Roots To Foods Podcast

Every country has assets and liabilities. What would development cooperation look like if it started there instead of with aid?
Ovidiu Bujorean speaks with Alexia Latortue, Head of Secretariat of the Future of Development Cooperation Coalition and former Assistant Secretary for International Trade and Development at the U.S. Treasury. She has worked inside CGAP at the World Bank, the EBRD, the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the Treasury. She now runs the Coalition, co-hosted by ACET and the Center for Global Development, which is rethinking how development cooperation works.
In this episode:
Why institutions are full of inertia, and how individuals inside them can move it.
The development balance sheet: starting from a country’s own assets, liabilities and vision rather than the aid flow.
The four purposes the Coalition proposes for development cooperation.
Why aid is small but precious, and which flows actually drive development.
Where change is already visible, from Rwanda’s country-led approach to multilateral development banks acting as enablers.
“Because ODA it’s small and because it’s so precious, and because used well it can be so catalytic, we had better use it exceptionally well.” Alexia Latortue, on official development assistance
🎧 Episode 9 of the RootsToFoods Capital Series, produced by OviBees Ventures, with AV Ventures (an ACDI/VOCA affiliate) as founding partner and AllAfrica Global Media as media partner. A French edition follows on October 27, 2026.
📰 Capital Insight brief: rootstofoods.com
📩 Subscribe to the Capital Deployment newsletter on LinkedIn to get every Capital Insight brief as it’s published: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/capital-deployment-7454225038356013056
Next: Episode 10, on November 3, 2026 with Kanini Mutooni, Senior Managing Director of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation and Dr. Frank Aswani, CEO of the African Venture Philanthropy Alliance.

How does private capital get from investors to projects in emerging markets, and what stops it on the way?
Ovidiu Bujorean speaks with Wasim Tahir, CFA, Senior Advisor at ODI Global and Research Fellow at the Harvard Center for International Development. As a director at British International Investment, the UK’s development finance institution, Wasim developed its mobilization strategy and led its first secondary loan sale to an institutional investor.
In this episode:
What counts as private capital, and why shrinking aid budgets push development finance institutions to bring private investors with them.
How BII moved from buy-and-hold to originate-to-share, selling aged loans to recycle capital into new deals.
Why blended finance changes the risk of a whole deal, and how guarantees can be cut to fit one specific risk.
Why domestic capital markets and national development banks matter more than another new instrument
“It’s like saying you’ve got quite a spicy soup and you drop a bit of milk in to cool it down so more people can eat it. Everyone sort of benefits in some ways.” Wasim Tahir, on blended finance.
🎧 Episode 8 of the RootsToFoods Capital Series, produced by OviBees Ventures, with AV Ventures (an ACDI/VOCA affiliate) as founding partner and AllAfrica Global Media as media partner.
📰 Capital Insight brief: rootstofoods.com
📩 Subscribe to the Capital Deployment newsletter on LinkedIn to get every Capital Insight brief: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/capital-deployment-7454225038356013056

Capital corridors aren't built from scratch, they're recognized, then organized. In Episode 7 of the RootsToFoods Capital Series, Michael Meehan, founder of the Forum for Impact and former CEO of the Global Reporting Initiative, talks with host Ovidiu Bujorean about what it takes to build the trusted corridors that let capital actually move: the invite-only network of 1,000+ family offices and institutional investors he's built across nine countries, and why one of its busiest corridors right now runs between the Gulf, Europe and Africa.
Produced by OviBees Ventures, with AV Ventures as founding partner, in partnership with AllAfrica Global Media.
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EP06 - Catalytic Capital: How Philanthropy Shapes Climate InvestmentRandall Kempner, Executive Director, Climate Philanthropy Catalyst Coalition
Wave 2 of the RootsToFoods Capital Series opens with the question that has run under every conversation so far: what is the specific form of capital that moves when nothing else will?
Our guest built the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) from the ground up, a field-building institution whose purpose was never a financial return but the ecosystem conditions that let profit-making businesses in emerging markets grow. He now leads the Climate Philanthropy Catalyst Coalition and has spent more time than almost anyone alive studying what philanthropy can do that nothing else can.
In this conversation, Randall Kempner and host Ovidiu Bujorean cover:
Why climate philanthropy has never exceeded 2% of total global giving, and why that's an intent problem more than a mechanisms problem.
Why a foundation's real leverage isn't the 5% it grants each year. It's the other 95% sitting in its investment portfolio.
Philanthropic collaboratives are where the highest-leverage work is happening right now. Groups like Forest & People Climate, Global Methane Hub, and ORCA (ocean resilience) pool resources around specific high-impact solutions. 
"Philanthropy should be the first in - period. Its job is to take the risk to move money." - Randall Kempner
For the practitioner-level breakdown of this conversation, three takeaways, and the data behind it, subscribe to Capital Deployment, our LinkedIn newsletter for practitioners closing the gap between capital intent and deployment: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/capital-deployment-7454225038356013056
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cofondateur de Priceline.com et Booking.com, producteur d'un album de jazz ayant remporté un Grammy Award, producteur exécutif d'une émission de télévision ayant remporté un Emmy Award, Président du Global Entrepreneurship Network - actif dans 190 pays - et membre du Conseil consultatif mondial d'OviBees Ventures, Jeff Hoffman clôture la Vague 1 de la RootsToFoods Capital Series.
Dans cet épisode, Jeff explique pourquoi la plupart des fondateurs ne sont jamais formés à la mise à l'échelle, ce qui distingue une adéquation produit-marché réelle - trouvée sur le terrain, pas au bureau - d'une adéquation supposée, et pourquoi la qualité la plus prédictive du succès d'un fondateur est sa capacité à rester «coachable ». Il revient aussi sur le programme GIST à Jakarta en 2014, sur l'histoire de Tiket.com, et sur ce qui, douze ans plus tard, reste la même question: comment construire l'écosystème qui absorbe le capital d'impact.
L'épisode se termine par la synthèse de la Vague 1 : cinq invités, cinq perspectives sur l'écart de déploiement du capital - et la conclusion de Jeff : la plus grande peur d'un entrepreneur ne devrait pas être de perdre du capital, mais de ne rien faire.
Cet épisode est également disponible sur Spotify, Apple Podcasts et les autres plateformes connectées.
La RootsToFoods Capital Series est une plateforme bilingue (anglais/français) destinée aux praticiens de la finance du développement, du blended finance et de l'intelligence des corridors de capitaux entre l'Afrique, le Golfe, l'Inde, l'Indonésie et les Amériques — à destination des family offices, des leaders philanthropiques, des entrepreneurs et des investisseurs institutionnels. Diffusée en partenariat avec AllAfrica Global Media.
Pour recevoir chaque nouvelle Capital Insight directement sur LinkedIn, abonnez-vous à la newsletter Capital Deployment : https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/capital-deployment-7454225038356013056
La Vague 2 revient en septembre, avec des conversations sur le capital institutionnel africain, la philanthropie indienne et les family offices indonésiens.

Episode 5 — Building the Ecosystem That Absorbs Capital: The Entrepreneur's Perspective
To close Wave 1, host Ovidiu Bujorean sits down with Jeff Hoffman - co-founder of Priceline and Booking.com, Chairman of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, and a member of the OviBees Ventures Global Advisory Board. The two go back over a decade, to Jakarta and the GIST Initiative, where a young founder named Natali Ardianto was in the room - his startup Tiket.com went on to become one of Indonesia's leading travel platforms, later acquired by Blibli. This time, the question is different: after four episodes on the capital side, what does it actually take to build ventures that can absorb it?
Hoffman brings the founder's view to a series that's mostly looked from the investor's chair. Why product-market fit is found in the field, not the office. Why coachability beats intelligence. Why the "missing middle" is really a communication gap, not a capital gap. Sharp, practical, and a fitting way to close out Wave 1's five-part arc from deployment gap to ecosystem building.
Listen now, and subscribe to the Capital Deployment newsletter on LinkedIn for corridor intelligence and key insights from every episode - Wave 2 returns in September 2026: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7454225038356013056/

Titre: ÉP 04 Mobiliser Les Capitaux Africains pour L'Afrique - Dre Frannie Léautier - RootsToFoods Capital Series (1er épisode en français)
Nouveau partenariat: la RootsToFoods Capital Series s'associe à AllAfrica Global Media, la plus grande plateforme d'information du continent, pour diffuser chaque épisode, Capital Insight et newsletter en anglais et en français.
Pour marquer cette étape, voici le premier épisode entièrement en français : Dre Frannie Léautier, PDG de SouthBridge Investments et ancienne Directrice des opérations de la TDB, de la Banque mondiale et de la BAD.
Au programme: pourquoi l'Afrique n'a pas un problème de capital mais un problème d'acheminement - environ 4 000 milliards de dollars d'épargne institutionnelle africaine restent sous-déployés ; pourquoi les gestionnaires de capital sont rationnels et c'est le système qu'il faut changer; pourquoi la finance mixte doit devenir une industrie, pas un art ; et ce que les données d'investissement ne captent jamais — le risque relationnel, la capacité d'exécution, l'économie politique.
«Le plus grand risque pour l'Afrique aujourd'hui n'est pas l'absence de capital -  c'est qu'il ne soit pas déployé assez vite.» Dre Frannie Léautier
🎧 Une production d'OviBees Ventures. Partenaire Médias : AllAfrica Global Media.
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📰 Capital Insight complet sur rootstofoods.com

In this episode of the Roots to Food Podcast, host Ovidiu Bujorean, CEO of OviBees Ventures, speaks with Dr. Frannie Léautier, Senior Partner and CEO of SouthBridge Investments, about the opportunities and challenges of mobilizing African capital for investment across the continent.
Their discussion focuses on the role of domestic wealth in financing infrastructure, supporting economic growth, and reducing dependence on external funding. Dr. Léautier reflects on the potential of pension funds, institutional investors, and other sources of capital to contribute to Africa's development agenda, while highlighting the reforms and partnerships needed to attract and sustain investment.
The conversation also explores the relationship between infrastructure and economic development, the importance of strong institutions, and what it will take to create an environment where African capital can be effectively deployed to support long-term growth.

Guest: Jenn Kenning, Co-Founder & Former CEO, Align Impact
Why does philanthropic capital stay stuck even when the intent is genuine and the money exists?
Jenn Kenning has spent 25 years at the intersection of wealth management and impact — partnering with financial advisors, institutions, foundations, and families to turn values into capital strategy. Her answer to the deployment gap is not structural. It is human.
In this conversation, Jenn and host Ovidiu Bujorean unpack three key things:
→ The biggest myth: that impact investing requires sacrificing returns or taking more risk. It does not.
→ The gap is not products or instruments. The most powerful unlock in impact investing is a client who has found their own why — and an advisor with the capacity to ask the question that surfaces it. When those two things meet, capital moves.
→ Just 5–10% of global philanthropic giving redirected toward impact unlocks $115–230 billion annually. The donor intent is already there. The roadmap is not.
Jenn introduces the quarterback co-pilot model, goals-based planning as the unlock for scarcity psychology, and the one question that changes everything in an advisor-client conversation.
This is Episode 3 of the RootsToFoods Capital Series — a five-episode practitioner series on the mechanics of capital deployment, hosted by Ovidiu Bujorean, CEO of OviBees Ventures. The series brings together senior practitioners across blended finance, impact capital, and emerging market development to talk honestly about why capital does not move even when the intent is there.
Capital Series Wave 1 · Episode Arc
✅ EP01 · Nathaniel Heller, EVP · Geneva Global — The conditions problem
✅ EP02 · Joan Larrea, CEO · Convergence Finance — The blended finance instrument
🎙 EP03 · Jenn Kenning, Co-Founder · Align Impact - The human dynamic ← YOU ARE HERE
🔜 EP04 · June 16, 2026 · Dr. Frannie Léautier, CEO · SouthBridge Investments - Mobilizing African Capital: Domestic Wealth, Infrastructure & Change
🔜 EP05 · June 30, 2026 · Jeff Hoffman, Chairman · Global Entrepreneurship Network - Building the Ecosystem That Absorbs Capital: The Entrepreneur's Lens.
Stay Inside the Capital Series:
Subscribe to Capital Deployment LinkedIn newsletter - publishing one practitioner issue per episode — three key insights, the data, and an editorial frame. 👉 linkedin.com/newsletters/capital-deployment-7454225038356013056 
Download the Capital Insight — EP03 A free two-page practitioner brief with key insights, data, and verbatim takeaways from this conversation. 👉 https://www.rootstofoods.com/episodes
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Website: www. rootstofoods.com
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/roots-to-foods-podcast/id1712747151 
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6bodsZnw1IEGcf3KLdmxif 
RootsToFoods Capital Series ·Host: Ovidiu Bujorean, CEO, OviBees Ventures

Wave 1, Episode 2 of RootstoFoods Capital Series interviewed Joan Larrea, CEO of Convergence Finance - the world's leading data platform on blended finance. Joan brings three decades of evidence to one of the most important questions in impact investing: how do you structure capital to actually move? In Episode 2 of the RootsToFoods Capital Series, she maps the anatomy of deals that work, where catalytic capital creates the greatest leverage, and why the right structure can turn $1 of concessional investment into $4 of private capital deployed in emerging markets.