Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Politician, civil rights lawyer, author and businessman, Deval Patrick joined Bain Capital in 2015 and is a managing director of the Double Impact business.  He is the only African American to have served as governor of Massachusetts, served from 2007 to 2015 and was re-elected in 2010. A member of the Democratic Party, Patrick served from 1994 to 1997 as the United States assistant attorney general for the civil rights division United States Department of Justice under President Bill Clinton where he worked on issues including racial profiling and police misconduct. He attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. After graduating, he practiced law with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and later joined a Boston law firm, where he was named a partner, at age 34. Deval is the author of two books, A Reason to Believe: Lessons from an Improbable Life, and Faith in the Dream: A Call to the Nation to Reclaim American Values.

Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Deval include:

• The two guideposts that have informed Deval’s career: 1) Doing something in our time that leaves something better for those behind us; & 2) No matter what the job is, never leave your conscience at the door

• Deval expresses his frustration that philanthropy and government have been letting business off the hook and he sees impact investing in part as a way to address this

• Deval’s observation that politics punishes failure, so it’s no wonder that we don’t see a lot of innovation in that arena

• Bain Capital’s choice to not create their own impact metric tools but to use B Lab’s GIIRS, a commonly recognized impact metric tool that allows for more direct comparison

• Balancing impact & financial return and challenging the notion that there must be a  tradeoff between the two, Deval poses the question, “why would you trade return for impact if you don’t have to?”

• An exploration of exit innovation and alternative exit strategies like worker-ownership

• The growing trend led by millennials whereby businesses have to actually stand for something meaningful in order to remain relevant

Resources:

• Doing Well By Doing Good: From Governor of Massachusetts to Bain Capital Managing Director, Deval Patrick is Finding the Best Way to Do Good

• An Interview With Bain Capital’s Managing Director in Impact Investing Deval Patrick

• What we know about Bain Capital’s $390 million Double Impact Fund

Videos:

• Asking the Right Questions Across Politics and Business - MLC Interview with Deval Patrick

People:

• Sir Ronald Cohen

Organizations

• Bridges Ventures

• SJF Ventures

• TPG Growth

• Kapor Capital

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.