agency. So the trauma center has done incredible work helping some of the poorest people on the planet start savings groups. And the stories of these usually women who gather together and pool their resources are just amazing, you know? And I have friends in Kenya who are starting businesses in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Nairobi to try to help people who are in a community with just incredible unemployment find dignified work. And there are people you know, one of the reasons why I shifted away from like sort of direct nonprofit work into more teaching is because I realized sort of my gifts and where they are and where I’m strongest and where I’m not strong. So, you know, for people in the Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Faith Driven Investor network who are geniuses at figuring out how to make things work economically. And some of those folks. There are good ways of investing financially in businesses in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. And I’m not an expert on that, but I think participating in that is really important. And I think when we go to invest in the Global South financially, we’re partner with companies in the Global South. Economically, it’s more important than ever to remember that just as God calls us to be risky and sacrificial with our giving at the end of our economic productive output. God might be calling us to be risky and sacrificial in the way we invest and partner and do business in those places as well, especially since there can be enormous roadblocks to doing all of that. So, I mean, those are some quick intuitions, although I’m certainly not an expert anymore at kind of thinking about that in a global context.

Luke Roush: There’s so much to unpack there. We could spend a ton of time, but I love the idea of taking the last five or 6 minutes that we have and going lightning around. This is something that Henry and I just recently started doing. We both are really liking it. So I’m going to start off and then I’m going to turn to Guy Henry. He’s gonna follow my lead better than I followed his lead last time. So first up, 30 seconds or less. Author you most disagree with and why?

Michael Rhodes: And author I’m so agree with and why.

Luke Roush: Yeah, just for the support of it.

Henry Kaestner: Just show somebody who’s left. That’s easy. Just showing things.

Michael Rhodes: Um. Oh, gosh, throw bombs.

Luke Roush: We encourage you to throw bombs.

Michael Rhodes: I didn’t know you could pass.

Henry Kaestner: You can pass at any point time you could pass.

Luke Roush: You got 10 seconds and I’ll try.

Michael Rhodes: I’ll tell you, I don’t like people who think that we need to be encouraged to appreciate material possessions, people who think we’re too worried about being affluent. That bothers me. I think a plain reading of the New Testament says if we’re the most wealthy people that have ever existed on the planet and we are, we have some tough questions to answer. So any author that’s trying to blunt that a little bit drives me bananas. I like.

Luke Roush: It. I like it. Okay, that’s.

Michael Rhodes: Good. You can fill in those blanks. These days are on your own.

Luke Roush: All right. It’s good. It’s good. There’s nobody on today’s call, though, which is great. Second question what is the belief that you hold that most of the world would probably disagree with? 30 seconds or less go.

Michael Rhodes: In addition to the thing about every aspect of our life being an opportunity to bend sacrificially towards the kingdom. So every economic transaction gives us that opportunity potentially. In addition to that, I would say that where we live is a fundamental aspect of our discipleship and that if we want to experience real community, where we live will matter a lot.

Luke Roush: So defend. Okay, so this is good. This is good. And again, just for the support of it, defend moving to Auckland, New Zealand versus Nairobi, Kenya in that light.

Michael Rhodes: Yeah, that’s a great question.

Henry Kaestner: Still in the global south.

Michael Rhodes: Well, for one thing, you know, God opens doors. So, you know, I applied to this school in Auckland as a practice interview going to Old Testament jobs on the planet. I didn’t know I wanted an Old Testament job. I just thought I’d got a Ph.D. in that, so it was worth exploring. I got a third letter of rejection from one of them, and then the other one was from Kerry, which I knew nothing about. But then as soon as we started talking, I realized these people were looking for someone to teach Bible but oriented towards mission and justice, specifically on issues of economic and ethnic justice, which is my passion. And Tim were saying it’s for a long time I have really felt I have lived in kind of a black, white world, partially because of the make up of Memphis. One thing that I know that I have missed is getting my mind around the experience of Native Americans in this country and First Nations peoples more generally. And our school is very committed to being bicultural among basically descendants of the Brits and the Maori Indigenous people of New Zealand. And so that emphasis really got me excited for what I could learn from them and that has already paid huge dividends. So that’s that’s a big improvement.

Luke Roush: Okay, I’ve got one more that I’m doing. My partner. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Versus New Testament write as an Old Testament scholar, given some of your talk track. Right. In terms of the realities of what Jesus said about sacrificial living, I would have expected you to be a New Testament scholar. How did you end up getting kicked out on Old Testament?

Michael Rhodes: Yeah, I think because it’s easy to fit the New Testament into that give more away box, whereas the Old Testament, because it covers more ground across more different kinds of economic systems, it’s sort of the earthier testament. And so it gets into the fundamentals of how you manage the entirety of your economic life. Now, I actually think that Jesus speaks to that like forgive us your debts, right? That’s something I actually think we misread as to where they’re sharing their goods. We read that wrong because we make it all about generosity. But I think the only reason why I know that stuff is because I really dug into the Old Testament. So I love Jesus, but I think you get Jesus best when you start with Moses and the prophets and move forward. So little bit by bit.

Luke Roush: Thank you, Henry. Over to you.

Henry Kaestner: Okay. Lightning around 30 seconds or less. Best ribs in Memphis.

Michael Rhodes: Cozy corner, no doubt.

Henry Kaestner: Really. Okay. All right. Next. Next, what flavor of ice cream do you like to have after a great Memphis dry rub? Ribs.

Michael Rhodes: Man, any ice cream? Sounds good. Now, I’m a sucker for strawberry ice cream these days.

Henry Kaestner: Where do you get it?

Michael Rhodes: In Memphis. There’s a place called the Beauty Shop that has phenomenal ice cream.

Henry Kaestner: Okay.

Michael Rhodes: All right. Nashville Beginnings. Back in the day.

Luke Roush: A baby. Bring it, bring.

Henry Kaestner: Okay, Ecclesiastes. Does Ecclesiastes offer up that our economy is fueled by coveting another’s goods?

Michael Rhodes: Okay. So Ecclesiastes is really tricky. Started talking about in 30 seconds. But basically what you have is the narrator telling us a story about the teacher, right? So the narrator gives us the story of the teachers wrestling. So I don’t think you can take anything the teacher says without a grain of salt. Right. You’re always going, where is the teacher in this journey that he’s on? Right. But I do think he has a very poignant observations that much of our economic life is driven by greed and competitiveness. And what conservative Christians need to know is you can build in the short term a functional, effective, growing. Economy on set. That’s what Ecclesiastes would remind us. So the fact that it works doesn’t mean that it’s good, right?

Henry Kaestner: So it’s meaningless or it’s meaningless under the Senate, right?

Michael Rhodes: That’s right. It can be driven solely by, you know, what you’re describing, wanting to be better and all that stuff.

Henry Kaestner: Okay. Could you play Brian Ficker basketball? Who wins?

Michael Rhodes: Uh, he fouls a lot, cheats, so.

Henry Kaestner: So you play it? It’s happened.

Michael Rhodes: It’s happened? Yeah. I’ve run down the court with him trying to grab my shorts. I mean, he’s like, nine feet tall. You shouldn’t need to do that.

Henry Kaestner: But I said, okay, okay. We’re going to say that you get it next when you’re ready. Yeah. Okay. How cool was it for the boy in the story of the five loaves and two fish? And is that something is available for us?

Michael Rhodes: Yeah. I mean, I think that question, you know, what’s in your hand? You know, what do you have? I think that’s a beautiful I think the surprising thing about the story of the good news is that God chooses to use people and he never gives up on that. And so often, you know, God chooses Adam and Eve and they rebel. God chooses Abraham as the vehicle of his blessing to all nations, the world, and they fail. And so where Israel is faithless on the whole, God sends the faithful Israelite Jesus, right? And so often we read the story of Scripture as God had these big plans for people, they mess it up. So Jesus came and now we’re off the hook. And that is a garbage reading of the New Testament. The story of the Bible is that God sent Jesus to get His project of crewing his world back on track. That’s why the end of Revelation God’s people are co ruling with God in the end, because God wants to use people, which is incredible. And so would that boy with his few loaves and fishes is experiencing is a glimpse of what God invites all of us into, which is to be used to participate by the King in making everything that is broken, new. Right. What could be more exciting than that?

Henry Kaestner: Okay, Spectrum, you can go 8020, you can go 60, 40, 40, 60. But you got to end this spectrum as we allocate our investment capital. On one hand, there’s Ben sacrificially. On the other hand, there’s leaning into the joy that is available to us by participating in the work that God is doing. His Kingdom Where are you in the spec version of Christ, our being and that spectrum?

Michael Rhodes: I don’t know that I see the spectrum. I think that bending sacrificially is part of how we participate joyfully.

Henry Kaestner: Well said. Well answered. Well answer. I love it. I refuse. I don’t think I hemmed in by that.

Michael Rhodes: Yes, I don’t think that means that we’re not ever investing in ways that we expect to yield a good financial return. Right. And, you know, really honestly, one of the same is for me to come on to a podcast like this that has investors on it is to say, look, I’m a Bible scholar. I’m going to try to give you some principles. You’re going to have to work it out, right? You are going to have to figure out how to do this. But what I know is when we invest our money, we often have the opportunity to exploit. Right. And we often have the opportunity to intentionally bend our investments to impact words the way that God wants his world. And that what I’m saying has got to be better for everyone, for the world, for me, for you. So we talk about impact investing in the book some this idea that we can intentionally invest in companies and in spaces that bend towards God’s kingdom, that could look a lot of different ways, you know, that advance. Sometimes we were helping people invest in small businesses started by women and minorities in our neighborhood. Right. Sometimes that means taking more risk or potentially a lower return to do something that matters. In my neighborhood, I’ve been able to do impact investing by buying homes on two occasions in a residential economy. That does not work to try to help some of my neighbors become homeowners. That’s hard. I’ve made a little money on that. I think on the current one, I’m going to lose a little money possibly. But man, I know the joy of getting to put my money to work, doing something that God cares about. And there are platforms. You guys, Henry, are running a platform. I think marketplace is a new opportunity for accredited investors.

Henry Kaestner: Okay, sounds too much like a commercial in your through the 30 seconds. As much as I love the fact that you’re going there.

Michael Rhodes: You want. Can I give one more advertisement? Yes. Nice try. Not for you guys. So because Marketplace is only for accredited folks. Right. And so if you’re not an accredited folks like me, I’m not. Kiva allows you to make zero interest lending and we funder is a platform that a friend of mine helps run. Johnny Price Yeah, exactly. Allows you to make equity investments in companies. So just this week, my family was able to make an investment in a company that’s trying to turn restaurants into worker cooperatives. Man, I’m not going to make as much on that as I might make in the stock market. Whatever, man. What if the money that God gave me I got to use to build an economy that he’s going to be more excited about? And that’s awesome. Yeah, it is. But you guys, it’s you guys and your constituents, you’re going to have to work out the details, right? Because I’m just a Bible teacher and.

Luke Roush: Hey, we always like to wrap up with something that God is teaching you and that you’ve discovered recently, in God’s Word, a whole bunch of good nuggets from our podcast that would suggest and point to different things. But one thing that God’s taught you recently.

Michael Rhodes: Well, I’ll say two things. I am working on a new book right now on justice and studying justice in Proverbs. I’ve been really struck by this idea in the Bible. I think that justice and wisdom go together. And so if you seek justice without wisdom, it ends up being powerless. But if you seek wisdom without justice, it ends up being predatory. And I really want to meditate on what that means for my economic life for a while. And then also I’m on a couple of years journey in the Psalms of realizing just how much God wants a relationship with us, that he not only will say, Hey, Michael, you can say anything you want to say to me. He’ll give me some scripts that require me to say some crazy stuff to him so that I can learn just how vulnerable God and I can be in our relationship together. And that includes scripts from the Psalms that have us asking God about where he is and why he hasn’t shown up and whether justice is really working in the world. So those are some things I’ve been thinking about and writing about and they have touched me personally recently.

Henry Kaestner: Michael is awesome to be with you. Thank you very, very much. Heavenly Father, bless Michael and his family as they get ready to move, go in front of him to just be with him, to make new friends and to be able to have just great relationships with his students. And dear Lord, please speak to them. Continue to speak to them from your word in the Old Testament, the beauty from there and the wisdom that comes in mixed with justice and may your kingdom come on Earth as it is in heaven, in Jesus name. Amen.

Luke Roush: Amen. Amen. Amen.

Michael Rhodes: Thanks, guys.