Rocio Cavazos Ep. 55 - Can you overcome gender bias for a cause like investing in plant products? How is your business impacting the community, creating solutions for the greater good? There are many ways that your business can positively impact those around it like impact investing, sustainability, empowering women and low-income earners, and much more. So, ask yourself; what can I do to impact my community? Rocio Cavazos is an engineer turned successful investor with a cause. Growing up in a society where gender bias was prevalent, Rocio Cavazos always found that she was attracted to professional industries where women were few and far between.
Top Takeaways:
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- Having a purpose in empowering women and the overall social good
- Learn the businesses that impact investing would look to invest in to impact the community
- Having the passion to invest in what you truly believe while still empowering women
- The power of prioritizing feminine principles in business and other sectors to find the lacking balance
- The importance of sustainability and supporting entrepreneurs who are devoted to solving the world's problems
- How to change the world by recognizing our preconceived notion about women and then working towards eliminating them
Listen in to learn about the urgent need for change in the world today to sustain our planet.
"I just felt that it was time for me to create my own contribution as an investor and I decided to focus on the plant-based sector because this is a sector I deeply believe in."- Rocio Cavazos
Rocio is a finance and impact investing professional with over 20 years of experience in commercial and investment banking, capital markets, social investing, and microfinance. She started out as an engineer then later transitioned into finance where she worked on Wall Street for 12 years in another male dominated industry. Being passionate about empowering women and wanting to create an impact through social purpose led her to focus on micro-finance where she could empower low income women in the developing world. As an investor, she decided to focus on the plant-based sector which is primarily run by women.
Rocio is founder of Ananda Group, a Mexico City-based organization that invests in entrepreneurs who are empowering consumers to adopt an ethical, healthy, environmentally conscious and compassionate lifestyle. She has focused on social businesses and impact investing for over half of her professional life. In this field, she oversaw investments in social enterprises in over 30 developing countries for Deutsche Bank in New York.
She has been vegan since 2010 and is a founding steering committee member of FaunAcción, a group that supports Mexican animal rights activists and promotes a plant-based lifestyle.
Learn about the steps that we need to take as women to ensure we work towards eliminating preconceived notions on gender biases.
Key Moments:
Rocio describes how her childhood shaped her adulthood like leaning more towards male-dominated fields and later finding a passion in socially empowering women in different areas [1:45]
She defines microfinance and impact investing and how they're both geared to help and impact communities [4:58]
How Rocio is focused on supporting and empowering businesses that are creating plant-based products and helping people adopt healthier lifestyles [7:32]
Why there's a huge need for serious changes in the world today for the sustainability of the way we live on this planet [10:43]
How she took a leap of faith in investing in sustainability and trusted that everything would turn out great [14:26]
Rocio describes some of her best moments when she witnessed the impact of her work on others [15:36]
She talks about the moments she has faced discrimination and subtle ways discrimination against women still exists [16:52]
How she's motivated by people contributing to the needed solutions in the world [19:12]
Learning about our preconceived notion about biases against women [20:17]
Rocio advises women to stay pulled by their vision for the future and not their past [22:58]
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