#151 From city hopping to native: Pioneering regenerative agriculture with Anne van Leeuwen

This episode is a recap of four conversations I’ve had with incredible pioneers of finance for people and planet. Impact investing, but not just done the same old way. Each is creating something completely different and truly new. And each is also a person I consider to be very special and am blessed to have as a friend.   You’ll just hear a snippet of each conversation, so you can then go and listen to the whole episodes you feel drawn to. Now that we have over 150 episodes, we occasionally make a summary episode to help you navigate the library which still remains highly informative and relevant.   In episode #148, Patrick Somerhausen, co-founder and -CEO of Funds for Good, talks about honour loans where they give entrepreneurs in need loans that they only pay back if they can. 92% come back, to go round again to another entrepreneur in need. He also talks about “funds for love” which is a beautiful concept and words you don’t typically hear together in finance!    You’ll hear from Jacqueline van den Ende who, in episode #143, shares how she built Carbon Equity so far, the innovative platform enabling private individuals to invest in breakthrough climate tech. We talk about how to build something that outlives you, a new perspective on money greater than money itself, shared ownership structures, and legacy thinking, as well as getting personal and vulnerable at the end of the episode.   Episode #135 with Brenden Keon is close to my heart as Brenden is my partner at our fund Barefoot Ventures, and he shares how his journey from finance to permaculture brought him to designing a new model for finance that can be truly regenerative - that’s when we met a couple of years ago.  We discuss some of the core principles and thinking underpinning our fund.    Finally in episode #129, Monika Vollmer shares how you can develop personally through investing, the challenges of changing rapidly, and how to feel into a company you believe in when investing, with this less tangible side being key to investing as well as the rational and analytical.   I loved having all of these conversations, and together they make a rich tapestry of a future of finance that looks very different to the system today. Enjoy!   Please let me know in a short review which episode, guest or takeaway grabs your attention, and always feel free to reach out to me on instagram or linkedin with any questions.   To listen to the full episodes, search for:   #148 From investing to society: Loans of honour with Patrick Somerhausen #143 From investor to founder: A new perspective on capital with Jacqueline van den Ende #135 From finance to impact investing: Stewarding regenerative business with Brenden Keon #129 From business to investing: The personal side of positive impact with Monika Vollmer   Discover show notes, book recommendations and more on www.goingconscious.com.   Connect with Nikki: Instagram & LinkedIn @nikkitrottwww.consciousaccelerator.com  

Anne is a pioneer of the regenerative movement in the Netherlands. In March 2024 she moved to the 45 hectare Lenteland regenerative community farm in Lochem, having started Bodemzicht farm and foundation with her partner in Malden in 2019. She’s a founding farmer of the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture (EARA) and previously worked on the relationship between humans and the rest of life at Artis Royal zoo and co-founded the Embassy of the North Sea in Amsterdam.   In this episode we talk about combining art and nature in culture, how to move beyond the dichotomy of ‘nature’ and humanity, how to find radical clarity with your statement of purpose (in 3 steps), the benefits of reconnecting with the seasons and cycles of life, and how to become native again as the deeply interconnected beings that we are.   Discover all episodes and more on www.goingconscious.com.   Connect with Anne: LinkedIn Anne van Leeuwen   Connect with Nikki: Instagram & LinkedIn @nikkitrottwww.consciousaccelerator.com  

In this special episode, Nikki shares her insights on the main five themes she’s learned from over a hundred interviews for Going Conscious. What a milestone! She couldn’t have done it without all of you listeners, and extends her gratitude to each and every one of you.   Listen carefully as she tells a secret!   Discover all episodes and more on www.goingconscious.com.   Connect with Nikki: Instagram & LinkedIn @nikkitrottwww.consciousaccelerator.com  

In this special episode we bring you a guided meditation to help you to connect with your true self and create your most fully expressed life.Connect with and embody your radical authenticity, enabling you to live as the most genuine version of yourself.   This is a profound journey of alignment. Embracing your authenticity means you can align with the most fulfilled version of yourself, as well as with your highest skills and gifts. Being truly authentic, firstly with yourself, can feel like a brave leap into the unknown or away from a pack. And it is for the brave. But it is a journey that promises freedom, happiness, and connection will fill your life.    I invite you to listen to this meditation every day and notice how your life starts to change.   This meditation is set to music using Alpha waves to help you enter a deeper meditative state, bringing you calm, mind-body integration and learning.   Discover podcast notes, all episodes, book recommendations and more on www.goingconscious.com.   Connect with Nikki: Instagram @nikkitrottwww.nikkitrott.com

Patrick is Co-founder and Co-CEO of Funds For Good which has €600 million under management and donates half of its profits and at least 10% of its income to societal impact, helping people in precarious employment to create their own jobs and supporting entrepreneurs whose primary aim is to help solve society's problems. As you’ll hear, I’m a real fan of their innovative and highly impactful model.   In this episode we talk about how to approach wanting to do something more useful, where entrepreneurship and finance meet, funnelling money towards people in precarious situations, loans of honour, why size matters, micro finance as a tool to fight poverty, funding the agriculture transition, radical collaboration and business with love.   Discover all episodes and more on www.goingconscious.com.   Connect with Patrick: LinkedIn Patrick Somerhausen   Connect with Nikki: Instagram & LinkedIn @nikkitrottwww.consciousaccelerator.com  

Caterina is an ESG and Sustainability advisor with focus on the luxury and fashion industries. Her clients include Maison Alaïa, Chloé and Aspesi, and she supported Chloé’s journey to become the first luxury brand certified as a B-corp. She also advises several United Nations initiatives and is a social entrepreneur herself as the Founder of SeeMe, a pioneer ethical jewellery brand whose heart shaped jewellery is handcrafted by women survivors of violence. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of World Fair Trade Organisation, a seasoned speaker and a Guest Lecturer at SDA Bocconi on the MA Luxury Business Management course.   In this episode we talk about the moment of collective awareness in Paris that spurred her into social enterprise, why the human aspect of fashion’s responsibility is undermined, how we can bring our infinite growth economy to positive impact, what social procurement is and why it’s the new attitude that can really change lives, and how to understand the waves of every decision you make.   Discover all episodes and more on www.goingconscious.com.   Connect with Caterina: Instagram @caterina_occhio LinkedIn Caterina Occhio   Connect with Nikki: Instagram & LinkedIn @nikkitrottwww.consciousaccelerator.com  

Hanae is an entrepreneur who has forged a career in tech startups and nonprofits. As a young Muslim Moroccan, she has had to create her own rules for success. She has worked as a consultant in 32 countries across Africa and spends half her time on the continent, engaging with senior African policy makers and leading companies. Various global companies helped finance her new book Being Other, for all ambitious creative young women.   In this episode we talk about our experiences together at Davos (World Economic Forum), what it means to fully express yourself in this lifetime, how grief led to being of service, the agency technology can provide, shifting to the growing influence of the feminine approach, entrepreneurship and government advisory in Africa, when serendipity takes over, the divine right to express creativity, the calling for women to redefine how they thrive for themselves, society and nature, and her exciting upcoming book tour.   Discover all episodes and more on www.goingconscious.com.   Connect with Hanae: LinkedIn Hanae Bezad Instagram @beehane   Connect with Nikki: Instagram & LinkedIn @nikkitrottwww.consciousaccelerator.com  

Simon is the Founder and Managing Director of One Climate - the app redefining how people engage with climate action. He has a background in design thinking and startup building. He likes to consider himself a metamodernist, aiming to cocreate what comes after postmodernism by understanding societal patterns and actively positioning the future we need.    In this episode we talk about why Simon wanted to build something for the climate that puts the power in the hands of every person, how self-work underpins his entrepreneurial approach, how to apply design principles to your own life, and how to understand the models we are involved with that contribute to the problem - processing this into solutions.   Discover all episodes and more on www.goingconscious.com.   Connect with Simon: LinkedIn Simon Bail www.oneclimate.com   Connect with Nikki: Instagram & LinkedIn @nikkitrottwww.consciousaccelerator.com  

For more than two decades, Erik has been part of creating some of the most visionary privately-owned businesses and organisations driving impact and transformation. Special advisory clients have included King Charles II, Sir Paul McCartney and the Danish Sovereign Investment Fund. He is also a non-executive director of Savory Foundation. His work is dedicated to transforming the world food-system through the deployment of natural capital.   In this episode we discuss how the world food system can be transformed, how being a global citizen has shaped us both, how Erik is working to change the food we put into our bodies, how to include nature in every decision you make in business, how to contribute to the next generation not just short term financial results, why a system that only values growth is bound to break and how to deploy private equity capital to farms.   Discover all episodes and more on www.goingconscious.com.   Connect with Erik: LinkedIn Erik Bruun Bindslev   Connect with Nikki: Instagram & LinkedIn @nikkitrottwww.consciousaccelerator.com  

Jacqueline van den Ende is co-founder of Amsterdam-based climate fintech company Carbon Equity - a VC and PE fund investing platform. Carbon Equity was founded with the mission to unlock retail capital at scale to power breakthrough climate technologies whilst enabling more equitable ownership. She is a founder turned investor turned founder, twice over obsessed with how we can leverage capital most effectively to mitigate climate change.   In this episode we talk about how Jacqueline is building an innovative platform to enable private individuals to invest in breakthrough climate tech, how to build something that outlives you, a new perspective on money greater than money itself, shared ownership structures, creating bigger value by solving bigger world problems, legacy thinking, why entrepreneurs need presence.   Discover all episodes and more on www.goingconscious.com.   Connect with Jacqueline: LinkedIn Jacqueline van den Ende www.carbonequity.com   Connect with Nikki: Instagram & LinkedIn @nikkitrottwww.consciousaccelerator.com