- Announcement made at Clinton Global Initiative 2022
New York, United States: LeapFrog companies will finance or protect 25 million emerging enterprises that support 100 million jobs by 2030.
CEO Dr Andy Kuper made the announcement in his opening plenary address at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting (CGI) alongside President Clinton.
CGI 2022 brings together global and emerging leaders to take action and address the world’s most pressing challenges. This is the third time that LeapFrog has made a major commitment at CGI, which this year hosts luminaries from the Co-Founder and Chairman of Moderna, Dr. Noubar Afeyan, to Chairman and CEO of Blackrock, Larry Fink, to the Director General of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to activist Malala Yousafzai.
Dr Andy Kuper, Founder and CEO of LeapFrog, said: “President Clinton believed in the power of our Profit with Purpose idea in 2008 and gave us a platform to start the firm and co-create the commercial impact investing industry. Today, LeapFrog manages billions of dollars and the impact investing industry stands at $1 trillion.”
“We are thus thrilled to have announced our next ambitious commitment: LeapFrog companies will finance or protect 25 million emerging enterprises that support 100 million jobs. We will achieve this outcome by 2030, by scaling our impact investments in financial services and healthcare companies that serve these vital enterprises in Asia and Africa.”
“Micro-, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are the backbone of growing economies. They bring about greater political, social, and environmental stability. Expanding financial inclusion for MSMEs in emerging markets is thus critical for the next four billion consumers to rise securely into the middle class.”
In 2008, LeapFrog officially launched at CGI by committing to reach 25 million low-income emerging consumers with essential financial tools. Today LeapFrog has reached 250 million emerging consumers, achieving 10x that ambitious commitment, and is on track to reach one billion low-income consumers by 2030.
Ten years ago, LeapFrog made a second commitment at CGI: to ensure its companies employ 50,000 people. Today, LeapFrog’s portfolio companies directly support over 160,000 jobs, over 3x that commitment, in Africa and Asia.
Through this third, new commitment that LeapFrog companies will finance or protect 25 million emerging enterprises that support 100 million jobs, LeapFrog will apply this same rapid scaling and purpose-driven determination but focus at the high-impact enterprise level, enabling MSMEs to access the capital and business support they require to grow.
