Debra Schwartz '88

In the late 2000s, the term “impact investing” began to gain traction in the world of finance. The strategy itself, however, was met with a degree of skepticism.

Among many investors, “it was unthinkable that investments could have both a financial return and a social return,” recalls Luca Torre ’06, co-founder and co-CEO of GAWA Capital, an impact advisory firm based in Madrid.

Today, however, GAWA Capital is proving those early critics wrong. The firm is an advisor to two funds — the GAWA Microfinance Fund and Global Financial Inclusion Fund — which support the growth of social enterprises in underserved or low-income markets in East Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia. The funds currently have more than €40 million assets under management and maintain an investment strategy that balances market-rate returns with positive social impact. GAWA is now one of Spain’s top impact investing firms.

Torre co-founded GAWA in 2009 with fellow Kellogg alumnus Agustín Vitórica Gutiérrez-Cortines ’99. Though they never crossed paths during business school, Torre and Gutiérrez-Cortines say that their shared Kellogg experience was foundational to building a strong business partnership.

“There is full trust and very little ego, so it is not really about me or about him — it's just about the project,” says Torre. “That's an important lesson Kellogg taught us: generosity in working with and supporting your classmates.”

For these co-CEOs, the overarching goal of GAWA is to leverage the power of markets to help millions of people “in different ways — by alleviating poverty, providing better health services and leveraging technology to improve agriculture,” Torre says.

For Torre, that’s satisfying on both a personal and professional level.