In conversation with Leslie Labruto, inaugural Director of the Marshall Impact Accelerator

Venture philanthropy and investment specialist Leslie Labruto is the inaugural Director of the Marshall Impact Accelerator. She shares her plans to bring this new initiative to life and make a real impact in the world.

You are joining LSE from Acumen, where you served as Head of Investment Strategy. What attracted you to the Marshall Impact Accelerator? What made you decide to take on the role?

While there are accelerators for commercial enterprises, there is no world-class, research-based accelerator for social ventures and charities. The opportunity to lead such an organisation is exhilarating, especially at this moment in time when social innovators are needed more than ever.

There were three things that made me incredibly excited about this rare opportunity. The first was the clear vision of the Accelerator. From my experience, there's an obvious missing piece in impact investing – it lacks public engagement and policy shaping. But the Marshall Impact Accelerator will bring all that into the fold to start shaping real change on a much larger scale.

The second reason was an explicit and tangible commitment to support the initiative. We seldom see this level of resource and capital towards backing accelerators. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to help craft, lead and transform our vision into a reality.

And the last thing was the team. The leadership at LSE, Professor Stephan Chambers and his team at the Marshall Institute are world class. What they’ve built is just inspirational, and this was a huge part in me saying yes to taking on this role.

What are the first priorities you are focusing on?

First of all, listening. You have to do a ton of listening to really understand what we need, build the right strategy and bring our vision to life. And they're unique elements to LSE we have to embed in everything we do. We need to understanding what research LSE is leading on in the global domain, how the School operates, and what the priorities are in terms of thematic areas. So, listening has been a huge part of what I've been doing for the last two months.

We also need to focus on the logistics. How do we move money? How do we build a digital presence? How do we ensure that the link to the School is clear? And the third key priority is building a team that can deliver our ambitious mission. How do we create the kind of culture and team we want to make a long-lasting impact?

The Accelerator is embedded in the heart of LSE. What advantages does this bring to the project?

There are many accelerators and funds in the world, and they are quick to highlight solutions.

For example, if we want to improve education in Kenya, another accelerator might decide to fund the distribution of laptops in schools. But at LSE, we understand that the number one way to improve education in Kenya, especially for women, is to have latrines at schools. Women lose five days of school per month due to menstruation, so if you build latrines in schools you will see material and long-lasting differences in outcomes for women in education in Kenya.

If we understand the root of a problem, we're going to back better ventures, different ones than a traditional funder or accelerator would. We have 650 faculty here, 150 assistant professors, nearly 12,000 students – we know global problems and seek to understand their causes. Taking time to unpack those and build them into the DNA of our Accelerator will set us apart.

What is your long-term ambition for the Accelerator? What do you hope it will achieve?

I want us to stay realistic but ambitious - that's the best recipe for success. I'd love to see three things happen.

The first is to source underseen diverse founders who have solutions to problems and are providing impact, but who aren't getting picked up by mainstream accelerators. Second, we want to prove that our model works, that there is a pathway for nonprofits and for-profits to shape public dialogue if it's powered by research and knowledge. And finally, if we're able to demonstrate our success, we can also shape the way philanthropy is given.

By continuously learning from our work, we might need to pivot and do things differently in order to find new ways of solving problems. But we have that flexibility, we have that nimbleness. And part of it is not coming up with the answer right away, but changing our own model and direction to be responsive to emerging needs.

The Marshall Accelerator has been made possible thanks to the visionary philanthropic support of Sir Paul Marshall. How would you encourage alumni, friends and partners to join in the journey and support this initiative?

We're still brand new but there will be lots of ways in which people can get involved. We're going to need experts who are willing to roll up their sleeves and help our social entrepreneurs along the way. It can be a lonely road for an entrepreneur, so being able to tap into LSE’s global alumni network is an incredible place to start. LSE alumni have gone on to do incredible things in the world, they are world leaders in business and policymaking, and their expertise is invaluable.

We're also going to need people who believe in what we’re doing to keep backing our efforts, especially thematically. £50M is an incredible start – and we will need to go further. If you are interested in climate for example, come on the journey with us and understand what we're learning, not just on the venture side, but also on the problem/solution side.

And we’re definitely going to need people to spread the word once the Accelerator is live. We're still in building mode, but we will need our entire LSE community to share what we do and encourage promising social ventures to join us, so they can access the capital, research backing and expert support we can provide. We're going to need a true network effect to make this as successful as we want it to be.