#91: Beyond the Shiny Product: Designing Capital for Local Markets
In this episode, Joy challenges the financial sector's fixation on the next "shiny" financial product. Drawing on Criterion Institute's experience desiging investment vehicles across markets, she argues that the problem is often not a lack of financial innovation but a mismatch between capital structures and the markets they are intended to serve. From instruments and fund domiciles to risk assessments and investor requirements, Joy asks what changes when we design investment processess and structures around local realities rather than imported expectations. How might we shift from asking whether communities are investment-ready to whether capital is context-appropriate?
Joy is then joined by Gladys Kivati, economist, sustainability specialist, and Founder and CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting, who grounds these ideas in agricultural markets across Africa. Gladys describes how direct access to finance, market information, business support, and cooperatives can give women greater ownership, negotiating power, and influence across value chains. Together, Joy and Gladys move the conversation beyond counting how many women receive financing to ask: does investment actually change who sets prices, controls information, captures value, and exercises economic power?
00:00 - Why better investment design starts with the market
03:28 - Imported fund templates and Africa’s capital misalignment
05:23 - Choosing instruments that reach local enterprises
08:18 - From de-risking to asking whether capital is context-ready
09:42 - Why local domicile requires investment in local capacity
12:24 - Domestic capital holders can shape investment norms
14:06 - Who sets prices, carries risk, and controls value?
15:53 - Gladys Kivati on moving women from takers to makers
18:09 - Why counting women financed misses changes in power
20:31 - Loans, market information, and agency in value chains
23:25 - How cooperatives build collective bargaining power
26:20 - Women’s economic power and more resilient economies
32:04 - Capital, information, and networks strengthen producers
34:53 - Four questions to improve investment vehicle design
37:14 - Criterion Institute’s systems-change work
Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn
Joy Anderson’s LinkedIn
Gladys Kivati’s LinkedIn
Pacific Possibilities: Designing Better Financial Vehicles for the Pacific
A particularly direct companion to this episode. The report examines investment vehicles designed around the economic and social realities of Pacific markets, including trade-finance approaches, and explicitly argues for designing vehicles that "fix the capital" rather than forcing enterprises to fit conventional investment models.
Addressing Power Dynamics in Investment Processes
This report examines how investment processes can respond to intersectional power dynamics in local context, using C4D Partners' work in India as a case study. It connects closely to the episode's argument that gender lens investing should examine how financial structures shift power rather than simply track participation.
#01: Fix the Capital, Not the Company. Part One.
This is probably the closest companion episode. Joy Anderson asks how investment vehicles can be designed for the context in which they invest, including why capital should adapt to enterprises rather than requiring enterprises to adapt to capital.
#78: Intermediation Is Not Overhead
Joy Anderson explores innovative finance through the infrastructure, intermediaries, instruments, and replationships that determine how capital actually moves, making it a strong continuation of Episode 91's focus on designing the systems around capital rather than simply creating another product.
#79: From Invitation to Trust: Rethinking Relationships in Finance
This episode looks at power, trust, permission, and influence within investment relationships, extending Episode 91's challenge to examine who has authority and negotiating power within financial systems.
#88: The Politics of Time in Investing: Exit Horizons, Runways, and the Futures We Finance
A useful continuation of the design question: this episode examines how supposedly technical choices such as exit horizons, repayment schedules, liquidity, and fund structures determin whose needs and timelines capital ultimately serves.
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The TOOLKIT is designed to support your journey as you explore how finance can be used as a tool to create social change.
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