Bertie Lourens: I think God went after the very thing that could become a mammon stronghold in my life, that very thing that I believe I’m building, something of massive equity value. He said he wants that. And it was very difficult, but at the same time, I knew this thing is actually really worth minus something to deal with. I said, OK, God, I’ll give you shares.

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Darryl Heald: Hey, William. Doing well. Excited to be here today, especially to hear from our friend in South Africa.

William Norvell: I know. It’s amazing. It’s amazing to have you and Bertie and Darryl have known each other for a while. So it’s going to be fun to tease out the story. I know our audience is going to hear something that they probably haven’t heard before, and we hope the spirit can use BAM story and what got him and his faithfulness to encourage and inspire other faith driven entrepreneurs as we’re listening. So, Bertie, welcome to the show.

Bertie Lourens: Hello, William. Thank you for inviting me.

William Norvell: We’re happy to have you. And, you know, as we get started, one of the things we just always love to do is just to hear a little about you, who you are, where you came from, where you grew up, how you ended up becoming a Faith Driven Entrepreneur and you know, how you ended up sitting in that chair today with us telling the story.

Bertie Lourens: Thank you, William Norvell. First of all, I’m a son of God, God Almighty, the creator of the universe and everything in it. And I’m married to a beautiful, gentle Canadian lady. And she calls South Africa home for 15 years already and Foljambe grandkids. But I was really born and raised in a small mining town in the south east of Johannesburg in the 70s. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and that was during apartheid South Africa. It was a very difficult time for South Africa. And everything that we are facing today is the legacy of apartheid. And a lot of things that we do today is still trying to fix all the wrongs of the past. So I grew up as a young teenager seeing all these wrongs, and I just thought it might be wise just to give a little bit of context about apartheid and what the past is and was. But it was really a governing system that denied all nonwhite people any decent education, no voting rights and no rights for any managerial jobs. So you can understand what that means over a period of 40, 50 years of a father that needs to work in the best job we can get, as in a mine, as a general worker or in a factory or a construction company and a father teaching his son, this is the best that you can ever be. Just try and be the best general worker that you could ever be. And hopefully you could become the supervisor of general workers. And if you just keep perpetuating that over decades, a whole lot of anger happens, a whole lot of hurt and a narrative of blaming. So that’s that’s the South Africa that I grew up in. And I saw how apartheid came to an end. I saw how a new era was born for South Africa, and so how Nelson Mandela was released from prison and how he was elected as the first democratically elected president. And I started seeing how the entire country started rallying together to try and correct the wrongs of the past. And it’s been two decades and we still doing that. But it almost feels like we fail every decade. Our failures are bigger than the decade before. So that’s the context where I grew up. And personally, I was a very insecure teenager when I grew up because my father never told me that I had what it’s like. You never told me that he loved me. So I always grew up never knowing what that real lack was that I had inside of me. But I always knew that I just do not feel complete. Of course, I ran to alcohol and women and I was also a very good salesman when I was in school. And I very quickly learned that I could make money. And that’s when I realized how hold on, money will maybe fill that gap and it will make me popular among my teenage friends, which I did, of course. But luckily I got saved very early in my twenties. It’s just off to the one relational failure of the next. I realized that I just do not have what it takes to keep a life together and a surrender to Jesus at the age of twenty three in the late 90s. And it was wonderful. It almost felt like it was the beginning of a healing journey for me. Shortly after that I found a mentor that saw something in me and decided to help me to build the business because I knew I wanted to be a businessman because I could sell stuff and I thought if I can sell something, I can build a business. I started a business in 2004 and I am still running that same business.

William Norvell: Well, that’s amazing. Thank you for walking us through that. I’m going to ask if you would would you maybe spend. A few more minutes for our listeners. I mean, I hear that I’ve you know, I’ve read a little bit about apartheid maybe, but maybe it’s been a few more minutes on what it was like growing up. Like what did you sense in the air? What did you sense was was there and sort of from your perspective, because we have a listening audience as a white man. Right. What did it feel like at school? I don’t know. I don’t even know the right question to ask. But I’m just really curious for I just always learn, obviously, from people in different worldviews. And they grew up in different scenarios than me. And I just want to give you kind of an open mic for a couple more minutes to say just kind of what were some of those experiences like for you?

Bertie Lourens: William, you know, when you’ve become a teenager, when you hit your 10, 11, 12, 13 age, you start asking questions, you know, just things around you, you know, just that there are no black kids in your school. You notice the kids that you play sports against are all white. You’d notice that when you drive out of your town, you drive into a we call them townships, but it’s really chanty towns. And you just see black people there and you see that the people who work in the white people gardens are black people. And you don’t see black people driving cause they’re driving bicycles and their clothes don’t look decent. She’s noticed all these things and then you start asking you questions, you ask your parents these questions. But why you see beggars at the traffic lights are only like people and not white people. And you ask them, but why are beggars only black people? And then they answer you. But you can see it’s almost a governmental brainwashed answer that does not make sense for a 12 or 13 year old. And that’s when you start realizing. But hold on. Yes. Something wrong with the entire system. And you listen to adults, the way they talk around the barbecue, around the Sociales about them and us, and you ask yourself, but we are all one, we’re all one country wiser, them innocent. You know, you ask these questions and you get answers that just do not make sense. And to take it one step further. For most of these answers, there was a biblical scripture to, quote, to justify the system of apartheid and. You see black people doing the hard labor, almost like the Hebrew slaves, that both the infrastructure of Egypt, I saw how the black people, the majority of South Africa was like people were building the infrastructure for the minority. And something inside of me just said that is wrong. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s not sustainable. And then you start watching news, you start understanding what you hear on the news. You start hearing the conversations in the kitchen and around the dinner table with your parents, really as the tension started building up of the masses of South Africa, just saying enough is enough. We want voting rights. And you start hearing those conversations, the family conversations, the fear. And it’s a fear is a massive bloodbath, revolution coming. And we just do not have answers anymore. And I saw all of that and the fear also gripped me. But then I saw the miracle of a peaceful negotiation between Nelson Mandela and the ruling president, F.W. de Klerk, back then, and all of a sudden, very quickly, the tension released and there was an election. All the black people were granted voting rights and the ANC, which is the party that represented them, won, and there was joy and there was fear all at the same time, the wealthy whites that were able to flee, fled, packed up all the goods, and they fled everywhere else in the world because they believe that all the white people in South Africa were going to be murdered, that they believe in communities rejoiced and they sang Hallelujah. And you started hearing these messages of the fearful and the jubilant all more or less in the same space. And something inside of me said, that’s a miracle. What happened here. And it really was looking back now, it was a miracle, and very shortly after that, in the 90s, we just had a great leader and Nelson Mandela, who was very verbal in his communication. He understood the fear of the white communities. And he spoke to us on public television, where he made very, very bold statements of how you will protect us. And he made very bold statements to the angry majority black community in South Africa, saying we need our brothers, our brothers in our country to help us rebuild this country. And you just hear that propaganda coming from him and eventually you start believing this is going to turn out to be something beautiful. And that’s why we named it the Rainbow Nation, because we really believed something beautiful that was going to come out of it. And we still hold on to those hopes in those dreams because it’s still beautiful, but it just sometimes feels like it’s taking too long. But our timing is never the same as God’s timing.

William Norvell: Man, thank you so much for it. Such a beautiful job of taking us into some of those moments. And I just thank you for walking through that for our audience. And I’m interested in how did all of those experiences impact you as an entrepreneur, as someone who was studying what God wanted you to do? Right. And what was your part of that story that was being written in South Africa? Where did God find you and push you to an entrepreneurial journey?

Bertie Lourens: So I knew that I wanted to be a businessman for selfish reasons. I wanted to get rich. And that’s the end of that story. So I pursued that dream of becoming rich and I could see how this new South Africa attracted so much foreign investment. This was truly the hope for the continent. And we achieved amazing GDP growth. And I just realized I am in this ecosystem that is filled with growth and I have the skills to sell and I want to be a businessman. But as I went on doing this, I noticed that the people that we employ in business are poor and they are, many of them general workers that work for a very, very low salary. And that started bothering me. Now, the salary we pay is equal to what competitors in the market pay for those laborers. And when we pitch for contracts with clients, a big chunk of our service costs is labor costs. So if we overpay, then we are not competitive and we can grow. So we were forced to pay the same salary, but we realized we can do much more. So it’s just an awareness. It grew over time that while we employ poor people, we have the power of influence over them more than what political leaders have and more than what the church could ever have. Well, they work in our business. We found out that the one that receives a salary submits quite easily to the one who pays the salary. So the one who pays the salary has tremendous influence. And we I thought, let us use that and help people learn how to better themselves so that they can build a better future for themselves. And all of that comes down to education the way you think, because if you could educate yourself, you can acquire more skills or a higher skill, you can bring it to your workplace, you can get more responsibilities and then the higher salary. I’ve personally worked with some of the guys in the early years, and I’ve seen once they get that, it’s almost as if you’ve put them on a perpetual path out of poverty because he’s connected the dots. You said, I see how this thing works. It’s not a secret any longer. Bring more value, take more responsibilities and more money and then repeat. And that made me excited that we have this influence that we can help people out of poverty.

William Norvell: Amen, amen. Yeah, you’re sharing a gospel. You know, you share in the good news with people that you’re holding this good news that they don’t know about yet and educating them. What a beautiful reflection of the gospel where God placed you and where he put you. And and what are the unique things I’ve heard you talk about before that I’d love to have you share with our audiences? You know, you set out to build a business also where God would be a shareholder. And could you tell us a little about what that looks like to you, what that felt like to you as you dug into that and prayed about that? What does it look like to make God a shareholder of Voice Plan?

Bertie Lourens: Will needs to understand how that started. First of all, if you have a really good mentor and he is building a really successful business, all you need to do is just listen to him and do what he tells you. And that’s what I did because I didn’t know much. And what happens is if you enjoy enough success upon success and if you do not have people around you that are willing to hold up a mirror to you so you can see who you become and you will become proud. And I became very proud because I enjoyed tremendous success quite quickly and in the first years of the business. And I had to define later on to myself what is pride and pride to me is the conversation with self that says that I am better then and you can fill in the gap there with any name. I’m better then. And very quickly after that, pride leads to strife or strife and striving says that I would like to be better than so-and-so. So it’s a situation of measuring and seeing that you’re better than some, but then coveting the success of others. And that just put you on the spiral of destruction, which I didn’t see. I didn’t see it coming, but God did. And and luckily he rescued me there again shortly after the business, about seven years in, we started losing a tremendous amount of money, buckets full of money. And it came as a shock because I his Blue-Eyed Boy, I’m so successful. What happens? Why all of a sudden all these losses, whatever I worked so hard for over seven years, could be gone in a moment. And I found myself in my garage a year later on my knees, crying out to God to have mercy on me and rescue me from the situation and repenting of my pride and my arrogance and my striving and building it in my own strength. And he did. He came and he rescued me. William, it was very shortly after that the situation turned. It was miraculous and it turned. So you could imagine early the next year, I was still very raw and I was covered in the fear of God and just asking him, how do you want me to build this thing out now? I do not ever want to make the same mistakes again. And I felt God say to me, he wants me to give away, well, what did I have? I had detonated an insolvent company and I asked him if he wants that. But I heard God say the word equity to me. And that’s a very interesting word. Now, the founder of a business always believes that the equity value is hundreds of billions. The balance sheet could showed deep zeros that the founder always believes it’s worth more. And I think God went after the very thing that could become a Maymont stronghold in my life, that very thing that I believe I’m building, something of massive equity value. He said he wants that. And it was very difficult, but at the same time, I knew this thing is actually really worth minus something to deal with. I said, OK, God, I’ll give you shares that you’re going to show me how. And I asked him if he does if you about by 30 percent. And he remained quiet and then I gave him 30. And that’s where we are. So from three very shortly after that, we grew to fifty one because I immediately so I started understanding the benefits of inviting God Almighty, the creator of everything, to have him as a shareholder in your business. The value proposition is just so big at first you don’t know it. But once I did it, I started realizing what I did and I realized, but hold on, let’s let’s give him a controlling stake and then I can sit back and watch this thing grow. And that’s where we are today.

William Norvell: And hey, man, I love parts of that story that, of course, because we have a God that runs after us harder than we can imagine that he rescued you. But hearing a practical it just gets me every time when you hear of God coming to the rescue and the audience knows I cry a decent amount. So, you know, I may cry again now, but it’s just a beautiful story of you submitting. And, you know, and it’s not a prosperity gospel. It’s a reality of the scripture. Right. That like, when we do turn to the Lord and when we do repent and we do give it back to him like he’s here and he’s there for everyone listening and not everyone’s in that spot. People have already done it. But, man, if you are run to him, be with him. It’s an amazing story. And, you know, and I would imagine the the way God wants to run in their business or be a shareholder may look different, but to submit that to him is the point. Right.

Bertie Lourens: William, I think, is going after the one thing that he knows will drive the biggest wedge between you and him sometime in the future. And he’s going to go after that thing. And all he’s really asking is just to surrender, to surrender, whatever it is, just surrender. I’ve got this. I know your future better than you will ever know. Just let me do this with you and it will be so worth it. It’s always asking,

William Norvell: hey, man, I’m going to turn you over to Daryl after one more question here. I realized, of course, we got so excited about the wisdom you have here. I forgot to ask you. Could you tell our audience a little bit of what a waste plan is, how many employees you have, what you guys do in South Africa? I think the name tells a little bit. I think people are already on the edge of their seat knowing a little bit. But could you tell us a little bit more just about the business and who you try to serve and how you try to care for God’s world through the business?

Bertie Lourens: Yes, absolutely. So most companies have ways as part of the production or service offering, and we found that that’s normally an afterthought and it’s a liability. It’s an ever increasing cost that somebody somewhere has to manage. But there’s no specialist or an expert or dedicated person to do that. So we offer a service companies, food companies, factories, hospitals, hotels, shopping centers. We will bring our personnel onto your site. We will segregate your waste. We will divert as much away from landfill as possible, and as we divert the waste away from the landfill, we turn it from a liability into an asset and we have enough data to show it’s an appreciating asset. So we take waste with segregated at the source in separate streams. We sell those streams. The value of those streams we sell increase in value year on year. We return the biggest part of that value back to the client. But what happens in the process is that person that did that sorting and the handling of the waste, he realizes. But I was part of turning a wasteful item that’s a liability into an asset. And in that process, we generated new revenue. I earned a salary. And with that comes dignity because I was part of turning value out of something with no value. And that’s the beautiful part of what’s happening here. We have about a thousand employees scattered over 10 cities and we have about six hundred and thirty clients that we service and waste gets segregated from all the sites moves into big processing centers, which we call recycling centers. Where we do final sorting, we compress them and we sell them to the highest bidder. So we always try to put

Darryl Heald: a lot of that waste trader in a variety of ways. Just love hearing the story. And, you know, my love for South Africa, I mean, it just we’ve had lots of great adventure. This a lot of fun to be have a chance to tell more people just how God’s moving in your life and your business in the country, things like that. So I want to take us back when we first met. I think our audience has already heard there is a deep thinker and I just remember where we have a mutual friend. He invited you and Leslie to this journey, generosity. Why don’t we just start there? What did you think about that? And just the process that happened yesterday?

Bertie Lourens: It was mind boggling to process all the information that was presented over that week. And now I saw how very, very poor people gave everything in those videos. I mean, those discussions. And I saw how excessively wealthy people did the same. But what struck me was that the richest and the poorest were equally happy. Joy, Joy, that is deeper than what a dictionary can define for you. And I think that’s what hooked me, that I was chasing really after satisfaction all my life. And you think that wealth will give it and then you’ll meet people and they’ll tell you, no, it doesn’t. But that we can realize. Hold on. I think I got the secret. Yes. This is the thing that I’ve been chasing after all my life. This deep satisfaction and joy comes only from a place of true generosity. And I was just trying to piece that together. What would that look like for me when I leave this weekend? And I wanted to just take in as much as I possibly can while I’m there so that I have as much to work with when I go back home on the Monday.

Darryl Heald: Thanks for sharing that. I know there’s a hope and desire that all of us as entrepreneurs and investors, that we understand that value proposition that is more blessed to give and receive and that we can truly live in that point of joy. So a couple of things, though, that I just when I think about Botein, I just I love how you are walking out this jury. One of them is when we were driving home from the office to your house for a dinner one night and up ahead of us, there are some guys at the light who were begging for money and things like that. So take the story from there. I thought that was just I forget the date of its day, but tell our audience just what you do. I mean, this is just like everyday generosity. I just love this piece.

Bertie Lourens: Is there so the South Africa that I just told you about, I just want to give you a little bit more context. The unemployment level now sits at thirty eight percent unemployment. The amount of school dropouts is ridiculous. Something like forty eight percent of people at starting grade one get to grade 12. So you could imagine the amount of people on the streets that do not have jobs. His name is Bennett, is a baker, is bent over. He was hit by a car. A drug is back and he’s never been able to get surgery. So he’s bent over almost 90 degrees. And he’s just let the traffic light on my way home. And he’s got the brightest of smiles. So it’s easy to be generous to him. But surprisingly, most people are not. After the Jörg weekend, one of the first discussions that I think you see every time is, well, is it right to give to a beggar? It’s just going to buy alcohol. And I remember that weekend someone say that I don’t know who it was. So that person said, but it’s his job to give account for the money he received. It’s not your job to give account on his behalf. You just gave your job is to give account for the money God gave you. And the way you live with that, so I just decided my wife and I, we decided we are going to give to every beggar we went ERG we started changing money to have as much money as possible. We quickly ran out of money. So that plan didn’t work well. We then became a lot of Budweiser and we broke it up into smaller denominations of money and so that you can give less but give to more people. And then it is just one of the beneficiaries of that decision. And they love seeing my car. And if he hasn’t seen my car for a while, especially now during covid, if I drive past it on my way to the office and he sees me, he will stop all the traffic just to get to me because he knows he’s going to get something.

Darryl Heald: Well, I just love the relationship you have. I mean, it was obviously that was I mean, that’s happened dozens and dozens of times. You’ve talked about education and the importance of education. Let’s talk about what you and lesslie is from a kingdom investing side. We think about this giving. What are your particular passion about? What are you excited about giving to right now?

Bertie Lourens: There are it’s really the education the education states and South Africa are alarming. It is a bomb that will explode if nothing happens. There’s another state. About four percent of kids that start in grade one will pass. Math increased above four percent. So you have ninety six percent of your population that cannot count. So the quality of jobs and the amount of jobs that they’ll get is few. And so the amount of unemployed people, the volume of people that are unemployed is growing year on year. And it just doesn’t make sense that one should live in this country and think that that’s OK. So we put as much effort into educating people and just basic skills. So first of all, a capital is the foundation that reform really is the structure we formed where we could have got as a legal shareholder in our company. And the Nyko Capital uses all of its funds and it throws it into schooling. So there’s a few schools up here in Pretoria and Johannesburg, Christian schools. So we try and throw all our skills in there, all the networks, all our relationships, and as far as possible that we could use our resources and our assets. And money is just a very small part of that. The lady that works in our kitchen, who cleans our house, looks after the kids when we are not there to try and do as much as we can for her and her kids in terms of housing, schooling, the gospel, help them understand the gospel of the gospel and preach the gospel in the communities. The guy works in our garden and we just felt that that is practical in South Africa. If one just starts there, you’ll stay busy for the rest of your life just there. You do not have to go after big things, just those immediate lives around you influence them and help them educate themselves.

Darryl Heald: Yeah. Thank you for sharing. Some of that is a real joy for me to see some of those schools with you on that last trip. I mean, how many students do you have in these schools now?

Bertie Lourens: They’re all there’s about a thousand students, I think in all the schools where we’re involved. I’m particularly drawn to one school with its two hundred kids. It’s in the middle of Mamelodi township. It is a Christian private school. It’s private because there’s no other support coming from the government. So it’s really donations. And some of the parents are paying fees to keep the kids in there. But it’s beautiful what’s happening there. It’s kids that have all the odds stacked up against themselves. If they did not go to the school, they would go to one of our failing government schools that are producing the results I’ve just mentioned. So here we are creating an environment for them where they have great education, great principal with a great teaching group that we teach the gospel, we model the gospel, we show the gospel, we model grace. We model generosity. And we try and show them what good fatherhood looks like because that’s the one big lacking thing in the poor communities. There are no fathers there. So the way I see it is zero two hundred kids that will become two hundred families one day and 200 families. We’ll have a chance at success in South Africa because of the school and that on its own is so rewarding because you look in the eyes of these kids and you interview them and you hear what they say and you hear kids say, I need to live generous with my fellow students. That comes from a kid that has nothing. And that’s beautiful because that kid gets it and that kid is going to enjoy success and joy because they get that concept of generosity.

Darryl Heald: That’s great. Thanks for sharing that, Betty. You also have a real passion for leadership so that you’re studied this for your own self as a leader, your company and your community and your family things. Tell us a little bit more about these. What’s driving you to do these interviews with other leaders there in South Africa?

Bertie Lourens: Daryl, I just started with interviewing my mentor when he was getting old, and I needed to have some video footage of what he’s taught me over the years. So I asked him and questions some of the questions are ones I’ve never had time to ask him. And some of the questions that I asked that deeply impacted me. So I asked him that. I took a video of it. We broke it into 10 little snippets, videos, and the purpose was really just to release it into our organization. But the value was so much that we thought, let’s literally just start a YouTube channel called Stories that Inspire. We posted on there and then for anyone to enjoy. And I thought, that is wonderful. And I asked God if he wants me to continue with that and felt free to go find another leader like him. And my deal with God was if he had to keep sending me people that are willing to be interviewed by me, I will continue to do so. And we are on series six, I think, right now. And I am just enjoying hearing from these people because everyone who has achieved the level of success are always keen to share it. They’re not stingy. Everyone who has had success wants to share it. So that’s what I do. Like I ask them and I try and package it in snippets that other people can enjoy and use and benefit from Amen Burty.

William Norvell: As we come nearer to close, I want to give you an opportunity just to maybe speak, just to have an open mic a little bit again to talk to the entrepreneurs out there that may be listening. And any other advice that you might have about, you know, just how God taught you to lead a business from a faith first perspective.

Bertie Lourens: Thank you, William. Yes, this all comes from the journey of starting to surrender, and I have developed a conviction that our father wants us to steward his stuff on his behalf. Now, we’ve heard this. This is all tacky, but if we can just pause for a moment and think of your earthly dad had assets with hundred billion dollars and he asks you, my son, would you take over the running of this company while I’m alive, then what would you do? How would you do that? Well, the first thing is you’ll be very fearful and respectful. And as you step into those very big shoes, but you will honor him and every one of your decisions, you will seek him in every one of your decisions. And you must check in with him daily. And our father, the creator of the universe, has created resources that generates about 90 trillion dollars of GDP every year. We are his sons and daughters and he wants us to stay with these assets on his behalf. So why do we get caught up so much and what we create and what we hold onto this such big journey out there? And by calling for us and I almost feel like our father is sitting on the edge of his seat waiting for us to surrender and let go of our stuff and the power that our stuff has over us and said, God, I’m your son and I’m here to steward your assets on your behalf, for your glory. God showed me in Romans eight. I’m about 19 and this is my translation of the all of creation is waiting eagerly for the Sons of God to stand up and reveal themselves and say, here we are. And then to do what? To risk your creation out of the bondage of corruption and to then steward it in a way that gives glorious liberty. What is glorious liberty? It is it’s a freedom that gives glory back to him. And I think that’s our calling our sons and daughters. So when he gives us assets to steward companies and people, he wants us to steward in a way that brings liberty, freedom to the resources of the earth that we stewarding the animals, the plants, the rivers, everything, the resources in it and the people and all of creation should the glory to father because of the way that we is sons of stewarding his assets. And I just think it’s such a big calling that we cannot waste time to get caught up in stuff and status, you know, and accolades. And I just felt that the only way that I was able to do this is to reach a place of complete surrender. So when I gave God shares in the business and I gave him control, it almost felt like that was absolutely necessary for that to happen before I could really stupid things on his behalf. Before then, it was all for me, as for me, my family, their inheritance, my legacy and all that nonsense.

William Norvell: Oh, I love that the it wasn’t something you begrudgingly did or maybe you did, but it was necessary. It was like that was the only way for it to work, actually, in sort of God’s world is to take that step of obedience.

Bertie Lourens: Yeah. And I want to add one more thing. The second point to that is the idea of generosity, how to be generous lives. I realized that a father is a generous father and the father of lies is a stingy father. And selfishness and stinginess come from the fear of scarcity. And generosity comes from the understanding of abundance and abundant provision from our father. And it’s almost as if we could live our lives in either one of these two veins. You can’t be in both. And when you realize that my father is the father of a Bynum’s and I can share my resources abundantly with the ones around me and I can live abundantly gracious with the people that I lead, employ my family, my friends, my neighbors, then you see the lie of the enemy. But until you make that choice, you live in the lie of the enemy. You always think, especially in South Africa, in a declining economy. How can I put away as much as I can now so that my kids will be OK? The day when I die. And I think we all live with that fear. That is the father of lies that are whispering those lies until years. And he whispers little lies. He puts little packets of lies and fear around our lives, neatly wrapped as gifts, tiny little packets. And as soon as you take the one and you open it up, you give him legal right to enter and cause havoc. And you cannot live in faith and fear. So Faith says, my father is abundant, is my provider, and he will look after me and my family. And fear says it’s up to me to put away as much as I possibly can so that my kids and my family are going to be OK one day.

William Norvell: Amen, I almost hate to ask another question, a wonderful place to end, but we do have to get to our closing question because we always ask it. And so usually I would cut myself off. But thank you for sharing that. And our closing question, will we love to ask, is just where God has you in his word today, where he has you in his scripture. And that’s something that you could have been meditating on for a season. It could be something God revealed to you this morning. But just to let our audience in to where God’s walking with you in his holy word today,

Bertie Lourens: William, I want to share something that happened over the last week. I got busy. I had to travel to Capetown, came back, went on a mountain bike race, traveled again. And this morning when I sat down, I opened my word. I saw it for the last eight days. I did not have a quiet time. So the last eight days, I got so busy that I didn’t sit with my father and I speak with him. And I realized the day before I exploded in the meeting because I acted out of my flesh, out of anger. And when I said with God, I repented for not seeking him daily. I allowed business to come and take me away from him. And I felt the father showed me the picture that the enemy wants us just to move away from my father slowly. You’ll never come with a big bang for your give away. His plan will come slowly. You’ll distract us with things that he knows will move us away from our father. And if you can get us away for long enough, then introduce a stage to riches, lies and fear. Because if we’ve been away from our father long enough, he know that we will not hear this Holy Spirit in the moment and introduce introduces little lines once we take them. He comes in with a lot of lies and after a week I was operating fully in my flesh, making fleshly decisions and exploding at people. I’m making bad decisions and that’s just a fresh revelation that I did not set before my father every day. And I ask him advice and if I don’t sit in his word, so his presence and I listen to the Holy Spirit, I do not care how long I’ve been a Christian. I will fail. I will act in inflation, will make bad decisions, and I’ll disappoint them.

William Norvell: Amen Amen, so grateful for you joining us today, so grateful for your story, so grateful for sharing what God’s done and through your obedience and at times your disobedience. And thank you for sharing both of those and how he still comes to the rescue through all of those examples. So grateful for you and grateful for your story.

Bertie Lourens: And give William.

Matt Jennings: Most people want to do something they want to do-have-be instead of be-do-have, so I’ll explain that. So most people want to do something, so then they’ll have something and then they think they’ll be something, right? So in other words, they’re going to work hard. They’re going to make a lot of money and they’re going to be a successful person that really just makes no sense. The more you think about it. And what we’ve been called to do is to be something and then we’ll do something and then we’ll have something, right? And the key is the being.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor and even Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast Luke is with me. Look, I think we’ve got an opportunity to do this. Take this conversation with our friend Matt Jennings. A lot of different ways. It’s great to be in the studio with you.

Luke Roush: Yeah. The two four FDE and FDI on one

Henry Kaestner: the big day. And we’re going and it’s taking us to a state that you love. Why do you love the state of Kentucky?

Luke Roush: Wonderful state of Kentucky is where my parents have lived for the last twenty four years. And it’s a wonderful place. I’m the Kentucky Derby, among many other things, home of many large white tailed deer. As Matt Jennings has repeatedly reminded me of, they are voracious text thread. Thank you, Matt.

Henry Kaestner: That makes it sounds like there are probably fewer white tailed deer because of of Matt Jennings being in that state.

Matt Jennings: Now there’s actually probably a whole lot more. I spend a great amount of money and time feeding and taking care of the herd in Kentucky.

Henry Kaestner: That’s awesome. All right. Good. Good. Good. All right. So we’ve never had an episode where we’ve gone into the theology of hunting, and this is probably not going to be the first one. Let’s go ahead. Let’s talk about your entrepreneurial journey. Let’s talk about what you do with structuring of IRAs. You’re a custodian. You’ve been involved in crypto. So many different things. But what we do with every one of our podcasts, of course, is we try to understand the story of our guest and you and I got a chance to hang out together at the Christian Economic Forum, where Luke was two, of course. And then Luke put together this great junket where we got a chance to go on a road trip to visit a number of the sovereign’s portfolio companies in you. And I got a chance to sit next to each other for a couple of hours going through northern Alabama. And I heard just an absolutely awesome story, and it was just such a no brainer to make sure that you got on. And can you give us a fly over? Who is Matt Jennings and what makes you tick?

Matt Jennings: Oh wow. So born and raised in here in Murray, Kentucky, a little town in western Kentucky, great parents growing up went into my dad’s business, started working there. He owned a meat wholesale meat distributor ship. Well, actually, I started out as a boat mechanic. Believe it or not, and then was part fitter for a period of time at a chemical plant in my early twenties. Didn’t go to college, barely made it through high school. I knew I wasn’t probably cut out for college, so I did the boat mechanic. The pipefitter ended up working in my dad’s meat business till about twenty four and always had a very entrepreneurial mind. Spirit did a lot of things on the side. Through that time, but really made the big step out in 2004 and quit working for the family business kind of left the comfort zone and stepped out. I actually took a job for way less money in the real estate business as a real estate appraiser learned that trade ended up buying the company that I worked for in about six months after I went to work there and began real estate investing really at that time, and God really blessed that saw just really quickly when I grew my appraisal company to the largest one in this area of Kentucky and then began to buy and sell. Ironically, a lot of hunting farms in Kentucky, recreational farms, and that was where I saw my first true, you know, I guess you’d say, like, really true financial success, but I had a burden and a heart and I wanted to do more. And that’s when I started a founded, a company called SPG, which is the Saved by Grace Company, and we formed that company to have both a real estate company. And this crazy idea we had of starting a trust company here in Kentucky so that people could buy real estate and other alternative investments in their tax free tax deferred retirement accounts. And so we we did that in two thousand and nine. I put that together. We actually got it going in 2010, and that’s when Kingdom Trust was born and that was built to be a faith driven company with Chuck and Randy. A couple of buddy of mine started that.

Henry Kaestner: So you end up being. Now, fast forward didn’t go to college. A pipe fitter, a bunch of different types of things. You end up getting real estate investing. Maybe we’ll touch on that. But now one of the largest custodians of digital assets and currencies in the United States, and there’s a faith story in there and you talk about being saved by grace is being one of the the titles of the company. Did you grow up as a Christian? Tell us a bit about your faith.

Matt Jennings: It is. So I grew up. I actually went to a Christian school. My mom and dad are great Christian people. I went to a pretty strict Christian environment when I was in grade school, started in kindergarten. Into the private Christian school, very small school, and I’m very much had rebellion in my teenage years against that. You know, when I say it was a strict environment, it was a very strict environment. And so I really rebelled against that and actually leaving my end of my sophomore year going into my junior year, I was asked to leave the Christian school. That’s a nice way of saying I got kicked out. And so I went to the local public school here, my junior and senior year of high school, and it kind of went a little bit crazy, did some things I shouldn’t do and ended up kind of on the on the wrong side of where I should have been in. But to go back when I was 12 years old, walk the aisle and said the prayer and got dunked under the water. And I clearly remember that I did it through a sense of guilt, and I think I was kind of in some trouble and that was a good way to smooth some things over at home. But I would say between the ages of 12 and thirty four thirty five in two thousand four, which ironically I just mentioned, is another year the same year that I quit my family business and went out on my own. Also, the same year that I truly came to faith and it’s all tied together. But I would say I’d probably ask God to save me hundreds, if not thousands of times, and finally got to the point never felt anything and finally got to the point in life where I really would just say that I just almost forgot about God. I didn’t know if I really believed or didn’t. I was having trouble seeing him in my life. Got married to Kelly, a wonderful wife. When I was twenty one, she was 16 at the time. My goodness. Neither one of us had a job. So our first job I made two hundred dollars a week and she made fifty four dollars a week bagging groceries at Kroger. You know, we just kind of went from there. But fast forward, when we were in our thirties, we had two kids worked in my dad’s family business. I had really gotten off base, had some addictions and things that, you know, not being fruitful in my life. I wasn’t being a good husband. And she saw that and confronted me with that, and we split up for a matter of just a few days. But during that few days, it was a moment I set out on a porch on my farm and just told God. I said, You know, first time I talked to you in years, God. But I don’t know if I believe in you or not, but if if you’re really there, you know, prove it to me. And long story short, over the next couple of days, some really cool things and a guy named Ricky came into my life who was my parents’ pastor at the time, and I went and talked to him and through that ended up realizing that God did love me and that he’d been after me for a long time, and that a whole lot of the reason I was in the situation I was in was because I was running from that calling. So, yeah, so I made a pact to change my life. And that was the moment when I gave my heart to Christ and my wife and I work things out. A couple of months later, she gave her heart to Christ, and I quit my job because I felt like my entrepreneurial calling was one of the big things. That was a problem between me and my wife because she was a security person and I wanted to branch out and go do all kinds of crazy things like entrepreneurs do. And after that moment, she completely devoted to backing me and trusting me, and that allowed me to go and try out some of those crazy things and with her by my side. And so we did.

Luke Roush: How did you invite her into that entrepreneurial journey? I think this is actually a really interesting topic that we have not explored fully on the podcast previously. But you know, many times, whoever the trailing spouse is, if their spouse is an entrepreneur, that person’s generally kind of outrunning, creating, seeing the future, trying to create that, trying to respond to what they feel like is God’s call in their life. How did you invite Kelly into that alongside you after her being really on the outside in the early years of your marriage?

Matt Jennings: Yeah. So I felt like I had invited her in before and got a negative obviously response which to her was just she was a person who, you know, a mom. She was a young mom. We had kids that were, I think, two and four at the time. And for her, it was a big deal for me to quit my job and go start a business or whatever. And so once we came together on that, it was really. Boy, I don’t know how to say it any way other than I let her know that that was really hurting me and how that made me feel, where I hadn’t really let her know that before, and she let me know some things that I was doing that really made her feel. If you’ve ever read the book, Love and Respect read, so I really felt disrespected that she didn’t trust me to go out and make a living on my own. She felt really kind of unloved. Some of the ways that I was treating her and what we figured out was we’d been in this cycle of she’d been saying things or doing things that made me feel disrespected. I had been in return saying things that made her feel unloved. They call it the crazy cycle, I think, in that book. And we just had grown apart. And really, it all started with just something small. And what we did that day would just come back together and decide that we were going to love and respect each other. And so she had to make that sacrifice or surrender or whatever you want to say to say, you know, what is the man he has? He has these dreams. He has this name. I love him. So I’m going to support him even if it scares me to death. And so I really just have to give all that credit to her for reaching that point of saying yes, I’m going to back him, even if it scares me to death.

Henry Kaestner: I guess that’s been a great investment with an incredible ROI.

Matt Jennings: Yeah, yeah, it’s been really good.

Henry Kaestner: So talk to us through a bit of your speaking impact investments. Tell us a bit about how you’ve thought about real estate investing.

Matt Jennings: I love you. I, of course, I became an appraiser by trade, a real estate appraiser. So I’m big on numbers and big on data I’m big on. I believe that you make at least 50 percent, if not more, of your money when you buy at the moment, you buy it. So I’m a bargain investor. I’m big on cash flow using the proper amount of leverage not to get overleveraged, but in real estate. The goal is to take something that makes six or eight percent net return leverage to make, you know, 15 or 20 percent return and do it in a manner where you have insurance. If it burns, you know, pretty low risk where your only real risk is, you know, not being able to find a tenant to rent it. I’ve been really blessed the town I’m in the last 10 years of average ninety nine point two percent occupancy rates in all my rental buildings. So I do a lot of multifamily, I do a few other things as well. But you know, we build a lot. The last five years, I’ve started a building company, so we build most of our own multifamily properties. I had a management company who are sold to a young man that trained under me. I sold him that business and he manages all my properties, and I’ve found that managing properties yourself. Once you get to a particular point, I think it’s great in the beginning. As you learn, once you get to a particular point, you end up hating them. Sometimes if you manage them as opposed to looking at them as a set of numbers, you get to emotionally connected to both the tenants and the experience. Sometimes we try to be faith based. It’s a faith based company that manages my apartment, so we try to treat. Our tenants will look a little bit about

Luke Roush: what that looks like. If you wouldn’t mind Matt about the here, just

Matt Jennings: how your faith, you know, impacts, he does all the managing. So I’m really pretty hands off in that business. My daughter actually just went to work for him with the ambitions of probably her one day managing all my stuff. So he knows he’s kind of probably training his future competition, but he’s doing that as a favor to me. But, you know, I think it’s just love on them for us. You know, we try to be fair to them and we try to love on them. We try to be to show them grace and mercy and understand when they’re in situations. If we know something’s going on in their personal life, you know, with a death or something that you know, something that’s creating sorrow in their life, we try to reach out. And just with a note of, you know, hey, we’re thinking about you and just, you know, just try to go above and beyond, and we’re always open to talk to them to, especially for new people that have moved in because we get it, we do. A lot of college students were in a college town here, with Murray State homogeneous Morant, Memphis Grizzlies now. So we get a lot of kids moving in, so we’re open. Always ask them if they’re looking for a church locally. We’re happy to point them in a few different directions there. We’re not stuck on any one, but we kind of know the ones that we feel like we’ll take them in and love on them. And, you know, treat them like we should treat our brothers and sisters. So that’s how we look at that.

Luke Roush: So maybe a little bit more to just the tension that you feel. So I’m going to come back and pick on something you said a second ago just because I think it’s in. Christine, I think it’s something that a lot of investors feel as you get closer to your investments and as you get closer to portfolio companies, CEOs and kind of all that, you start to really identify and empathize kind of with the situation that they’re in. And yet at the same time, you know, particularly in real estate, right? There’s an obligation to kind of look after the property. How do you hold those things in tension? How do you know when to give grace and when to kind of hold the line and just love to have you speak into how God’s spoken to your heart on that topic?

Matt Jennings: Boy, that’s one that I honestly, I would do my best to to say how I do that, but it’s a hard thing. There’s a great book, actually. I think about that. It’s called Love Works by Joel. Maybe you guys have read that that I’ve had look back to several times when I find myself in situations about how do I deal with this in a loving way, but in a way that is in the best interest of everyone involved? Right. So one thing I learned a long time ago is to avoid I’m a non conflict part. I don’t like conflict, and that hurt me a lot in my early days and I’ve learned to kind of walk up and open the door of the lion’s cage and walk in is always a better scenario and confront it. And, you know, based on how the person on the other side takes that confrontation criticism, then that’s when you have to make a decision of what’s best for everyone involved. Because any time it has to do with an organization, it’s not just you and them involved. There’s a lot of other people, employees, investors and things as well. So I just always try to think about what’s in the best interest overall when I make those decisions.

Luke Roush: Yeah, that’s good.

Matt Jennings: It’s hard.

Henry Kaestner: Before we get back into the investing side and go over and talk about what you’re doing with crypto now, because crypto is all the rage and your business is just absolutely exploded. I want to touch on something that’s more consistent with your entrepreneurial journey and that you’ve developed a drive to serving other entrepreneurs in a way that will ultimately point them to knowing God. Can you tell us a little bit about that framework that you’re in the process of developing? I just found it really encouraging. Walk us through that.

Matt Jennings: Yeah, I found myself in a really low point in March for New Journey Back several years ago. And I mean, when I say low point, I was at a really, really low point and it was a mixture. I think of personal, entrepreneurial, just a lot of stuff, you know, midlife for me, I don’t know, but and I began to search. I started in first, started in the Bible, sought out counsel from Christian friends, all of which was somewhat helpful. But I ended up joining a kind of a secular group for businessmen, CEOs, presidents, things like that and learned a whole lot through that. But it really gave me an idea through that is what I tell you that story. So once I, I just had this light bulb moment and I discovered so many things about myself through that process. And so when I got through that, I began to write things down and I decided I just wanted to share it with other entrepreneurs because I felt many times lonely. I know you guys say it’s a lonely journey. I felt so lonely at that point in my career, I felt almost like I was on an island by myself, and there was no one I could talk to. And I just have a passion for men who find themselves in that situation, and I felt so alone. I want to be there for those guys. So I started putting this together of ran a few groups through it. It’s still unfinished. I pretty well do it on the fly, but it’s really a self exploration. I don’t. When I’ve done it, I just put it on Facebook and say, Hey, do you feel lonely? You know, these struggles sometimes. Do you feel empty? And you know, each time I’ve had eight or 10 guys sign up and it’s really just like a coaching program, but we ask them a lot of questions because what I’ve found is that guys like me and you, Henry, we’re not necessarily really easy to teach things sometimes, but we’re really easy to challenge, right? We don’t necessarily listen if somebody says what you need to do this. I like to figure out myself what I’m going to do. I’ve no idea.

Luke Roush: We’re not talking about Matt at all.

Matt Jennings: That’s kind of an entrepreneur. So I kind of go at it from that angle and I call it the juice because I don’t know if you guys have ever been fishing and stuff like that, but it’s like, you know, the secret sauce. You know, it’s the juice. I got the juice, you know, so I start out by telling the guys that, Hey, you know, I know I’ve got this secret sauce. I got the juice that can set you free from how you’re feeling right now. And I tell them that are going to learn what that is through this about eight week process as we go through now and we start out with some basic questions. And I mean, I’d love to share a few of the questions with you and let you guys ponder on them if you’d like to hear just officially. Yes. OK, so so we start out by asking, who are you? Then we finish that question. With something that’s very profound, we say, really, really, who are you? Very few of them know who they really are. Now start trying to tell you what they do, right? And if you tell them that’s not it, they’ll start going into what they do at home, right? How many kids they have husband, father, whatever. No, no, no, no, no. Who are you, really? So that’s how we start out. And the very next question we ask them is where you’re at in your life right now. Would you say that you are being told through life by passion or push through life, by fear? Mm.

Henry Kaestner: That’s good. What’s the percentage response either way?

Matt Jennings: Ninety five percent have said, pushed by fear of only actually only had one out of about 20 guys that said passion. And two days later, he decided his might be fear. But yeah, so we just we go through a lot of that kind of stuff. We asked them this question to as entrepreneurs, as guys, right? We’re providers and what have you. We’re always trying to get somewhere or get something right. You feel like you wake up every day trying to get some more or get something. So we asked him this question What good is it going to do to you to get somewhere or get something if you sacrifice everything in the process?

Henry Kaestner: I like that. Get somewhere or get something. You know, Luke and I have got a great friend named Tim Oakley, who says We’re always selling something to somebody. And just there is this concept of just trying to make it happen. So you’re trying to get something or get somewhere? Yeah.

Matt Jennings: And what good is it going to do to you to get there if you sacrifice everything in the process? And that leads into some principles around that. The journey is the destination in my life. I don’t know if you guys have ever felt this, but I went through a period where I was like climbing this ladder. I was climbing this ladder, climbing and climbing and climbing it every day, and all I wanted to do is get to the top right. That was the destination was to get to the top of the ladder and climbing this wall on this ladder. I want to get to the top of the ball and get to the other side because that was like the Promised Land, I thought. And so I’ve climbed this ladder climbing it. And then finally, I get to the top and I look over and there’s nothing on the other side. And I think what so many men where we mess up men and women is the journey is the destination. There is no destination in life here on Earth. The journey here on Earth is the reward, it is the destination. And we should live it one day at a time, as Jesus taught one day at a time, not looking backward, not looking forward, living in today and making the best of each and every day. Stop trying to get somewhere and get something. Frantically, you know, the Bible says, Why do you rise early and go to bed late? Eating the bread of anxious toil God provides for those he loves as they sleep. There’s just so much wisdom in that verse, and so then we go in to talking about doing and being, you know, most people want to do something they want to do have be instead of Baidu have. So I’ll explain that. So most people want to do something, so then they’ll have something and then they think they’ll be something, right? So in other words, they’re going to work hard. They’re going to make a lot of money and they’re going to be a successful person that really just makes no sense. The more you think about it. And what we’ve been called to do is to be something and then we’ll do something and then we’ll have something. And the key is the being so there’s there’s never been a human doing. There’s never been a spiritual doing. There’s human beings and spiritual beings. Which leads me to another question. We asked our guys is would you consider yourself a human being having a spiritual experience or a spiritual being having a human experience?

Henry Kaestner: Mm-Hmm. So this is as you lead them into faith because I know that there’s a good number of these folks, unlike the Faith Driven Entrepreneur, of course, that we have, which is primarily focused on Christ virus because it starts off with call to create an identity crisis. We’re right up there. Was curious through this framework. When you start introducing your faith into it, whether it’s on the being side. Talk to us a little bit more about that. Does it ever conversation, ever turn back around to you and somebody says, Well, what about you? What about you, man? Who are you being?

Matt Jennings: So the first several weeks of it, I don’t mention God. Obviously, we talk about spirituality, but I never go into who God is. We just talk through these principles and we start going through all kinds of principles. We talk about learning your yes, is in your nose, and we talk about how I believe that we’ve all been created to win but programed to fail, right? Or created for success, but program for failure. And so we talk about all those things, and in the end, about week eight, we kind of say, Hey, just so you know, all of these things I just taught you came from one guy. Would you like to know who that guy is? Because I’d love to share with you who the guy is if you’re interested. And that’s what we’re going to do next week. If you want to come back for the final week, I’m going to tell you who the guy is and and that’s when we start out in Matthew five, because most of these principles comes right out of the Beatitudes. In the sermon on the Mount, the Jesus taught about getting your head and your heart aligned. You know, Jesus said blessed is he whose head and heart is aligned because then he’ll be able to see God in the outside world. Blessed is he who’s at the end of the rope because there he’ll find less of himself and more of God. And a lot of what we’re talk about in the group is about getting your head aligned with your heart. And so in the end, we go through and we show them where this came from. And the overwhelming response I’ve gotten to this point has been that’s not the Jesus I was taught about. That doesn’t even like I never even caught a hint that that would have been something from the Bible or that Jesus would have taught. Right? And so that gives me an opportunity to then share that, you know, the Bible is not a rule book. It’s a love story. And so many people, particularly in my area where I live in what they call the Bible Belt, or at the time of the Southern Bible Belt Country. And so, so many people have what I call this wrong impression of God and Jesus, and that gives me a chance to I’ve already had eight weeks to show them that love before they turn around and try to run from it. That makes sense. It does. So yeah, what

Henry Kaestner: you’ve done is you systematically shown them their need for a savior in their something’s, not altogether right, and that the framework that they had their belief system has been letting them down. They’re feeling driven by something, and they realize that it’s not going to the place where they want. They know their priorities are out of whack and it’s not revealing their type of fulfillment. So you’ve helped them walk through that framework to get there and then you’re showing them a better way.

Luke Roush: Yeah. Just to interject. How do you go from, you know, real estate and hunting farms? We talked a little bit about the gravel mine that we started, which I’m pumped to go see myself at some point. But how do you transition from that into a trust company and what we now know to be a pretty meaningful platform for cryptocurrency? So maybe just talk a little bit about that pivot or what God did through that and then maybe also speak to why cryptocurrency is something that believers should be interested in understanding more about and what the redemptive potential is for that instrument.

Matt Jennings: So Kingdom came about from my love of real estate, and I wanted to put it in my retirement account. I found that process very difficult. At first, I was told it was impossible, then it became difficult, and I found out it’s not impossible or difficult. So I thought, Hey, somebody needs to start a company to do this. So that was the original kind of idea behind Kingdom Trust. Once we started it, we had to become a regulated trust company, just like a bank. We’re chartered in South Dakota. We had to do all that to started and few years into it, I was not the CEO early on and I was just a founder and I think I was executive vice president or something. But I was running a real estate business kind of separate from that and a few years into it. Things weren’t going so well, and in 2014 I got asked by my partners in the board to become the CEO, which was one of the hardest times in my life. I really did not desire to lead a large group of people. I never felt like that was my calling. That’s the reason I didn’t choose to be the CEO. In the beginning, when I founded the company, so I sat at my desk one night and there was two books laying on my desk. I had my head down. I was praying. I was just honestly kind of lost. It was after I’d been asked to take it over. It was broke in a very bad situation and I looked up and there was a dictionary and a Bible. I felt like I just felt like something, said the answer to your problems is in this. I ran the numbers every way there was and there was no way to manage out of this problem. We had to grow out of it because we just weren’t big enough. We had at the time, we had about 900 million in assets under custody. I think we were maybe a thousand or two thousand customers. And I opened the dictionary and I looked at growth and I wrote the definition of a down. And I took G R, O W, T h, and I started looking through my Bible and thinking and I wrote down on G. I put goals. And the definition in the dictionary was an object of a person’s ambition, effort or a desired result. So I put down this is a note to myself. Have I still have this same original paper in my desk? I read it every day. Have a clear vision and an open mind. Think big and always stay focused on the goal. And I put four r. I put reward in. The definition of that in the dictionary was something given in recognition of one service, effort or achievement. And I said always inspire, motivate, appreciate, recognize and reward others that help you achieve your goals. And I put O Orchestrate a range or direct for a desired effect or performance. And I wrote a note to myself Orchestrate a team that is talented individuals at each play their part in the overall performance and reach the goals and always reward them. You got to remember, this is a guy, it’s taken over a company without an education, don’t know how to run it. It’s kind of a Wall Street company. And I’m a part fitter and a boat mechanic. So, so, so then I got the W and I said, Wow, and I look that up and it said to impress or stop someone greatly. And I said, Always strive to wow your customers, friends, employees and family by going above and beyond to meet their needs and and exceed their expectations. I got to tell you, I put trust and this was been the big one for me. I think because I was, as I said, was a little bit. I had a fear of being a leader. So on trust, I looked it up and it said firm belief in the reality, truth and ability or strength of someone or something. And I wrote, always be honest and ethical with high integrity. Be a servant leader at home and at work that people will follow toward the goal, not because it’s required of them, but because they trust you. And then I got to H, and the first word that came to me was humble, which I looked up in the dictionary and it said, not proud or arrogant, modest to be humble, although successful. And the note I wrote to myself was always Remember where you came from and who put you there? Keep faith and family as your top priority. Always keep your trust in God and others. Lead with love and never look down on anyone. Make tough decisions decisively with care and compassion for others, but always in the overall best interest of everyone involved. Give help those in need knowing that the ultimate goal is to see the one in which you have put your trust and what he is orchestrated on your behalf. Wow, what a humbling moment and a magnificent reward. And then I put a verse on there Matthew twenty three twelve who ever exalts himself, will be humbled and who ever humbled themself will be exalted. And I honestly, I wrote down below that because I didn’t have a plan. Didn’t really know what kind of plan to have. I put focus on the principles and the performance will take care of itself. And I wrote that that night and I will never forget it. I met with my who was my personal account, and at the time he did no work for the business at all. And I asked him to help me figure out a growth plan for the business, and I told him how many accounts I thought we could grow. And we wrote all this stuff out and did a five year plan. And it looked really great on paper, but I had no idea what I was really talking about and he didn’t either. It’s kind of ironic. I forgot all about that plan, and about a year ago, I actually ended up hiring him about two or three years ago. He’s now my CFO, and about a year or two ago, he came running in my office and he said, Man, I was going through some old paperwork and I found that he said, You remember that, not that you came to my office and we built this growth plan for Kingdom. I said, Yeah, I remember that night. It’s the same night I wrote this growth thing here. He said, I want you to see something. And he laid down that growth plan and he laid down Kingdom’s financials for that five years and they were within point two, five percent of each other every year, year after year, for five years. At that moment, I thought, Oh, wow, how amazing, because we neither one of us had any clue that not we sat down and did that. So that’s kind of my faith story there and how God came back five years later to say I was there that night.

Henry Kaestner: See, as you go through your growth framework, I didn’t write them all down and I haven’t seen it before. But the humility which you ended with shows itself in all of the different letters. The other thing that showed up was an interest in others. A couple of different times you talked about rewarding others along the way and being thoughtful about others that came through at least three times, if not more. And talk a little bit about the culture at Kingdom Trust we’re going to bridge into. For those of us who are listening, wondering about crypto and in your take on crypto, we’re going to get there. But I think that these lessons along the way, because how many? What do you have now? Under custodian assets, more than 10 billion write

Matt Jennings: about 20 billion, 20 billion at one hundred and hundred, and forty thousand customers are thinking about around 20 billion.

Henry Kaestner: OK, so how do you get there? Is it a brilliant technology algorithm? Is it some sort of massive arbitrage or is it the ability to lead a team well toward an end goal and get them fired up about achieving it? And my sense is that rather than some sort of major financial. Well, engineering deal, though, I think know when you get to 20 billion dollars of assets, you surely have to have a competency when you scale 140000 customers. You got to have a nail down shop. You’ve got to have great process and procedure and you’ve got to take away a lot of friction. But along the way, you got to lead people talk about the culture that’s come about since you sat down with that growth framework and what it looks like their work at Kingdom Trust.

Matt Jennings: Yeah, leading those people was the biggest fear of my life. I’m just being honest. It’s something that I have. Public speaking and leading people were the two things I never thought I would ever do in my life. So and I do a lot of both now and in have learned to enjoy it. But so I just started empowering people at the time that I wrote that we had about 20 employees. We got down to about maybe four that we kept through that we had a lot of people in the wrong bus, we had a lot of people in the wrong seats on the bus. When I came in and we had a lot of people that didn’t buy into the change that I was making because I we changed everything about the company after that and it was one of the more difficult times in my life. But over about a four or five month period, we maneuvered everybody around and went from 20 employees to about twenty five, but only kept four of the original 20 and. The four that we kept are three of them are still there today. Amen, they’re my posse. We’ve been in the trenches together and they have been and will be greatly rewarded, particularly when we choose one day to exit. And I’ve tried to reward them, but we also had a light that came in in that original 20, something that I hired back. Most of those are all still there. We’ve got about one hundred and twenty, I think now one hundred and fifty somewhere in there. So man, I just always try to love and we have we had Friday morning meetings and always try to share something with them in that meeting. That’s totally nothing to do with work and be vulnerable and open and transparent as I possibly can and be someone, as I said in the T. Someone that they will follow because they trust me. Not because they think I’m right. Not because they think they have to or or else, you know, they’ll get fired or whatever. Someone that they will get behind me and follow me into this crazy market that we went into that pretty much nobody in Murray, Kentucky, understands or knows about until they come in to work for us. We’re the only company in that type of industry here. So they all learn in-house, but they come in and they they will follow because they trust me. And now it’s not only just me, it was me then. Now it’s because they trust the other people. And since then, I’ve moved to chairman. About a year ago, we hired a young guy, a very successful guy named Ron. Brad Laffey started a company called CoinShares over in Europe. It’s now a publicly traded company, kind of similar to what we do. But over in Europe, he’s now the CEO and I step back from that CEO, and now he leads the charge. Very faith driven, very driven guy. And now he’s the guy that they really follow on a day to day basis, and they trust him and they believe in him in what we do. And so we made the switch into crypto in 2015. We actually started cursing crypto. In 2016, we became the first regulated financial institution in America to custody bitcoin and crypto. Some people say we were the first regulated financial institution in the world. I’ve never done the data research on the world. I know for positive. We were the very first one in the United States. And with that has come a lot of blessings and a lot of challenges. In the early days, we definitely had a bull’s eye on our back when we chose to step out on that limb.

Luke Roush: I’d love to just maybe have you wrap. We always try to kind of wrap with how God is speaking to you now, Matt, and what you believe he’d have you share with the audience that you haven’t already shared. You’re a winsome guy who’s had a lot of wonderful experiences and a lot of success, and in many ways, an unlikely road moving into trust crypto, just as you talked through. But what has God put on your heart recently? And what would you leave our listeners with?

Matt Jennings: Well, we’re talking to entrepreneurs, so I think the first thing would just be encouragement that I look back through my entrepreneurial experiences and there’s been ups, there’s been downs, there’s been some really high highs and some really low lows. And what I’ve figured out was there is many times that I felt like God wasn’t speaking to me and looking back, I know now it’s because I was doing all the talking and listen, be still and know that I am God. You know, I would say when you’re in the tough spot, listen to God and the people who are unbiased and love you all around you. That would be number one. And the other one would be a question that I ask my guys kind of goes along with questions that were asked and earlier is what does wealth really mean to you? And really, really sit down and think about really what this will mean to you. You know, and I’ll tell you what it means to me. Yeah, to me, wealth means all my needs are met physically, emotionally, relationally, everything right, like all my needs are met and they’re met abundantly. That’s what wealth means to me. But I would challenge each person thinking about what does well mean to you. I hope it’s so much more than money to the guys and gals that are listening to this. And once you kind of think about what is wealth to you, then are you really pursuing and chasing true wealth? Are you chasing something else? Right? So that would be kind of my challenge to everybody.

Henry Kaestner: That’s very good word, ma’am. May I thank you for your friendship, your encouragement. Thank you for getting out there and miss all the different things you’ve got going on. Actually, point in the eyes of these 20 men because I know how much you’ve grown, how much you scaled. Most people in your position would say, I just don’t have the time. And yet you’ve done that. You’ve been really intentional about getting folks involved. And and that’s encouragement to me as encouragement to Luke, and we’re grateful to partner with you in the ministry.

Matt Jennings: I’d just like to say to you before I get off your guys, that for years I ran a faith driven company and I did not know a single other Faith Driven Entrepreneur other than myself and my two buddies. And I think that’s one reason that my journey seems so lonely at times. And I found you guys just six months ago, whatever it’s been now. And I honestly just wake up every day more encouraged through that, and, you know, I’ve signed up for one of your classes with, you know, I don’t even remember who I signed up with the leader. I just kind of did any MIT mo. But I’m super excited about doing that. But I’m so pumped and excited to see Henry that God gave you the vision to go out and reach guys like me. And I have the same vision in many ways, but honestly, I did not know how to move that vision forward, and it’s so cool. The first time that I honestly, the first time I went to your website, I got tears in my eyes and was just like, Why haven’t I seen this before? You know, because what you guys are putting together there is amazing. So kudos to you guys for what you’re putting together. It’s great

Luke Roush: encouragement. It’s a great and charisma.

Henry Kaestner: That’s that’s awesome. So we’re going to put you in a cohort with a bunch of other guys did all this. We try to keep it above those that have above $20 billion in custodial assets. And so you’re going to love this group of people. It’ll be you and yourself. We got a great group, we got great cohorts there, and I think we’ve got a five or six hundred people going through FDE groups. If you’re listening to this right now and and you’re interested in joining a group to process how God is working through you and your entrepreneurial life or your investing life, along with people like Matt, please check out the website. Matt, thank you for blessing our audience.

Mary Naber: It is said to be “Pareto Efficient” when at least at least one person is better off and nobody is worse off. So, in the very last paragraph of my Journal of Investing article: “Individuals and institutions can make a Pareto Efficient move by investing with Catholic or other religious and ethical principles from the comparable return and the added utility and social benefit of a clean conscience.” So, here’s the value proposition with Faith Driven Investing. It’s that at no cost to you, to me or Luke, or anyone listening—at no cost, material or financial, when you choose to integrate your faith and your investments, you gain something amazing in your life today.

Narrator: Welcome to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. If you’re a fund manager, investor or financial advisor driven by your faith, or want to be driven by your faith, then you’re in the right place. The best way to stay connected in the Faith Driven Investor community is to sign up for our newsletter at faithdriveninvestor.org. This podcast doesn’t exist without you, our community. One of the things we’ve heard the community ask us for is help in finding great deals to invest in, and so we’ve launched Marketplace. It’s a new platform of funds and direct deals. Everything from private equity and real estate funds to ETFs. From philanthropic to market rate deals spanning the U.S. and emerging markets. Check it out at faithdriveninvestor.org/marketplace. While you’re there, please send us any thoughts you have about how this podcast might better serve you or any questions you have about being a faith driven investor. 

DISCLOSURE: All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Hosts and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization.

 

Narrator: Welcome back everyone to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. Our guest today is a trailblazer and also fascinating. Prior to founding Sage Stone, Mary King served as a Senior Vice President Investments and Wealth Management Advisor at Merrill Lynch in Beverly Hills. She is the author of “Catholic Investing – The Financial Effect of Screens” published in the Journal of Investing, the first published empirical research documenting the financial impact of socially conservative screens. Her article, “Christ’s Returns” was featured in Christianity Today twenty years ago and was a precursor to the movement among faith driven investors.

Mary’s expertise in the field of ethical investing is highlighted in over a half a dozen books and multiple magazines. She is the first undergraduate in the history of Harvard University to receive a double major in Economics and Religion, and she did it with honors. She joins us today to revisit the ideas in her article, Christ’s Returns, and reveal how what was a defensible strategy twenty years ago is still defensible today. Let’s listen in.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. I’m here with my great friend, business partner, lifelong friend Luke Roush. Missing him, he’s moved to Tennessee. We’re just—as we’re talking with Mary, who lives in California—talking about the fact that we used to be able to go down to Capitola and go surfing and stand up paddleboarding at Santa Cruz Harbor and different things like that. So Luke, you are missed.

Luke Roush: Hey, I miss—I miss watching you struggle down there on that surf.

Henry Kaestner: That’s right… Struggling with one of my boys who decided that he was strong enough to not need a wetsuit,

Luke Roush: And that was special. In January. That was very impressive. I am just going to go ahead and go on record.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, that was maybe a little foolhardy too. He has thawed out, he’s back and I am also back. We had two Faith Driven Investor conferences last week, which were super cool. We had one in Nairobi and we had one in Cape Town, actually right outside of Cape Town in a place got Stellenbosch. And I’ll tell you that God is on—Aslan is on the move. As our friend David Wills likes to say, Aslan is on the move. We had a Faith Driven Investor gathering in Nairobi the February before COVID, so just a couple of years ago, not even two years ago. And seven people came and they were a great seven people. We had a great breakfast, but I thought we might get more. And this time we had one hundred and forty. We had the CEO of Telkom Kenya Mugo Commodities become a friend. He led one of our panels. We had the chairman of the largest insurance company. We had the Senate Majority Leader, everybody getting together and talking about “What can a Kenyan Christian community do to lead the way, putting their own skin in the game, making faith driven investments in Kenya, East Africa and the broader African continent?”. And then the same thing happened a couple of days later in Stellenbosch, an incredible setting and one hundred leading Christian investors that are really serious about their faith and are at the helms of some of the largest investment banks, trading companies and funds in South Africa. Getting together, worshiping together, praying together, it was just, it was super cool. So I’m back now. We are doing the podcast and I’m just really encouraged because there is a movement here and lots of different people are getting it. Pastors are getting it. Individuals are getting it. Again it is a good chance to just, as we get ready to introduce our guest, it’s a great chance to really introduce what is really at the cornerstone of the movement is that it’s really not meant to be prescriptive or presumptuous at all. It’s about us getting down on her knees with our spouses and asking God how we might steward the assets that He’s entrusted us with. And for some, that might be investing in solar farms in the Nevada desert. For others, it might be investing with our Christian brothers and sisters in Nairobi, and some of them it may be taking a new look at the way they manage their public equities. And so for all of that, we have this great honor and this podcast of being able to talk to leaders who’ve been doing this and wrestling with this for a long time. And very few have wrestled with this longer than Mary. And Mary, I’m just I’m really grateful that you’re on with us, and I want to mention one thing that you and I have. And I don’t know if you know this about me, but you and I have the common experience of having worked at Merrill Lynch, Mother Merrill, and I had some formative experiences. My introduction to the financial markets was at Merrill Lynch in Manhattan, downtown in the World Financial Center, where I was actually there for the first World Trade Center bombing, which was a crazy experience. And I learned so much about financial markets and the special privilege that it is to be invited into a family’s life to contemplate some real important decisions around financial planning. There’s an intimacy there that I hadn’t expected in that job, and it was one of the most rewarding parts of it. And so you’ve made a career in doing that. So but I’d like to hear about what your financial experience was. Tell us about it. First of all, welcome to the program. Thanks for joining.

Mary Naber: Thank you, it’s great to be here.

Henry Kaestner: So tell us about it growing up as a kid. What drew you to the financial world? I think that you probably started earlier and maybe were less mercenary about it at the beginning, as I was. I like to think I matured in my thoughts of the financial markets with time. But for me, at the beginning, it was just a job, but you were thoughtful earlier. Tell us about your story growing up. What brought you into it? And yeah, just who are you, where do you come from?

Mary Naber: Thanks. Well, I’m Mary and I’m originally from Salinas, California. I had the tremendous blessing of growing up at the First Presbyterian Church in Salinas. And it was at this small church, where as a young five or six-year-old, I still remember sitting in one of those little wooden chairs during Sunday school and the Sunday school teacher explaining that there is a simple exchange we could make. If we simply ask Jesus to come live in our hearts you could have a best friend forever. And for a little child, the idea of a best friend forever, I mean, it just doesn’t get better. I could exchange something small, my heart, for the unconditional love of the Creator, forgiveness from all sin, redemption, restoration, passion, purpose and a best friend forever. Yes! I’d say that it was also a little lesson in the economics of God: that He is always our best investment. Anything small we give Him, He is faithful to multiply and return. I think about offering five loaves and two fishes, He feeds the 5,000. We plant a mustard seed, He grows it into the largest of garden plants. We give Him our investment portfolio, imagine really the ways that He can multiply that gift for today in eternity. I’ll note that it was also at the First Presbyterian Church where I was enthralled by 80’s worship music, enjoyed the sermons of our pastor, Dr. Ladra…

Henry Kaestner: Who’s your favorite band? 80s worship music. For those of us who remember things like, I don’t know, Jars of Clay, etc.. Amy Grant, who’s your favorite?

Mary Naber: Oh, I really love Jars of Clay as well. Caedmon’s Call, if anyone remembers. I got to host and produce their first concert at Sanders Theater in Harvard. 

Henry Kaestner: Oh wow! 

Mary Naber: Sold out a thousand-seat theater. So that was a fun little investment in college of our Campus Crusade group.

Henry Kaestner: A thousand Harvard students showing up to Caedmon’s Call concert?

Mary Naber: Well, we actually marketed the concert throughout Boston colleges. 

Henry Kaestner: Still, that’s great. Yeah.

Luke Roush: That’s a big win. A big win in Boston.

Mary Naber: Yeah, it’s exciting, it’s great music… But that was the 90’s. But yeah, I was 16, and I set up an appointment to meet with my pastor. I explained to him that I loved every aspect of business, but I love Jesus too. So maybe I should consider going into the ministry. This is 1992, and he said, “Mary, Christians are needed in the business world too.” And it was an absolute paradigm shift for me.

So, when I was about 18 in the fall of 1994, I flew across the country to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to attend Harvard as an undergrad. At the time, I still saw the two fields, my interest in business and love for Jesus, in two separate compartments. I wanted to pursue a double major in econ and religion, and God ended up using one of the most secular universities in the country to challenge me to integrate both fields. Now I set the case at Harvard: at the time, in order to graduate with a double major, a senior was required to write one thesis that combines both fields and would be accepted by both departments as academically rigorous. Well, the Harvard Econ Department also viewed econ and religion in two different spheres. They refused to approve my double major with Religion. They told me the two fields had nothing to do with one another, that the double major had never been done before and that it would be impossible to combine the two. Of course, the econ administrator didn’t know of Jesus’ promise in Matthew 19, Mark 10 and Luke 18, that with God, all things are possible.

And so I accepted the challenge, of course, in the hope and faith that I would find a senior research thesis that worked and maxed out my courses in the Religion department. And I savored seeking out areas where the two fields overlapped. In Professor Diane Eck’s World Religion Course, I wrote my term paper on “Islamic Banking: A Topic of No Interest”. In my sophomore tutorial course, I wrote my research paper on the game theory methods used by three major religious traditions in the recruitment and retainment of attendees, in which I introduced one of the most famous game theory examples, that of Pascal’s Wager—the brilliant argument that it’s always best to bet that God exists. Now in this process, I discovered something quite surprising. I found that economics on its own—the bland macroeconomic problem sets were dry and uninteresting. But economics from a perspective of faith, viewed from an eternal and spiritual perspective, was profoundly more meaningful, joy-filled, fascinating and way more fun.

So at a secular university frequently hostile to the Christian faith, God led me to a passionate commitment to integrating my love for Jesus into economics, business and work and I simply wanted nothing less. So it was actually spring of my junior year where I first became exposed to the practice that was traditionally known as Socially Responsible Investing. For that spring semester, I took a small seminar course at Harvard Divinity School. It was titled “Money Media and Morality: Investing in the Civic Good”, taught at the time by, HDS, Harvard Divinity School’s Director of Corporate Ethics. Yes, HDS was way ahead of the curve in appointing such a director in the mid-90’s. It was in this course that I was first exposed to Socially Responsible Investing, the thoughtful consideration of ethics and values in investment decisions. And for anyone new here at the program, just to cover it, in that course I learned about portfolio screening – that’s the avoidance of sin stocks like tobacco, gambling from one’s portfolio of publicly traded securities. I learned about shareholder action to engage corporate boards for cultural change. And in that course, I learned about creative impact investments that generate both a financial return and social good. I was absolutely fascinated. In all my financial and capital markets courses at Harvard from ‘94 to ’98, I had never once been exposed to the practice of social investing. Again, these classes lacked purpose or meaning. With SRI, which we now call faith driven investing, finance suddenly became imbued with deep significance because I began to see how the allocation of capital impacts the lives of the neighbors we’re called to love. With faith driven investing, I began to see how finance could be an avenue to fulfilling God’s great commandments to love Him by honoring Him with the stewardship of His talents and loving others, by taking care not to profit at their expense.

Luke Roush: Maybe just to pause there for a comment. Actually, so that concept that you just articulated is not a new idea today, but back in, you know, late summer of 2001, that was kind of a novel idea. Maybe just speak a little bit about the relationship that you have with one professor who kind of helped you get focused on this and helped you to contextualize some of the research that you did. I’d love to just have you pause for a moment and actually just speak about that discovery process, where your research led you in terms of conclusions, and how all those things tied together.

Mary Naber: Okay. So, the professor—the Director of Corporate Ethics at Harvard Divinity School—her name is Dr. Marcy Murninghan. And she was just a great inspiration and was the one to suggest to me when I was looking for a senior research thesis that I go to a think tank I really admire and respect and see what research they needed done. I wouldn’t say that apart from the academic guidance, that we got deep into the spiritual imperative, that came maybe a couple of years later. But she provided just that tremendous piece of advice for any senior looking to do a thesis or graduate student doing a dissertation to go out and find what research needs to be done. It turns out I had been interning—I interned that summer before my senior year—at a company called KLD. KLD – acronym for Kinder, Lydenberg and Domini. They were the leading research firm providing the social research database—it’s called the Socrates database—to institutional investors, tracking which companies were in industries of concern. And they were absolutely the leaders. They were located in Harvard Square, just a bike ride from Lowell House where I lived. That was a fantastic benefit. And speaking of Merrill, this was now ‘96/‘97. Merrill had hired KLD to monitor one of their first ethical funds, and one of my roles was doing a deep dive in the due diligence of those underlying holdings to ensure that nothing had changed at those companies to bring any of those holdings into question. So, thinking through my thesis, my senior year…

Luke Roush: Sorry, who were the clients that you were representing as you were kind of asking these questions? Like, who cared? Like, who are you ultimately working for here?

Mary Naber: Oh, when I was working at KLD?

Luke Roush: Well like yeah, trying to assess whether there were problematic things or not in different companies. Who cared about that?

Mary Naber: Right. So well Merrill Lynch had established this fund and they had designed the parameters. And, if my recollection is correct, I am pretty confident they were the traditional socially responsible screens: tobacco, gambling, alcohol, military and nuclear power. And so this fund had those specific securities that did, in fact, meet those screens—they were not restricted due to those screens. And yet, because companies can always merge or buy new subsidiaries, it’s always good to stay on top of, you know, the research related to what’s going on in those individual companies. And that’s what I got to do. And that relationship was amazing. I had an opportunity in my senior year to speak with the Director of Research at KLD, Dr. Steve Lydenberg, and I said, “Well, what research do you need done?” And he said, “Well, we have a lot of Catholic clientele. We could use some research on what issues are of concern to them.” And so that was really the genesis of my senior research thesis, which was developing a methodology and profile of the Catholic investor. And of course, then doing the research to see how investing with Catholic principles would impact returns. 

And in the late nineties Catholics were a great case study. Their “sin stock” concerns bridged the traditional social screens of tobacco and gambling, with the emerging social conservative pro-life concerns of abortion and pornography. Plus, at the time, and still, I’d say Catholics had a very rich history of social faith driven investing, especially at the institutional level. 

Nuns, of course, were very active in shareholder engagement, and screening was utilized at Catholic hospitals, universities and other institutions.

In 1991, Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical letter: “The decision to invest in one place rather than another, in one productive sector rather than another, is always a moral and cultural choice.” 

Also in the early 1990s, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops had released the NCCB/USC Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines that served as a guide for Catholic investors, and my research, which I supplemented through extensive interviews with U.S. bishops and other Catholic finance leaders and a group of Jesuits in Harvard. I invited myself to their place for dinner. But 90 percent of my work…

Henry Kaestner: That’s awesome. I love that. So, I had a Jesuit high school. I love the Jesuits and I love the fact that a co-ed at Harvard decided “I’m going to go ahead and crash the Jesuits’ dinner party.”

Mary Naber: Yes, it’s one of my highlights, and I have many.

Henry Kaestner: How do they tell you so you go ahead, you’ve got a—you’ve got a head of steam about how you’re thinking about all this. The Pope is coming out with an encyclical, and a bunch of guys are sitting around just trying to meditate and pray, and then you challenge them with this. How did they respond?

Mary Naber: I found them to be very receptive, very kind. I really enjoyed so deeply those connections I was able to make in the context of interviews. I got to interview some incredible Bishops who had written some incredible encyclical letters, one called “Economic Justice For All”. And what I found actually and discovered in the context of that research— was that these guidelines that were written in the early 90s, didn’t include a screen for adult entertainment or pornography. It was, again, something corporations/publicly traded companies were getting more and more involved in. And I made a recommendation in my thesis, which I sent along to the framers of those Guidelines, that they needed to update their Guidelines. And a couple of years later, in fact, the NCCB/USCC Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines now includes adult entertainment/pornography as a screen for avoidance investing. So but again, it’s…

Henry Kaestner: It’s important work.

Mary Naber: Just my time with the Jesuits, all of those wonderful faithful Catholics that I got to interview, I’m just so thankful. I’ll throw in one other quick story about a Catholic who had great input, and that was my senior thesis advisor. So it was suggested to me when I was looking for a thesis advisor that I go over to Harvard Business School. There was an associate professor who was also known to be a practicing Catholic. His name was Professor Peter Tufano. And I was just so happy that he would be willing to take me on. One of the greatest honors at the end of my research, at the end of my senior year, he said, “You know, Mary, I think I learned more from this research project than you.” Of course, I’m sure he was just humoring me, but it was really a great honor. He went on to become Dean of HBS and Dean of Saïd Business School at Oxford and is now even today researching ESG adoption in corporate environments. So it’s fun to have just had the blessing of those relationships in some of the early days, and I am thankful to God for that.

Henry Kaestner: What was your main discovery?

Mary Naber: Oh, sure! It was incredible. This is just some of the best news. Investing with ethical, religious, Christian, Catholic principles will not result in an adverse impact on financial performance. 

Henry Kaestner: That’s pretty important.

Mary Naber: I mean, it was just super exciting. I basically, after developing that methodology, built portfolios based on different levels of stringency from the Catholic principles, and none of those portfolios showed a statistically significant difference. That is, that the difference could not be explained otherwise by chance. The same results came about based on a multivariable regression analysis. And you know, what was very interesting about the thesis itself is that I had to, of course, for those who do senior theses, I had to do a multi-page literature review. It’s required that the student go look at all the research that’s ever been done so as not to replicate previous research. So, super blessed, I’m at KLD, the Director of Research had those old places where we used to keep files, file cabinets, and just pages and pages and pages of papers and papers and papers. And I supplemented that with research at HBS and really found conclusively, as I said before, that 95 percent of the empirical studies conclusively demonstrate even back then in the late nineties and still today, no adverse impact on financial performance. So that was the empirical research that my research validated. And I mean, what was neat is that my research was published in the Journal of Investing in Winter of 2001. It was the first published academic paper to integrate investing and faith. And it was the first to look at how the exclusion of social conservative concerns of abortion and pornography would impact returns. All the other papers had previously only looked at those traditional social concerns. So we knew and could discover, empirically, no cost. Historically, we had over a decade of SRI funds and indices like the DSI, Domini Social Index, demonstrating not a statistically significant difference in performance. I have an argument that theoretically even—the theory—economic theory supports the idea that we will not lose unnecessarily in our financial return. So I had another professor who was heading up kind of our little senior thesis tutorial class. He refused to sign off on my thesis. He refused to sign off on the topic. He would not approve it. And the reason, he said, “Is we don’—this isn’t a question. Ethical investing portfolio screening will not adversely impact your returns, and we know that.” He was relying on the efficient market hypothesis, which basically says that all known information, including SRI or ESG traits of a company are already priced in the stock. Hence, you know, no excess return or loss. Basically, he just said, “No, we know this isn’t a question. It won’t impact your returns.” The only way I got him to sign off on my thesis topic was by demonstrating to him back in the late 90’s, Wall Street Journal articles basically raising the question and asserting that SRI would adversely impact performance. That was the going belief back then, that was the belief that even some Christian investors had back then. But really, what my research showed is, you know, the other empirical research, the historical evidence, and the theoretical argument. Okay, one more—logic! With thousands of publicly traded companies to choose from… We can afford to be a little exclusive. 

So to me, if I may just jump, the exciting news related to the fact that there is no cost when it comes to portfolio screening—faith driven investing—in your public securities. And again, let’s not go overboard—like if you’re saying, “I’m only going to invest in this little segment of the market” yeah, maybe there will be an impact. We’re just speaking broadly. We can afford to avoid companies profiting from abortion, pornography, tobacco, gambling, casinos. There are enough companies to select from and be fully diversified. So the reason this is so exciting to me is we forget this… 

Sorry, one other point. We don’t really think of this anymore. I feel like it’s kind of taken for granted, and this is a good thing. Just this idea that it won’t impact your returns—or maybe some people out there who still think so… But the research really shows conclusively, I think the general public understanding is… No cost. 

So you think about generous giving, right? The offer, the offer is you’re giving up your worldly material wealth for future gain, for eternal reward. 

You know that could be crowns, right, we don’t even know what those true riches look like. I think when we gift to charity, we may, in fact—that eternal reward will probably be people who are saved, who have eternal life because of our giving. So the gift that God has before us, it’s a tradeoff, it’s a lovely tradeoff. We give up, you know, cash in our account. We give, you know, if you’re wisely using a National Christian Foundation donor advised fund, you can actually wisely give shares of your company, shares of your stock. The bottom line is when we give, we’re giving worldly wealth. It goes to eternal kingdom purposes. So here is the proposition and faith driven investing, and it’s mind blowing to me. 

Henry Kaestner: Yes.

Mary Naber: That is, number one, at no financial cost, at no cost to your worldly wealth, you gain today. You get a free gain today. I put this in the Journal of Investing article back in 2001. It’s my very last paragraph. I don’t know how many people here know the phrase, “Pareto efficiency”.

Henry Kaestner: I don’t. I don’t and I bet many of our audience doesn’t.

Luke Roush: I do. And I’m really proud, it’s maybe the only phrase that I remember and I’m really glad to be able to say that I know something that Henry doesn’t, which doesn’t happen very often.

Henry Kaestner: Oh, it happens a lot. It happens a lot. What is the phrase? So, somebody is going to have to explain, if this following paragraph is predicated on you knowing the Pareto principle, if that’s indeed how you pronounce it. And maybe we’ll put Luke on the spot. What is it? What’s the Pareto principle?

Luke Roush: Why would I describe it, not when we have an expert on the thing and…

 Henry Kaestner: Haha, well played. 

Luke Roush: that would be…that would be…

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, that’s right. Who are we interviewing here? Mary, tell us before you tell about the last paragraph. What is the Pareto principle?

Mary Naber: Sure, it means an economic theory, an alteration in the allocation of resources is said to be Pareto efficient when it leaves at least one person better off and nobody worse off. 

Henry Kaestner: Oh, I like that. 

Mary Naber: So, in the very last paragraph of my Journal of Investing article, um, “Individuals and institutions can make a Pareto efficient move by investing with Catholic or other religious and ethical principles from the comparable return and the added utility and social benefit of a clean conscience.” So here’s the value proposition of faith driven investing: it’s that at no cost you, Henry or Luke, or anyone listening… At no cost, material or financial. When you choose to integrate your faith in your investments, you gain something amazing in your life today. And let’s go through the list: the joy and happiness and blessing that comes from seeking to honor God in all that we do; the benefits of a clean conscience; sleeping well at night; conversation at a cocktail party. How about a chance to hang out with these very fun gentlemen at FDI conferences, and get to know the rest of the FDI community? Like… 

Henry Kaestner: What a deal!

Mary Naber: I mean, and that’s what we would call a Pareto efficient move.

Henry Kaestner: I love it. So, OK, I want to I want to throw that on its head just slightly. And also the ability to get to know more Jesuit priests and to break bread with them. So this is fascinating. 

So a lot of times we talk about standing on the shoulders of people who’ve gone before us, and you will talk about Count Sivendorph and the Moravians, we’ll talk about the Guinness family. There are a bunch of different great examples, but your academic research on this is a big deal. It’s a big deal. It was early on. I don’t think that people I know know there’s an article in Christianity Today, there’s the Journal of Investing, and I don’t think that enough people really appreciate, on one hand, the simplicity of what you just mentioned in that last paragraph, but also the complexity of a lot of rigorous academic research that went behind finding this simple conclusion. And it makes it that much more credible. 

But one of the things that undergirds this is this kind of portfolio diversification theory that if you’ve got twenty thousand different issues to be able to pull from, if you just exclude eight, is that really going to impact your returns or if you’re going to exclude eight hundred, even—is that going to really impact your returns? Flip that on its head a little bit. And one of the premises that we have, and taking your work and trying to build on it a bit, is that there are some amount of companies that instead of just matching the market return, there’s some amount of companies that, because they employ biblical values, will succeed, not at the expense of them, but because of them that they may even do better. And I think it would be hard for us on this podcast to presume that the Holy Spirit advantage is worth one hundred twenty five basis points or two hundred and fifty or something like that. But if we go ahead and we actually come up with a more of a narrow lens and say through some of our research, we found two hundred—two hundred and twenty five or so—Christian led, faith driven CEOs of publicly traded companies. And that includes big companies like Cisco with Pat Gelsinger and Intel with Chuck Robbins and in smaller companies as well. Do you know of any researcher? What are your thoughts there? You’re deeply thoughtful about what we don’t have to give anything up, so therefore it’d be a great deal. But what if we take that logic the next step and say, “Well, if we have a faith driven founder who, when Fortune or Forbes interviews them, might be able to point to their Christian faith as being material to how they lead? Do you expect that you’ll find a fall-off in return? How do you even process that?

Mary Naber: Oh, absolutely. So, you know what’s so interesting that was discovered in my research and Dr. Lloyd Kurtz, he has the website, sristudies.org, hundreds and hundreds of papers and empirical papers. And so on the number one point: as long as you’re diversified, your returns shouldn’t sacrifice in financial performance. I talked about the theoretical argument. Well, the practical realities is that there can be—if you are focused in the market, you can find features. In my research, it was investing in employee relations and investing in community development—that actually resulted in an abnormal excess return. Okay. And Lloyd Kurtz said he found this as well. He was working with some investment firms to exploit this, and I think the general idea is it may now be completely exploited through ESG. But absolutely, I completely concur that there’s no reason why if you’re not… I mean, if we just look at how God has blessed so many of those in the FDI community doing this work, it’s abnormal outperformance… But I’m always careful, right, past performance is no indication of future success. And you know, a number two, you want to avoid kind of the prosperity gospel stuff. 

But at the end of the day, I do believe, and I have seen, even in my own client portfolios, that that faithfulness…? God is amazing and He does things that just kind of defy anything we could be talking about in economic theory. And so I just, I have seen that, I give God the glory for it. So I absolutely agree that excess abnormal return and opportunities to exploit those still exist in parts of the market, and also God’s provision. So, yeah.

Henry Kaestner: So I like that. You know that past performance is no indication of—say it again. Past performance is no indication of future performance, right? Or past results…. And yet scripture does tell us some things about financial return, laying up treasures in heaven. 

Mary Naber: Oh, yes.

Henry Kaestner: We know that when you talked about it before, about the Parable of the Mustard Seed. There’s some great biblical examples of being faithful and how that actually does deliver great investment returns. 

And maybe, as we believe, we believe that you may find some alpha in financial markets in a way that the secular world can look at it. But we know undisputedly that when we are able to think differently, we may even get a return this 30, 60 or 100 times fold if we’re not primarily focused on the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches, right?

Mary Naber: Absolutely, yes. And that was the other benefit to the whole Pareto efficient proposal here that at no cost, and perhaps as you’ve suggested, perhaps abnormal outperformance and excess alpha, giving that exchange of worldly wealth, we get benefit today. Wait, hang on! Benefit tomorrow in God’s Kingdom. In Luke 16:11, If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And so, it’s so exciting—faith driven investing—assists us in being trustworthy in handling worldly wealth so that by His grace, our God may someday trust us with true riches. Now what is that great responsibility? Crowns? Treasures in heaven? He promises true riches and treasures in heaven and just to think, I mean, we start with that 10 percent and we’re encouraged to go 20-40-60% giving. Why would we leave resources that God has entrusted to us off the table when we can be investing those into eternal Kingdom purposes, to be honoring Him with all that He’s entrusted to us? And I mean, in addition to loving Him, loving our neighbor by avoiding investment in companies that hurt or harm or again prey on their addictions and weaknesses. Wait, it’s also an act of evangelism. Because if we as Christians invest no differently than the world, how then is Jesus so enticing? And so even in our day to day, I believe that we are taking action that may perk the interest. I mean, certainly, I have quite a number of clients who aren’t followers of Jesus. But you know, like you were saying earlier—those kinds of conversations, those type of relationships that this type of work allows, there are opportunities to share Jesus’ love, and share the story of His means of salvation. So to me again, this whole message of faith driven investing, that you’re getting all these extra benefits at no cost is, I think, one of those stories that not a lot of people are thinking about, or even as you suggest and I concur, the possibility of that excess alpha. And that, by the way, I will celebrate our Lord Jesus who has brought that about. I think we see that when we look at the performance of the different managers involved in this movement.

Luke Roush: One of the things we always like to ask, folks, is what God has been teaching them lately and it doesn’t need to be like this morning or last night, but more just how has God been speaking to you lately, Mary, in terms of your work or, you know, things in your community all to just get what’s on your heart.

Mary Naber: Just another thought I had when I was thinking through this, this particular podcast—you’re talking about that 10-20 percent to give. Let’s not leave 40 or 50 that we invest or save or spend on the table. And I also believe if we can through when we pay our taxes, do we say a prayer that God would use those resources and do something to redeem them? Right. So we can pray over all aspects and consider God in all aspects of everything He has entrusted us.

But another kind of thought I’ve been reflecting on is this idea that I think—consistently through Scripture and during the FDI talk, I had this opportunity to kind of share John Wesley’s sermon, “The Use of Money: Gain All You Can”, and that would always be quoted to me “gain all you can” as though as long as you’re gaining all you can, it doesn’t matter that we care—so far as how the money is made—as long as you get all you can, right? No, no, no, no, absolutely. We absolutely have to think about the source of our wealth. And John Wesley goes on to say that, and Scripture goes on to say that. And I think my point here is that, I think scripture consistently suggests that if we have not taken consideration as to the source of our wealth, that even our generous giving may be in vain. 

Okay, that 10, 20 percent, you know, don’t be the believer who drops that off at church and then leave, because one of the Scriptures that moved me so deeply is that of Isaiah, in Isaiah 1, where he is prophesizing “Stop bringing meaningless offerings, your incense is an abomination; though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered in blood.”

Why would it make sense to us that God would ever want us to put before Him on the throne gifts made through ill-gotten gains? I wouldn’t be that interested either. And so why would we take the risk that that which we’re giving may be considered meaningless if we haven’t considered the source of our wealth?

Henry Kaestner: That’s a really important concept. That’s a really important concept because, you know, the traditional framework for a Christian, for many Christians, including myself to some extent, has been “I want to make as much money as I possibly can over here with my left hand, and then to the extent I understand the biblical message of generosity, I want to give away as much as I can over here. And what we’ve been talking about at faith driven investing of course, is that the very process of making the investments over here might accomplish the same ministry and missions goals we have over here. And you’re saying yes, but also that original framework we had may not have been as effective as even we thought at the time, which is “make as much money as we can, regardless of how we get those results, and therefore that giving, that generosity and that’s what really matters”. And you’re suggesting no, no, no, no. In the event that we get investment returns and investing in things that were Corbyn or just, you know, just difficult and messy,… I’m not a theologian, so I should know the Corbyn reference better. But if they’re invested through ill-gotten gain or things that were not holy in and of themselves, then that giving actually doesn’t glorify God in the way that maybe we had thought.

Mary Naber: Yes, you said it perfectly. Thank you. I completely concur. 

Henry Kaestner: You’re welcome. So the passage is from Isaiah?

Mary Naber: Isaiah 1:15, yes…

Henry Kaestner: Mary, this has been awesome.

Mary Naber: Oh, thank you. I’ve had so much fun. Thank you this opportunity.

Henry Kaestner: It’s infrequent that we find, you know, I think that we are all, including these podcast hosts, are starting to really think about it much more deeply and that God has done a work in all of our hearts. It’s clear that you’ve been thinking about this for a very long time, and I’m grateful for your work and I’m grateful that our listeners get a chance to hear how you put together these just awesome arguments that starts off with some of the basic things from game theory and Pascal’s Wager and just extend it through to what you do as a job in the financial markets and you bless us and thank you.

Luke Roush: And we got into Pareto efficiency, which is a first on the Faith Driven Investor podcast. A big win.

Henry Kaestner: Thank you for bailing Luke out.

Luke Roush: Hey, one last thing to wrap. So talk to us. Just one thing that God’s told you recently about your walk.

Mary Naber: So I would say I am a single working mom of three, and I have those days where I don’t get to spend time in the morning with the Lord. So I obviously think in a stewardship financial mindset, we always think first fruits in terms of our giving, and I just feel like He’s really imparting on me the importance of the first fruits of my time in my day. And I was deep i- the vision that He struck me with was not building the house on sand or rock, but me trying to walk on shifting sand. On those days, I haven’t built my day, my time, my meditation and prayer on Him that I’m literally like living in a little state of semi-anxiety. Not really. I’m not super anxious, but I mean, just off-kilter and on shifting sand. And yet those days when I get to spend that time with the Lord and get up a little early and it’s always suggested you grab your coffee—haha, just to wake up. To enjoy those times and start that day on the rock is like a night and day different experience, and I thank God for that. I thank God for how He shows up when we, not always, but you know, He will be there saying we might not always feel it, but He is there and that is something He continues to teach me.

Luke Roush: Grateful for that. Mary, appreciate you. Appreciate your groundbreaking research many, many years ago in an arena that has become, I think, more in vogue and more interesting and larger and yet you’re one of the first movers. So we’re grateful for your work in that regard and grateful for your friendship.

Henry Kaestner: Indeed.

Mary Naber: Oh, thank you. So all take care.

Andy Crouch: I want to talk about two mysteries relating to Jesus most famous words about money. And of course, you know what they are. You cannot serve God, and most modern translations will say money. So the first mystery is why not? Why couldn’t you serve God and money each in their appropriate way, the way Jesus said you could God and Caesar. So Caesar’s, the pagan emperor of the Roman Empire, people pressed Jesus on the question of whether they should even pay taxes disease. Is there any says, well, render to Caesar what Caesar’s and render God wants God. So serve Caesar in a proper ways. Don’t serve Caesar the way you serve God. Don’t treat Caesar like a God. But you can serve Caesar in his appropriate way and serve God. Why does Jesus never say you cannot serve God and Caesar? But he does say you can’t serve God and money. And then what exactly does Jesus say? Because older translations have Jesus saying You cannot serve God and Mammon? What does that word doing there, and what would it mean that Jesus said, You cannot serve God, not just in money, but God and Mammon? So first question first, why? Why is money more powerful than Caesar? I want us to justice because money, especially in large quantities, gives you a power that Caesar does not have. What is money? You learned it in economics. It’s a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value. And this means that money is fungible, countable, storable power. Power, the ability to get things done in the world. The ability to get what you want in the world. The ability to get that and get things done, perhaps even without other people wanting that to get done. That’s power and money gives you a form of power that’s fungible, countable and storable. So fungible it can be exchanged for other things. So this this obviously is one of the key things about money. It’s actually a very little use all by itself, but you can turn it into whatever you want. Not true of most forms of power, including Caesar’s. Caesar has a great deal of power as the Lord of the Roman Empire, but he can only exercise his power in that office in that land. He’s not the emperor of China. He can’t just arbitrarily decide he wants something totally different or wants to exercise his power in somewhere totally different. His power has to be used in a particular context because most power is contextual, but money allows you to use power wherever you want anywhere that legal tender is accepted. You can exchange it into anything. That’s power that Caesar doesn’t know, at least doesn’t know because of his role as emperor, then it’s accountable. You know how much you have of it, and this is definitely not true of most kinds of power. How much power exactly does the CEO of a company have? Well, certainly some. But if you’ve ever been in that role, you know, it’s hard to know exactly how much you have. There’s certainly no way to count it, but you can measure money, you can count money. You can know how much is on your balance sheet, how much is available to spend, and you can’t really do that with power. There’s an uncertainty to other kinds of power, but not with the kind of power that we call money. And maybe most powerfully, you can store it. It’s storable, a store of value. You can save it for later. And most kinds of power have to be exercised now at the moment that you have it because you may not have it later or it may not be given, except in a given moment. I’m I have a certain amount power as speaker at FDE. I’ve got this moment. I’ve got the power to speak to you right now, but I can’t save it for next month or next year. I’ve got to use it now. But if I have money at a time of my choosing, I imagine at least I can use it. And all of these kinds of power are kind of Caesar doesn’t have. And all of them add up to a power that is not dependent. There is no dependance in the power of money in the way there is in most other forms of power, even political and military power. Caesar only had his role because he was the adopted or sometimes biological son of a powerful man. It was a relationship that gave him power. Even in our modern democracies, people get power through the consent of the governed. But if you have enough money, the honest truth is you can get whatever done you want without anyone really having to know or care or even validate who you are because money talks without you having to be a person, it’s impersonal power. This is a power greater than any other in the world. And if you have it or had it or can imagine having it, why would you need God? Who needs God? When you can get what you want, whatever you want, when you want it, when you know how much you have, you can store it and you don’t have to be any particular kind of person to get what you want. Who any God? When you add money. So this is the first reason you can’t serve it, because this is a the most direct rival to God in human affairs. And the reason people come to you and the reason you and I live with anxieties about money with hopes for money is because of the kind of power we imagine that will give us. But there’s also a deeper thing going on, and it gets to the word that Jesus used. Jesus was speaking Aramaic the way he probably did his whole life. His biographers, the gospel writers, translate his words into Greek, and then we translate in case of English speakers into English so we can understand. But every once in a while, the Gospels will leave an Aramaic word untranslated, and they do so in this case. They write down in Greek, you shall not. You cannot serve God, and they just leave it on translate mammon. It’s a Semitic word that roughly means money or assets held in trust or the create trust. Why is why do they not translate this word? Well, what kinds of words do we not translate the most common kind of word? We don’t translate our names. You don’t translate a name from one language, although you just transliteration that name. And that’s what the gospel writers do here. And the early church concluded that the reason they did this is they understand they understood something that Jesus was saying, which is that we’re not talking about an ordinary noun here. We’re not talking about even just a principle or an idea. We’re talking about a quasi personal name, mobile power in human affairs that intends something that has a will in the world that is opposed to the will of God. And the ordinary way we talk about this ordinary, extraordinary way is that we are talking about a demonic power. The early church concluded that Mammon was not just an idea or a principle, but the name of a being in service of the enemy of all that is good. The opponent of all of God’s works in the world that we sometimes call Satan or the devil. That Mammon is this demonic force at work in history with a kind of quasi personal ability to whisper and speak to human beings and to arrange and distort human affairs in a particular direction. And what is it that man and wants to get done in the world wants the opposite of what God wants. God has made this good, beautiful, abundant material world. He fills it with persons. He says this world is already very good, but now I want you to feel the Earth multiply and bring forth all the possibility and all the value out of the world. As the world is filled with persons that will become full of the knowledge and love of God and the knowledge and love of one another, and in some ways, the knowledge and love of the world itself. While Mammon being aligned with the demonic, being part of the demonic forces that work in history hates all of these things. Of course it hates God. It wants us never to depend on God. Mammon hates creation itself, doesn’t like the material. World wants an immaterial world that’s purely spirit. And think about how money functions as a as as it gets more advanced, it becomes less and less metaphysical. We don’t carry around gold anymore. We just account in our minds the imagination of how much we have. And Mammon hates persons. It wants you to operate impersonally. It actually wants to turn persons into things. In fact, one mammon really gets its grip into a human society as it had gotten its grip into the Roman Empire as it got its grip into capitalism that built our western world. The result is treating persons like things, treating persons impersonally. This is what slavery is. It’s treating a person like property. It’s treating a person like a thing. And while God wants the world to be filled with persons so that the whole world will be known and loved and God will be known and loved and everything Mammon wants to empty the world of persons want Mammon wants everything to be impersonal so that there’s no one and nothing. No one left only things and ultimately not even material things, just an immaterial world that is devoted to pure power without dependance. You cannot serve a demon that wants to destroy a person’s relationships creation itself. And also serve the true God who wants to reunite persons, restore relationships and liberate creation from its bondage to decay. You cannot serve God and Mammon and this demonic power called Mammon. Besides our world, our modern world in an absolutely unique way in history. How can you doubt this is the principle that is driving human events in a way that wasn’t even true in Jesus Day wasn’t even true a thousand years ago, but is incredibly true today. You cannot serve God and Mammon. And so I’ve started to think that what’s Faith Driven Investor? I mean, investing is about the deployment of many kinds of resources, but especially financial ones, especially in our modern world. Money based resources. Is our job just to sort of do that with Christian principles, kind of, you know, obviously not violate Christian principles, but just do things with money in the world and maybe make money in Christian ways in the world. I think that is not nearly deep enough for what we’re actually called to do. We are actually here insofar as we are people who operate proximate to money and the whisperings and power of Mammon to take back territory from this demonic power and from these false promises of fungible, storable, accountable power. And reclaim territory for the relational creation loving God, who has placed us here to tend his world. So we’re going to do that. We’re gonna need to do two kinds of things. We’re going to need to have some detox moves and some creative moves or creative resistance, let’s say, to the empire moment. The first thing we’re going to have to do is just thoroughly dethrone Mammon and this imagination of money as power, without relationship abundance, without dependance, we’re going to have to dethrone that from our lives. So just two quick detox ideas that I think all of us need to take super seriously. The basic way to dethrone money and mammon is generosity. It’s giving because most ways we use money give us control and safety, but giving releases control by definition, when you give you no longer have control giving is risky. By definition, when you give, you’re giving up some store of value. You could have held on for some other use. And you’re just you’re just saying, I release it. It is the basic detox activity. The Christian Church has often taught a kind of principle of tithing on income, and I think that’s a really good thing, though I think many of us should probably aim for a higher percentage than ten. I just want to say what what has been absolutely transforming for my own life and our family in the last 10 years is twice now we have felt God leading us to tithes, not on our income, which we continue to do and a graduated way, but to tithe on our assets. So we calculate our net worth, all the things that are entrusted to us that we know how to value, and we find a way to liquidate 10 percent of that and give it away to the purposes of God’s kingdom and the good of our neighbors. I will tell you, I don’t know if you’ve ever tried this. If you try it first, it is incredibly hard to pull the trigger in that way. It feels really risky in a way that tithing on your income doesn’t because you can’t know that income is coming in. But this store of assets I have I mean, this is my store for the future. This is my promise of security for the future of options, for the future. And 10 percent is enough to hurt, at least for us. And once you do it, the joy and freedom you feel with relation to money is just unbelievable. It has been the thing that has just truly emptied me, especially having done it twice now in the last 10 years, just emptied me of the fear and love of money as near as I can tell, and my life is just gone. It’s just not part of my anxieties. And instead, I’m joyfully anticipating the next time I got to give away this level at this level in my life. The second detox was so generosity is the first. The second would be something I’m not really going to model here so directly, but it’s transparency. If we were together in person and I do this with many, many groups, have you been part of it? And I do it with many individuals. Rather than just talking about our family’s generosity in percentage terms, I would put up graphs and tables that have numbers on them. They show you how much we make in a given year our family, our household, how much we have been entrusted with our net worth, how that’s changed over time, how we’ve given, how we’ve spent, how we’ve saved all with real numbers. And when I do that consistently, people say I have never, ever heard a fellow Christian outside of some kind of confidential fiduciary relationship. Tell me how much they have and how much they make. Brothers, sisters, this should not be so this secrecy that we have around these numbers that are are the most immaterial thing about our lives is a sign that Mammon has its grip on us. And a very powerful way to detox is to open up your books. Not in a willy nilly way, and I don’t do it when it’s virtual and online because it’s severed from our relationship right now. But in any kind of relationship, I’m happy to share the complexities of what what God has entrusted to our family and how we’re trying to be faithful with it. Why is this not normal in the Christian community? Because we are trying to serve God and money. We’re trying to serve God in heaven at the same time. If we detox, if we are so lavishly generous for so openly transparent, what will we be free to do? What will become possible for us to strategies of creative resistance to man? And the first is we will be able in every transaction, every investment, every business decision to prioritize not money, but people to prioritize people, relationship with people, connection with people. The primary question we will ask about every deployment of our assets, including our spending as well as our saving and our investing and our giving is what will this do to strengthen relationship, to create capacity of love and dignity and respect for other people so that we can all do in the world what we were made to do? Only those who are free of mammon can realize that every transaction is actually an opportunity for love, to grow, for love, to be expressed in the world and a secondary byproduct is whatever accounting we may make of. The value that we can trust will be created as we operate a loving and people prioritizing where a person prioritizing where in the world. And then the second strategy of creative resistance to Amen, amen is that we can learn to be just ridiculously patient, ridiculously patient, ridiculous. That is to mammon. Because Mammon is in a hurry. Mammon wants you to make more of that money. Fast Mammon wants you to move so fast you don’t notice the people you’re running over to make it. And we learn from our Lord Jesus, and we learned from God’s own way with his creation that there’s this incredible divine patience that’s available to us. We are not in a hurry, so we will think less and less about IRR, more and more about what you know, some people call MLA multiples on investment. God is in the world. God wants us to be in the world to create multiples on investment, for sure. But our timing, how fast the velocity of money that’s ultimately up to God. That’s not the most important, not the most important thing. And this will lead us to have a thousand generation vision for our lives. If you give yourselves over to madmen, give yourself over to mama and you act and all the exploitive ways that madmen would have you act in order to get more of that countable, storable fungible power. You will do a lot of damage, but we know exactly. Or we know, according to God, how long that damage will last. God says if you enter into that kind of iniquity and mammon leads us to iniquity, it will do damage unto the third and fourth generation. This is Deuteronomy five nine. But the interesting thing is, even if you operate very ethically in the way that we’re taught to in modern investment in business, the truth is that the results financial and otherwise of of even our best investments, even our best enterprise building also probably will last about three or four generations. Honestly, most family wealth is kind of exhausted after three or four generations deluded. Most businesses don’t last more than that. Most of the work you and I do in our daily work, let alone the financial investments we place. I mean, realistically, it’s only going to last three or four generations. Picard says to those who love me and keep my commands and walking my way, I visit blessing to the thousandth generation. That is not going to be measured primarily in any kind of financial return that is measured in the flourishing of persons in the transmission of a love in the creation of redemptive possibility in the world. And it’s only available when we are completely serving God. We’ve completely detoxed from serving money. Any use of money is simply to serve this God on on whom we are completely dependent. Can we do that? Can we live in this world that mammon rules in a totally different way? Can we totally dethrone its power from our lives so that all of our workers, investors and spenders and savers and givers? Is devoted to God and God’s ways, prioritizing people. Pursuing patients, it’s as easy as a camel going through the eye of a needle, right with human beings, it’s impossible. But with God, all things are possible. Thanks.

Jacktone: Faith Driven Entrepreneur Africa spotlights the stories across the continent, which is why you will mostly hear distinctively African stories on this podcast. But we are also part of a global network, so we’ll mix in some of the best stories from around the world to hear what God is doing in other areas as well. Today’s episode with Tsitsi Masiyiwa, what was originally recorded on the Faith Driven Investor podcast, and we are excited to share her story with you. Tsitsi is a philanthropist and social entrepreneur, she is executive chair and co-founder of Higher Life Foundation, whose primary goal is to invest in human capital development to thriving individuals, communities and sustainable livelihoods. Her work has garnered global recognition. She has received honorary doctorate degrees from Morehouse University in Atlanta, Georgia, and Africa University in Mutara, Zimbabwe, as well as the prestigious Champions for Change Award for leadership from the International Center for Research on Women. I. C. R. W. More recently, Tsitsi has pioneered impact investing in Africa through the establishment of Delta Philanthropies in 2017, which seeks to unlock and catalyze innovative solutions to the elimination of poverty by convening strategic partnerships and incubating new development models. We are excited to share her story.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor Podcast Special International Edition today with a special International Edition co-host, Reuben Coulter. Welcome to the program.

Reuben Coulter: Thank you. Delighted to be with you Henry.

Henry Kaestner: Reuben, you and I have known each other for years, and you’ve been the director of international strategy here and faith driven for what, about a year now? Something like that. And we’ve talked about all sorts of different really cool things going on in the world and projects that we get a chance to work on together as we look to encourage a global movement behind Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Faith Driven Investor, which is the topic we’re talking about today. And yet most of our listeners probably don’t know who you are. So, Reuben, who are you? Where do you come from?

Reuben Coulter: Well, as you may hear by my accent, I’m originally from Ireland, but based in Bristol in the U.K. and I’m married to a wonderful Polish lady. And we have two children, five years old and a three years old, the first born in Switzerland and the second born in Kenya. So we’re a truly international family, and I guess we’ve been called by God all over the world to serve him. I originally started off really wanting to understand how do we tackle poverty and help alleviate poverty around the world. And more recently, I realized that the question needs to be changed and needs to be flipped. How do we create prosperity and how do we help communities flourish? And so that’s taken me from working in the refugee camps in Darfur and Liberia for many years as a public health specialist. Then to the corridors of power at the World Economic Forum, where I curated the Davos event and the Africa Summit, and worked with business leaders and governments, helping them think through inclusive economic policies. More recently, I’ve become passionate about the role that entrepreneurs can play and how they are pioneers and changemakers and at the forefront of really tackling some of the big problems in our world. And some of the most incredible entrepreneurs I’ve met are from the continent of Africa, from Kenya, from Zimbabwe, from Nigeria. And they’re basically there isn’t a legacy infrastructure. And so they’ve had to build things from scratch in the area of financial technology, in agriculture, in health care. And it’s been just so exciting to be on that journey together with you. Henry over the past year.

Henry Kaestner: It has been and as I’m listening to you, it’s strange, of course, that we’ve waited a whole year to have you talk about it, and yet you’ve been behind the scenes. You’ve been helping us put together guests. And I’m so encouraged about doing this our first time, and I look forward to doing many more. And for this first time, we’ve got a very special guest that you have known now for a while and admired and had known that she would be a perfect guest for the podcast. And I’m hoping that you can introduce Tsitsi to us help us to understand what about her story really brought you in and then of course, we’ll ask her to tell her story. But Reuben, why don’t you introduce our guest and then I’ll ask her some questions and and then we’ll have a good conversation today about the balance between giving and investing and how to think about sub-Saharan Africa as a Faith Driven Investor.

Reuben Coulter: Yes, I’m so delighted to have Tsitsi Masiyiwa with us today. She’s an African philanthropist and a social entrepreneur and she’s a pioneer. She is someone who has been working for decades as the executive chair and co-founder of the Higher Life Foundation, whose mission is to build thriving individuals, communities and sustainable livelihoods. And with a particular focus on her home country of Zimbabwe. I had the privilege of meeting Tsitsi and her husband Strive at a conference a number of years ago where thought leaders in the UK came together to think about how do we use our talents for the common good? And the reference for that conference was the small group at the Clapham Circle who met a few hundred years ago in this little suburb of London, headed by William Wilberforce and many others. And they said, How do we use our influence, our gifts to change slavery, change the labor laws in the country, and bring about what we now understand as reformation during the Victorian era. And that conference was asking how do we do the same? And Tsitsi has been asking these questions for both our home country and of course the continent of Africa. Tsitsi is also a founding board member and the chair of the Africa Philanthropy Forum, as she’s the trustee of the Legatum Institute, the End Fund, UNICEF’s Gender Unlimited Initiative. And on the boards of many other organizations, the list goes on. And we’re just delighted to have you today to share a little bit about your story and your journey, both on the philanthropic side and on the impact investing sides.

Henry Kaestner: Indeed. Indeed, that’s an incredible background with amazing depth. And yet Tsitsi you have not yet been on the Faith Driven Investor podcast.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: No, never.

Henry Kaestner: Never. We’re humbled and honored that you’re with us. You’ve got an incredible life story. Give us an overview of that journey. Who are you and where do you come from? Please.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: So I am a Zimbabwean born in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a beautiful little country in southern Africa, population 15 million, very tiny GDP in comparison to the United States, around 21 billion. 70% of our population lives in the rural areas. And also it’s a very young population like the rest of the African continent. So 62% of the Zimbabwean population is under the age of 25. Primary economic activity is around agriculture, mining and a little bit of tourism. And with COVID, of course, tourism is not really making any headway. And I’m sure people have heard of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Victoria Falls. So that’s what Zimbabwe is famous for. In terms of me personally, you know, I trained in business not with any intention of going into business. And I also didn’t come from an entrepreneurial family background by any chance of the imagination. It was purely because I started studying agriculture and then discovered too much chemistry and moved to study business, which was a lot easier. But how we got into philanthropy was very much through the business door. So my husband used to be in construction buildings and his main customer was the government. And he decided after having come across an exciting new technology called mobile telephone technology, decided to set up mobile network service in Zimbabwe. So he applied for a license and the government said no private citizens cannot carry communication on behalf of the government and the public because of this sensitivity of information. And when he looked at the Constitution, what he read was that everybody had the right to access to information. So he decided to take the issue to court because he felt that the position the government had taken was contrary to our constitutional rights. And of course, I asked him he wasn’t a believer. I was a Christian then. And I looked at him and I said, Do you want to sue the government? He said, Yes. I said, Well, I have faith, and if it were me, I wouldn’t do that. What’s the basis of your confidence? He said, No, no, no. It’s a very straightforward case. I would take them to court. It will take three or four months after that will be done. And I would have my business. I believed him. And guess what? It turned out to be like a five years legal battle where we ended up literally losing everything we had. But in the process during that period, Zimbabwe was going through a pandemic, just like we’re going through a pandemic right now, and it was HIV and AIDS. And when I saw just firstly members of my own family die, I had an aunt who lost eight children from HIV and AIDS. And these are people I loved that I grew up with. And I began to question myself as a believer that what can I do? What role can I play? And it was in the process of that. Plus I was going to taking the government to court and ending up losing literally everything we had that I began to ask God, what is the purpose? What is my purpose? And if we went to have a business, what would we do with the money? Because. You can only sleep in one bed, drive one car, live in one house. So for all the pain and suffering. What was it all about? And I connected the dots between the terrible, heart wrenching experience I was going through and seeing communities just decimated by HIV and AIDS. And then also that opportunity, that intersection was about. Use the resources that you have to do what you can. And for Strive and I an obvious choice on how we could play a role in alleviating the suffering was to go into philanthropy and use our resources to give scholarships to orphaned children. So in a nutshell, that’s how we started the business and how we went into philanthropy.

Henry Kaestner: So this is no small business that you all have started. It’s got some level scale. Most of our audience are entrepreneurs and investors. Give us a concept to think about a business in Zimbabwe. Most people will have an image in their head. And yet what God has done through you all is something altogether different, a greater scale. Tell us about the business and what Econet Global has become.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: Sure. So when we started, you know, we thought we’ll probably get 100,000 customers and live happily ever after. Well, as you know, that technology just opens amazing doors for development on the African continent. But in terms of our business in Zimbabwe grew from literally 0 to 100000 customers and over a period of time to 11 million customers. So currently, you know, we are the biggest MNO or mobile network operator in Zimbabwe. But we also saw opportunity so around early 2000. My husband left Zimbabwe and decided to move to South Africa so that we could explore new opportunities in South Africa. And that led us to begin to build the business. And we expanded from South Africa to the UK and then built a footprint on the African continent. So currently we are in more than 19 African countries. The business has since gone beyond mobile telephony to building fiber so millions of Africans can have access to the Internet. So we have built undersea cables, we have built on land cables, and we’ve really opened up Internet access into areas that honestly, there was just no way of people communicating from village to village or town to town. So it’s been incredibly fulfilling as entrepreneurs and also as believers to just see communities that would have no access to the Internet being used to open up these countries and build infrastructure. From DRC, Congo to Zambia to South Africa to Kenya, you know, the list goes on. We’ve actually built a connection from literally from Cape to Cairo. Yeah. So it’s an incredible journey.

Henry Kaestner: That’s incredible. And I recently saw a map of Africa and saw the United States in it, India in it, China in it, Africa. So when you’re going from Cape Town to Cairo, you’re not talking about a small area. There’s a lot of customers. It’s a lot of land. Tell us a bit about how your faith impacts the business you run and how you’re able to do business as you’re guided by your faith. That might be different than others that are in the same marketplace.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: So I think right from the beginning, for me, it was important to be very transparent about my faith. So when we started our foundation, we just openly said it’s a faith based foundation. And we also decided not to really look for funding from anybody so that we would remain true to our values, our mission, our purpose and our vision. So faith is central to what we do. We hire stuff that’s come from all different religious beliefs. We have men who are not believers, who are not Christians, etc. but they come into the business and they come into the foundation knowing what our beliefs are, because that really informs the way we make decisions in partnerships, the way we make decisions in investments, and also the culture in the organization. So faith has been a central part of who we are and of what we do. And I think what has helped is just being very, you know, not everybody is able to do it, but for us, it’s just been very easy to be very open and transparent about it and and to talk about it openly here.

Henry Kaestner: So you and Strive have this incredible platform and influence because of the size and scale of the success that God is giving you. You’ve been labeled Africa’s power couple. How do you steward that influence and blessing?

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: Well, you know, thank goodness. You know, we have the Bible to build context on what power is and the ways things could get very complicated. So when people say power couple, for me it is more about how are we using the platforms that God has given us to be able to influence decision makers to do good and also to influence our communities that we are very heavily embedded in. Our philanthropic work is we implement all our projects. So we are very embedded in the communities that we work in. So in that respect, I think we are very much, let me tell you, rely on the power of the Holy Spirit more than any other power. It’s given us just the ability to be able to understand other forms of power that either affect what we do political power. Because a lot of the work that we do involves governments, regulators and […]. So it’s understanding the different forms of power, but knowing the power that moves us and informs how we do our business, our investments and our philanthropy.

Reuben Coulter: I’d like to shift gears. As the name of this podcast implies in the conference. We’re mostly focused on investing. However, we realize that not all the world’s problems can be solved purely by investing. Some issues do require philanthropy, or sometimes we like to call us gospel catalytic giving. That might be whether it’s a humanitarian response or addressing basic needs. So I’d like to understand a little bit more about your foundation, Higher Life. You have this wonderful tagline, Investing in People for Africa’s Prosperity. Can you unpack a little bit of what you do?

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: So at Higher life, we do impact investment at different levels. So we do grantmaking and scholarships because of the type of communities that we are working with and the type of communities that we invest in. Our primary target groups are vulnerable communities and in particular orphans. So that has informed the manner in which we do our giving the communities from early childhood development level to primary school to high school to university to Ph.Ds. So because we are building human capital resource, we see that is our contribution to strengthening Africa’s ability to provide highly skilled and competent pool of human resources, plus also lifting levels of literacy, especially for those who are not able to really go beyond high school. So the investment has to be scholarships and grants in then comes to working with communities where sustainable livelihoods is. At the center of what we try to do is to provide grants, but also low interest or no interest loans in order to give our communities the opportunity to invest in their livelihoods, but in a way that honors their ability to contribute something, which is, you know, their labor, their efforts, their times, their skills, but also in a manner that doesn’t burden them by having to carry out loans. You know, so where it’s appropriate, we look at doing impact investment and giving out patient capital in order to strengthen sustainability in communities, so ability for the communities to improve livelihoods. We’ve also found it important for us to also partner with your big suppliers, where we’ve gone in to invest in businesses for profit so that they can increase their capacity to be able to provide goods and services to communities that would be unattractive for them if they did not access our type of patient capital or types of investments.

Reuben Coulter: So it’s going to say, let’s unpack each of those, because each of those is, as I know, a huge piece of work. And so I’d love to kind of understand a little bit better. So you talked about patient capital. So can you explain to us kind of what that looks like in practice? And yeah, how do you go about doing that?

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: So for Patient Capital, we’re looking at where we have given loans at very low interest rates. So initially, I’ll give you a specific example of investments we did. Our goal was to increase poultry production because the two companies we’re working with needed to build capacity. But the investment that they needed for them to build capacity to service your small buyer required funding that was fairly inexpensive and also that gave them a lot of leg room to be able to build on their cashflows and also profitability. So that’s the patient capital. So what we did, we invested in these two companies. They were able to increase their capacity. Number one, to train new smallholder farmers. That would then be given a batch of one day old chicks, look after them, raise them over a period of 8 to 12 weeks, and then be the supplier back to the company that we invested in. So it has worked very well. Because it allowed those companies, like I said, to consider investing in small holder farmers that they ordinarily would not consider or would be unattractive for them also to. It allowed the companies to go into areas where levels of poverty are very high, levels of rainfall are very low, and where economic activity is at a minimum. So communities were able to see income generating projects that actually made money and improved the livelihoods of those farmers who have participated in projects like that. So I’m very excited in that. It’s an area we are expanding and in the next season we are hoping to recruit a lot more farmers. We also, if I can also just add one other project which also excites me. So there is a group of farmers who came up with a very climate smart type of approach to farming agriculture to increase productivity among small holder farmers. So we partnered with them and trained small holder farmers as a pilot during the 20, 20, 21 agricultural season. So we provided training, which was around $118 per person, and that included comprehensive training over a week, plus a small pack of your seeds and all the inputs that are needed for the farmers to plant a seed and be able to harvest enough maize for a family of six. We had a mixed bag of results, I have to say. I would love to say it was highly successful, but I think for the pilot we learned a lot of lessons. There were things, of course, that we didn’t know but we should have known or we were too ambitious. But I think the important lesson for me was to understand the impact that if we are to invest more of this patient capital in these small holder farmers, the impact is not only evident to the farmer in terms of higher income per family, but also it gives the farmers the ability to really be empowered and have skills so that even once we are gone, we are not able to offer them patient capital. They still have the ability to grow their crops in a sustainable manner.

Reuben Coulter: Yes, now that it’s super exciting and I believe the partner you are working with is foundations for farming. Is that correct?

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: Absolutely. Foundations for farming. And they have gone all over the world now. I think they are quite their rock star in terms of climate, smart agriculture.

Reuben Coulter: Yeah. So foundations for farming for our listeners is a wonderful organization helping farmers in regenerative agriculture, really using natural organic methods to grow, and they’ve just seen phenomenal results. I believe that Craig Deall is the CEO of Foundations for Farming. We were with them just a couple of weeks ago, and I believe this year was the highest crop yield that Zimbabwe has seen and 25 or 30 years, which is just so encouraging for the country.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: Absolutely. I think that for me, the turning point was when the government realized that this was a sustainable strategy that would enable the country to be more food secure and also provide farmers with the right skills to be able to produce at a level that can take care of your average family in a village.

Henry Kaestner: Tsitsi I’m hoping you might be able to help us unpack a topic that’s come up a lot, and I’ve thought about it as an investor in Africa a bit too, and navigated through it with the help of some good counsel. But it’s just the concept of patient capital. There’s an investor in America named Marc Andreessen, and he’s famous for saying, I will buy a house, meaning I will make an investment or I will buy a boat, which he says is making a gift, a philanthropic gift. But I won’t buy a houseboat. A houseboat is a combination of two, and they have them on lakes here in America. And what he was doing is he was referring in that illustration to a houseboat being patient capital or an impact investment because it combined too many aspects of both giving and investment. And he just couldn’t make sense of it. So he wanted to stay away from that. I think that we as Christ followers need to be drawn into that space of patient capital, that it’s not so black and white. That’s not just market return capital. We clearly can see through to a 20% return on investment or that is just a gift that there’s a huge area in the middle and yet it is complex. Some of those complexities, as I’ve seen in the past, is how do you think about patient capital amounting to a subsidy and does that create an artificial market distortion that the entrepreneur can work their way out of so that they can then graduate to someplace where they can get access to maybe larger pools of capital that are in the market, but at market rates, how do you process that with your investing? And maybe I’m even thinking about the framework wrong.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: It’s always important, I think, to look at the context because if you’re sitting in the US. And you’re looking at patient capital. What it means in the US is very different to what it means in Africa. Our histories are different. In the US you are probably maybe second or third generation university exposure to entrepreneurship. You’ve seen US grow from, you know, industrialization to information age, all those phases. We are not in an environment like that. Majority of the people that you are going to come across is first time graduates from university. These are those who you are likely to meet in a conference. But remember, 70% of the population still lives in the rural areas, number one. Number two. 70% of the population has no access to clean water and they have no access to power. So even the concept of a houseboat is strange. So if the fundamentals are different, it’s very difficult to arrive at the same conclusions or to see patient capital with the same lens. So patient capital for me allows us the runway we need as Africans to be able to catch up. So we need to where Europe and the US where the West is there to far ahead. You are talking of GDP per capita of 60,000, 80,000, 100,000. Majority of the sub-Saharan Africa is living on a dollar 90 a day. And so you have to look at where are the areas one needs to invest, number one, to build the skills necessary in order to create an environment that allows open space for innovation, for high levels of productivity, and that requires, you know, high levels of literacy and education. So that’s at one level. And then at the second level to understand the importance of business entrepreneurship. Capitalism is something that many sub-Saharan countries are not familiar with because we come from a background of countries. We are young countries that were born out of liberation movements and most of them with financed and funded by Union of Soviet Socialist Republic and China. So the influences of Russia, India, China in terms of entrepreneurship made entrepreneurship something that is not general mindset was a lot of people generally think of employment and jobs and not job creation and entrepreneurship and then added to that a perception that capitalism is evil and that it takes it does not give. So all these underlying factors, I think, have really affected the way in which you look at investment, you look at wealth creation, and also the way you look at what economic empowerment means. So when I then look at patient capital, I see it as it’s one of the strategies that we need to ramp up and ramp up very quickly in order to help us leapfrog so we can get to a place where we can begin to build an entrepreneurial class that is highly competitive and that can produce products or services at the level of your highly developed countries.

Henry Kaestner: That’s very helpful. So this is an investment. It’s an investment in a generation to be able to build the infrastructure, to build the culture, to build the mindset that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship. And I think what you’re suggesting here is that if you accelerate too fast in expectation that that these entrepreneurs who don’t have the university training and don’t have generations of this type of mindset, if you accelerate them too fast and to needing to return the same type of results you might have from a Western European investment that the system will break, it’ll be thought of as being exploitative and that we just we need to be patient and that the market will develop when people can start to trust the market. Yeah, along those lines, tell me a bit about the participants and I understand enough about sub-Saharan Africa to know that there’s not a broad base of local investors that can put local skin in the game. And yet you clearly are leading by example in that regard. And they bring so much confidence to a Western investor that wants to deploy capital but wants to do it on terms with others that really know the market, understand the culture, and also put their capital at risk, whether it’s patient capital and market return capital. Do you see that developing or are you and Strive just such an anomaly that that has not yet developed? Are you hopeful? Talk to us a little bit about the state of local investment, people investing back into the local community.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: You know, I would like to think that the story of an I over time becoming the norm rather than the exception. And simply because we were very blessed to go into an industry in which Strive had expertize in. He was a telecoms engineer, so he understood what it takes to invest in an industry like that. He understood that local capital alone will not do it. So he knew that if years to build the business, some of the options he has to look at not only domestic capital to invest in the business, but also to look at long term capital, which is you’re taking the company public in order to deepen and widen the pool, the access, the capital for the business. Also, I think the experience he had had working with, you know, the World Bank has IFC, which was very much active when we started our business in the 1980s, especially in Zimbabwe, investing in medium size businesses and that is patient capital. So he was able to attract some of that funding. But Zimbabwe is not a normal country, by the way, because of the political complications around the US, sanctions against the country, etc.. But we’ve seen an amazing crop of entrepreneurs develop in your Nigeria, in Kenya, we’ve seen even a rising class in Ethiopia, in South Africa. And I believe that has come about by. Government’s understanding the importance of creating a macroeconomic environment and also a regulatory environment that makes it possible for local entrepreneurs to be able to access funding and also to just lower the entry barriers so that it’s easier the opportunities are easier to take advantage of. I think yeah so. h onestly, I don’t think, you know, we are a unique couple by any stretch of the imagination. I think we are very blessed to be able to have done what we’ve been able to do, but we are also in an industry. What we picked was a high growth industry and transitioning from mobile telephony to building fiber internet. I think that also was just very strategic in helping us to expand very quickly in a short period of time.

Reuben Coulter: Yeah, no, it’s it’s so encouraging. You were one of the first couples to sign the Giving Pledge, which, of course, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and were encouraging other people to give away their wealth and become more generous philanthropists. And but you’ve also gone on to chair the Africa Philanthropy Forum, and you’ve been mobilizing others and encouraging others. And over time, that’s really grown into a substantial movement. And it’s great to see the emergence of philanthropists and investors giving back and making a difference. And COVID 19 has obviously devastated the world. This third wave has been hitting Africa and Zimbabwe particularly hard. What is the situation like on the ground now and how should international philanthropists and investors who are listening to this podcast respond? What should they be doing to support what’s going on?

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: I think, you know, COVID has it has devastated every country globally. And I think initially when it started, when we began to see the effects in countries like the UK, Italy and the US, a lot of people were talking about that maybe between 20 and 25 million Africans would die simply because the health systems, there’s no capacity to respond to the pandemic. And thank God it hasn’t happened that way. And I will say one of the things that I have seen that has really helped was, number one, all hands on deck. That is, everybody understanding they have a role to play in order to ensure that this pandemic does not decimate communities. And it also helps that the tools to make sure information gets very quickly to communities and communities are quickly educated about what COVID is, and its impact really helped a lot. So we were able to see information go quickly, move very quickly into communities on, you know, what is COVID, what are the dos and don’ts and how do you, you know, keep safe? But at the African philanthropy level, the philanthropists really stepped in and they stepped in in millions, not small amounts of money. There was deep levels of collaboration, especially in the private sector. We saw in South Africa a big solidarity fund put up in order to quickly get protective clothing and PPE and also testing equipment in collaboration with the government. We saw Nigerians also step in. They put in more than $100 million to quickly, again, partner with the government to get their test kits on the ground and get as many masses of people tested as quickly as possible. In the smaller countries, what we have seen through our work in African Philanthropy Forum is to see how smaller countries have built networks for resource mobilization money and also businesses have stepped in and a lot of private hospitals have been built in various countries in order to ensure that the health support systems are put in place. What we did in Zimbabwe, for example, we partnered with a philanthropist called Elma Philanthropies, and we’ve done a lot of training of literally from doctors to nurses to auxiliaries, staff training to build morale and strengthen the skills of the health sector. We also were able to partner to bring in quickly deploy equipment that was basic equipment that was needed in the major hospitals in order to ensure that we did not see a breakdown in health delivery services. So, you know, I’ve been very encouraged as an African philanthropist at seeing just how at the local level how communities have stepped in and mobilized resources to be able to respond. Of course, we’ve also seen, you know, schools close. And I think we’ve. Really lost two years in terms of education, kids not learning anything. I think majority of the children in especially in rural communities, just haven’t been to school for two years. So that is a major, major problem we are facing. How do we respond? I think you need the private sector to step in. The government needs to step in. And, of course, philanthropy needs to step in. And I think the donor community needs to change its model. This is also one of the things that became very obvious during COVID. You know, in the past, you’ve had all these donor agencies, communities that are constantly flying all over the continent and spending, having a very high cost structure to deliver their services. And what has been very evident is, well, no one can travel. And it’s not like the continent has collapsed because the donors have not been coming. What has become very evident is change the model, become more efficient in how you deploy resources and that the donor community must can do what it does effectively without having to, you know, to make too many decisions out of, say, in New York, Washington, D.C. or London, but rather to be more trusting of what local communities can do and partner with them to implement work that needs to be done on the ground. And then lastly, leave the private sector to do what the private sector knows how to do, which is they are very good at innovation, good at deploying resources, good at logistics. And also, they’re just an amazing reservoir of ideas to solve problems.

Reuben Coulter: Thank you. I think that’s a wonderful notes for us to end on is the challenge to philanthropists. We need to be locally led. We need to be driven by capable local leadership and trust them and empower them to do what they do best. They know their community, they know their people, and for the private sector and for the investor community to come in and innovate and supports the innovators and entrepreneurs on the continent to help them grow and develop. But don’t just transplant a venture capital model from the US, but understand what type of capital and supports is relevant in the local environments, and how can that help entrepreneurship and innovation flourish for the prosperity of Africa? One final question. We always love to wrap up our interviews with this question, which is Where does God have you, in his words, right now? What is he speaking to you?

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: Oh, I am so excited about what lies ahead, but I really feel we all need to take a very long term view in the decisions we make, whether it is in investment or making decisions in our own growth as individuals or families taking a long term view. See, when we make decisions with a long term view, you are always more willing to absorb the pain of change and decisions that one needs to make. So yeah, that’s what I feel. The Lord is saying that let’s not look at short term benefits and forego long term gains because we want instant gratification.

Henry Kaestner: Tsitsi., I’m grateful for your time. I’m grateful for your leadership in Africa and for the message that you shared with us today. I’m wondering if you might pray for us as we all leave and go out and have days where hopefully we’ll honor God and be used by Him for His glory. In Europe, where Reuben is, and in North America or Justin and I are in and in Africa where you are.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa: Sure, Father, in the name of Jesus. I’m just so grateful for this opportunity. The conversation we’ve had, Lord, these are not ordinary words. These are words that are spirit and life, that not only will they impact the way we think and the way the listeners think and see and perceive what we can do to make the world a better place, but also that these conversations will open up our minds to see just how great our God is and that we, through a difficult season of COVID, that we have an opportunity to do something compelling in unity with the Spirit of God, in unity with one another driven by love. Father, I want to thank you for the impact also of the work that is being done by your children, and that the doors that are open to the new doors that are opened will result in us being able to do things that cause your name to be glorified and to be testified in all this, in the name of Jesus Amen.