Criterion Institute Podcast: Finance & Social Change

#87: Thank You for Naming It: The Early Days of Gender Lens Investing

Joy Anderson and Jackie VanderBrug reflect on the early days of gender lens investing, exploring how a collection of disconnected ideas, practitioners, and products became a field that reshaped conversations about finance, gender, and systems change.

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#86: A Tale of Two NAPs: National Action Plans and Much-Needed Naps

Joy explores what it would actually take to finance National Action Plans (NAPs) to end gender-based violence, unpacking why investment cases are not the same as financing mechanisms and why some of Criterion's most trusted frameworks needed a serious rethink.

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#85: Changing Your Frame Not Your Mind: Ensuring Your Actions Follow What You See

A reflection on how the most important changes aren't reversals of opinion but shifts in how we see—three reframes that moved Joy from support to infrastructure, from outsider to co-author

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#84: Narratives, Local, and the Stories That Shape Finance

How do the stories we tell about finance shape what we believe is possible? Joy and Joanna Levitt Cea explore narrative change, ownership, and why “local” may be one of the most important and misunderstood words in finance.

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#83: Trust as Infrastructure: Trade Lenda and the Power of Informal Markets

Joy speaks with Adeshina Adewumi, Founder and CEO of Trade Lenda, about how trust, community accountability, and supply-chain finance can create more inclusive financial systems

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#82: How Staying in Paradox Can Sustain Hope and Drive Systemic Change

Joy responds to some listener questions, naming six paradoxes she encounters when working to shift financial systems toward gender justice and social change.

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#81: AI at the Door: Grace, Hospitality, and Who We Talk To

A reflection on how AI is reshaping collaboration and why maintaining practices of grace, hospitality, and invitation is essential to keeping people, not tools, at the center of our work.

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#80: What Are You Willing to See? Disruption, Fault Lines, and the Moments That Matter

A reflection on disruption not as chaos to manage, but as a moment that reveals the underlying systems and creates opportunities for structural change.

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#79: From Invitation to Trust: Rethinking Relationships in Finance

Joy reflects on invitation as a foundational practice for leadership, collaboration, and systems change. Then she challenges common framing with a rant about “handholding”.

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