Impact Investing: How Jim Sorensen is Leading the Charge for Positive Change

EPISODE DESCRIPTION
In this episode, we have billionaire entrepreneur and innovator, Jim Sorenson, who is using his genius to create real change not only in the United States but across the world. Jim has built upon the impressive legacy of his late father, James LeVoy Sorenson, and holds over 60 patents in various medical inventions. In the digital and tech fields, Jim's team was among the world leaders in digital compression software development, and they were responsible for powering Apple's QuickTime video player. Jim also produced an affordable video phone for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals using American Sign Language.

In 2012, Jim founded the Sorenson Impact Foundation, an organization that provides grants and funding to startups that are disrupting markets at home and abroad. These companies focus on making a difference in underserved communities around the world and foster sustainable growth for a positive business and investment landscape for the future.

Today, Jim and I will discuss sustainable growth and innovation, the concept of impact investing, and best practices for businesses targeting positive growth. We'll also explore how businesses can generate revenue while keeping an ethical focus on making the world a better place. Join us as we dive into these important topics.


WHAT IS BRUNCH WITH BILLIONAIRES?
In Brunch with Billionaires, we discuss how we can shift the perception of billionaires and money. While some people might think of billionaires as flashy and greedy, there are many who use their wealth to make a positive impact in the world.

We need to showcase these leaders who are doing the right thing with their money, rather than focusing on those who are obsessed with flashy cars and material possessions. Money isn't inherently bad, and we should change the way we think about it.

Instead of seeing money as a symbol of greed, we should view it as a tool for creating positive change. Money is energy, and we can channel that energy towards giving back to society.

By highlighting the good work that billionaires are doing, we can inspire others to use their resources for the greater good. Let's change the conversation about money and billionaires, and start celebrating those who are making a difference in the world.

Thanks for brunching with us! If you're wanting to scale your revenue and impact, apply to join a group of like-minded entrepreneurs in an elite private forum, guided by Tamara and Natalie as your mentors. To apply, go to beusailacademy.com/interview

Also, be sure to subscribe to Brunch with Billionaires for alerts when a new episode is released. ‘Til next time, lead with profit and purpose.

Transcript

Welcome to Brunch with Billionaires with your host, Tamara Loehr, Forbes Top 11 Most Powerful Leaders. 

Welcome listeners to another episode of Brunch with Billionaires. I'm your host Tamara Loehr, and today we have on the program a dear friend, Jim Sorenson, who is not only a billionaire, but an entrepreneur and innovator that is using his genius to seek real change. 

Seek real change to communities across the world, not only in the United States. 

Now Jim has built upon the impressive legacy of his father, the late James LeVoy Sorenson. 

Now he has and holds more than 60 patents and is an innovator of an array of different medical, 

inventions, forging his own career in the digital and tech fields. In the digital compression 

software development field, Jim and his team were amongst the world leaders. In fact, they 

were working on video compression technology that powered Apple's QuickTime video player. 

He also produced an affordable video phone supporting deaf and hard of hearing individuals 

as they communicate using American Sign Language. Since 2012 Jim has headed the Sorenson Impact, 

Foundation, a much-needed organization that specializes in providing grants and other 

forms of funding to startups that are really disrupting markets at home and abroad. 

Outside of simply being disruptive and innovative, the companies Jim and his foundation work with, 

are directly focused on making a difference for some of the most underserved communities 

around the globe. These are companies and organisations that are fostering sustainable 

growth and laying the groundwork for a more positive and beneficial business and investment 

landscape for tomorrow. Now this idea of sustainable growth is what makes Jim such a fascinating person 

to chat with today and is one of the reasons why we're so keen to have him on the podcast. 

Jim shows us through all the actions and how he shows up every day that with the right approach 

and ethos it is possible to generate serious revenue whilst keeping that all-important. 

Ethical focus, making the world a better place. Today, Jim and I are going to talk about all 

things sustainable and innovation and also look at what impact investing really is and the 

landscape around it and examine how businesses can target positive growth and best practices, 

for the future. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jim. How are you today? 

Good, good. Happy to be able to be part of your podcast. Thank you for the invitation. 

Absolutely. I was hoping we were sitting down to have brunch together, but my travel plans 

changed. So I appreciate you accommodating the virtual. Now, we've already given some background 

to our audience around your career and what you are as an investor, what your mission is. So talk 

me through your journey. I mean, this is Brunch with Billionaires. I mean, how did you reach this 

fabled billion dollar mark? I think I have probably a similar journey to many that are on your, 

podcast series, Tamara. I think the last 20 years may be a little different, but the first. 

Part of my career was really as a serial entrepreneur. You know, I came from 

a very entrepreneurial family. My father was a well-known pioneer in the biomedical space, 

and he was a great example and mentor and very successful, kind of a rags to riches story. In 

fact, if he were alive, he'd be a great one for you to interview. My mother was, I would say, 

somewhat the opposite. She was not business-oriented or didn't have a lot of what I say classical 

business sense. She was an entrepreneur, but more socially. And her love was really. 

Well, she had a very empathetic heart to begin with. So, you know, she was always helping people, 

but her real love was in children. 

Arts and education. And so she ended up developing a program that integrated arts back into elementary 

ed because it had been stripped out because of funding issues and it's since scaled throughout 

the state. So now art is used to teach the core subjects in the state through her program. 

So I had that kind of a background and I started either running businesses or founding businesses, 

you know, I'd love to bring in new ideas, create teams and, you know, products or services and 

businesses that would succeed and then ultimately sell them and kind of move on. And it was in the 

process of doing that, and this was, you know, about 20 years ago, when I had an interesting 

company that we'd invested a lot of money in. It was at the time of a great convergence of 

technologies with, you know, broadband conversion and the internet and everything else. And we were 

focused on a video conferencing system for the mass market. And we saw a real opportunity and 

had developed, I think, a pretty good solution and went on into the marketplace, were raising money. 

And got a great term sheet. The next day, the dot-com bubble burst hit. This was in 2002. 

And, you know, everybody just went away. You know, I mean, it was a time when, you know, 

valuations fell by, you know, 70, 80, sometimes even 90% on some of these companies, and no one 

was interested in investing in us. And it was at that juncture, and I had a decision to make, 

we were burning through. 

You know, cash and what do I do? People weren't interested in, in our solution or investing. 

And I'd hired a deaf brother-in-law about two or three years earlier, mainly because he couldn't 

get a job. And I thought there might be a market in the deaf. They're very visually oriented. 

And he came to me with a new service that was being essentially trialed, a video relay service. 

And that's a service that enables the deaf to communicate with the hearing through a 

remote sign language interpreter. 

So this is a sign language interpreter in another place. And to do this all virtually in real time. 

And, you know, we had a much better solution than anyone else because we'd invested in 

this. And even though we were competing against AT&T and the big telcos, we essentially captured 

the market and grew dramatically in this little niche market, you know. And I think later 

then within three years, less than three years, became really what was the largest private 

equity transaction, very profitable business. It did really well, grew extremely fast. 

Very large transaction. And we sold the company. And along the way, I mean, I had a kind of a 

profound realization when I was being referred to as the Alexander Graham Bell of the deaf, 

that you could address a social problem, 

or benefit society in a much more scalable, self-sustaining way through a business solution. 

And that really put me on the path to what I've been doing over the last 20 years, 

which is really focusing on impact investing. It hadn't been coined at the time, 

but I guess I was an impact investor with Sorenson Communications. 

But my path has really led me to try and really build an ecosystem to engage others. 

To invest for a double bottom line return, as opposed to just a single bottom line return. 

Doing good while doing well. 

I love that. That's a very long answer to your question. You wanted the journey. 

I love the journey. I'd lay it out for you. I think that's really important. And you know, 

I love to hear that. You know, that's your mother, really, you have your heart mother's heart, 

which is beautiful. And I grew up with a deaf cousin. So I know sign language. And, 

you know, nothing stopped her. So well, Australian sign language, it's different 

than the American sign language. But her mother was, you know, my auntie, who was really the only. 

Woman in our family who was entrepreneurial. Even though she was a schoolteacher, she was always, 

you know, she was the principal, and she was always helping in the community and really for business. 

And she told my deaf cousin, Kybie is her name, that she can do anything. 

So she went on to be the first teacher to be teaching both deaf and hearing, 

and she was completely deaf. 

So what was great about that is, she was able to lead by example that you can do anything regardless. 

So I love that you're in that space, and I'm sure that she and her friends were using your technology. 

And it's really about that communication. So it's interesting you talk about 

this whole impact investing. 

Title because for me, you know, doing good, it was just always a necessity, right? I grew up 

fundraising and that's how I got into business because I was fundraising and you know, you 

basically come up with creative ways to make money with very little. So I went, oh, this is quite. 

Entrepreneurial, maybe I should run a business. So doing that philanthropic work is a great way to 

transition into business and then automatically bring the two together. But for a lot of people 

that I meet, they feel like sustainability, giving back, it's a destination. Whereas I try and explain 

that it is a journey. We do as well as we can until we know better and we make sure that impact 

is embedded and just being purpose-driven is embedded in everything that I do and that we do 

along the way. As opposed to a lot of people I'm sure you've met say, when I make this amount of 

money I will give back. What's your thoughts and your advice to entrepreneurs who are listening 

around how to stand for impact and be responsible from an early stage as opposed to putting this off 

for the future when I get to that destination? Right. Well, I think, you know, what you're 

describing really is kind of evolving. And I would say my parents, particularly my father, 

had the philosophy that you made money over here and you gave it away over here. 

They didn't mix, so to speak. But my children, my grandchildren think differently. 

They want to be doing things that reflect their values. 

And that is not only in their careers or in their work, but it's also in investment decisions. 

So we're seeing really, I think, a shift of where that thinking is becoming more commonplace. 

It's one of the reasons why, you know, impact investing, sustainable investing, 

now represents about a third of the assets under management 

in one shape or another, and has grown so dramatically over the past 20 years, 

and will continue to grow as we see a huge wealth transfer 

from my generation, so to speak, to the next generation. 

My son, actually both my sons are now, They've left their... 

Their careers, they had great opportunities, but they want to be doing what I'm doing, 

and we're setting up an asset management group within what we're calling the Sorenson Impact 

Group. The asset management will really establish new funds and in very underserved or innovative. 

Sectors of impact, one of them being disability, by the way, because there's a billion and a half 

people that have some form of disability, yet there's no, there isn't a fund addressing it. 

So it's a ripe market. There's, it's a multi-trillion dollar market and nobody's focused 

on it. And yet the technologies, the businesses out there are really compelling, very successful, 

opportunities for investing around disability. And the entrepreneurs like your, was it your aunt 

that was deaf. My cousin. Your cousin. There are many in the, that have disability that are 

very entrepreneurial because they have a lived experience. So, you know, inventions like the 

typewriter, you know, like the telephone, like the, like the internet, you know, these all have seeds 

and disability. So it's a right market. And part of what we're doing is really creating, 

more products for investors to be able to choose from in expressing how they want to, 

invest in their values and looking for those that are overlooked and particularly innovative. 

So, you know, I think my journey in the last 20 years has been to try and help build an ecosystem. 

To educate, to advocate in policy and help facilitate impact investing. 

And I love that you're leading the charge on that. Long before impact investing was really coined, 

to be honest. And for so long, it was seen as either a handout, as you call it, or not for 

profit and for business at the same time. And they can coexist. And I agree that stakeholders 

and shareholders are now looking for more transparency, 

more purpose-driven businesses that they can invest in, and they're voting with every dollar. 

But the other thing that everyone keeps forgetting is, you know, we have this workforce issue, 

and in order to attract companies to come and work for you, this new generation isn't driven by purely money alone. 

They really want to work for companies that stand for something, 

and that do have impact at its core and purpose at its core. 

So, you don't have a business without people. 

I mean, everybody's always talking about the person, Elon Musk or whoever it is, they put that person up, 

but behind that person is those who help build it. 

And you would know this, I always say to my mentees, you can get to a million, maybe 10 million on your own, 

but past that, there's no such thing as making it on your own or a solo entrepreneur, 

you are the people that you put around you and that take that journey. 

So I love that you're looking in the space of innovation because the disabled community 

is part of the billions of people who have been forgotten. 

And I had the pleasure of meeting your fund manager, who's just a standout woman. 

And she was telling me, you know, the amount of opportunity there is, 

yet there's some of the most unemployed people on the planet. 

So, you know, we've got the staff shortage over here and everyone in YPO is complaining 

about how they can't find staff, but then we've got all these capable, innovative, 

do so much with so little sitting over here that we're not tapping into. 

So how do you see that we can be a little bit more conscious in our decisions 

around how we attract people to our companies, 

how do we attract that innovation and create an ecosystem where that can thrive. 

Yeah. Well, and I think a lot has happened in the last two years with COVID that I think has created. 

Really an awareness and businesses have learned to work remotely. And we have seen and have invested. 

In the enable fund, the disability fund, and analogs to LinkedIn, which are basically, 

instead of screening those with disability out, screening them in and helping prepare them for 

participation in the workforce. And I think there are companies now that are really hungry for. 

Workers that can come in and work remotely. And there's a great opportunity, and we've been able 

able to tap into that through some of the investments that we've made to address really, I think, 

one of the pillars in that fund, which is workforce development and access to good jobs for those that have disabilities. 

We have another company that focuses on autism, which is its own form of disability. 

And there are qualities with those people that have autism that can really be, 

harnessed in the right kind of business environment and work opportunity. And so the 

company that we invested in really is expert at being able to prepare those with autism for these 

kind of opportunities and then match them. So I think it's really. 

A big part of this is innovative, thinking different, and looking at the market as an 

opportunity as opposed to a barrier. 

And that's the way we see this great opportunity with disabilities. 

Well, you would know in our entrepreneurial circles, how many have shared their story 

about having autism as a kid and now being a superpower of theirs as an entrepreneur. 

So I love that, you know, that conversation is shifting as well. 

Now, you mentioned your sons are in the business and you're coming on to 10 years. 

Tell us a little bit about your fund and your mandate. You've mentioned a couple of projects that you're working on that I think are so necessary 

and will probably create some amazing, you know, ways of doing business that is more 

innovative into the future. 

So what other things are you looking for? Do you have a mandate? 

Is there a particular area that you're focusing on into the future with this slant of innovation? 

And is there a sustainability part to that? Because we've got obviously a lot of, 

we've spoken a lot about the S and ESG, but what about the other two? 

Yeah, I would say, you know, to give you kind of a bigger picture of what we're doing, 

because it's fairly comprehensive, what I have built over the last 20 years, I have a foundation, 

that's focused on impact investing, which has become 100% mission aligned. That means the corpus. 

Is invested in sustainability, as well as we're making program related investments, 

which are considered grants, though that side of it is often concessionary, it's helping to 

to de-risk very early stage companies, 

but because we're underwriting them as an investment, it's much more thorough, 

much more rigorous than a grant would be. 

And we've had amazing results there. 

And then on the endowment side, we're invested in all of the 17 sustainable 

development goals that the UN set, and we're beating the benchmarks. 

So in other words, we're getting better financial performance across asset classes. 

So that's the foundation. I endowed the Sorenson Impact Center, 

which is at the University of Utah, that gives students an experiential education in impact investing. 

And they do everything from market research and helping to underwrite and source deals 

for third parties that they're working for to data science, measurement, impact performance, 

improving the performance and then field building and storytelling. 

So that is part of the Sorenson Impact Group along with the foundation. 

And then the asset management, I've talked about Enable Ventures. 

We started another fund focused on impact real estate. 

How can we utilize real estate to generate market rate returns alongside impact? 

And the themes there are affordability, their economic development, their access to services. 

They are inclusion and environmental and sustainability. 

So these investments will address those various themes, but through real estate. 

I think the final part of the insurance and impact group is our advisory services where we can help others 

that have a similar mind, that would like to do what we're doing, 

achieve a market rate return or address a philanthropic. 

Interest in a more scalable, self-sustaining way through impact investing, we can help them in their path. 

So again, what we're trying to do is build an ecosystem to facilitate impact investing 

as well as educate the next generation and help them in career paths into this space. 

I love that. And I think something that you touched on is that measurement and tracking against the 

and full transparency as well. 

No longer is there the investor who is the, there's a faceless fund, as I call it. 

We need to be tracking this. We need to be showing the work that we're doing and having that transparency 

around everything that we do, which is really important. 

So when it comes to, I love the housing part as well. I'm working on a couple of projects that are really utilising how do we bring. 

How do we bring entrepreneurship and affordable housing and communities together? 

Because I really believe it comes down to creating communities of like-minded people at every level. 

Because when we have a sense of belonging, we can then really grow. 

And I've seen that in YPO now with, we turn over 9 trillion in America alone. 

And we're starting to see these coming together of impact driven businesses and investors 

and sharing their wins, which is really wonderful to see. 

So thank you for being part of that conversation and leading that direction because you've 

been, you've visioned this a lot longer than the rest of us. 

So it's wonderful to have a role model in that way. So now talk to me about data. 

Data analytics, automation, artificial intelligence, they're all things that I embrace, 

I harness in my businesses and leverage. 

And I really encourage my mentees to do the same because this is becoming a really important tool 

for businesses of all sizes to be able to bring into their businesses to drive success. 

So what is your take on the data play and this constant technology constantly evolving at this pace. 

What advice do you give to small businesses and those that are listening that are trying to figure out how to harness these digital tools to drive their success. 

Well, I think when it comes to data, and I think it's one of the areas that really needs to, 

improve with impact investing, I think that there's some confusion around the number of 

frameworks and the way people see it differently. Generally, what we try to do is embed it 

fairly early on in the businesses that we invest in. How correlated is the dollar to the impact? 

And if you can measure it and build it in at that early stage, then it becomes easier to 

to measure over time and track over time. 

I think we try to keep it simple, but also make it meaningful. 

And I think it's important that there's materiality to it. Sometimes you can't measure everything that matters. 

And everything that matters can't be measured. So, you have to be really looking at what's material 

to the performance in the business as well as the impact. 

And, you know, I think our strategies around impact measurement really began very early 

on in embedding them in the right in the culture in the business itself. 

Yeah, well, it's seen as quite a niche. People are saying that, you know, impact investing is a niche. 

But, you know, as we go into what they're calling, you know, this, this decline, is 

Is it a luxury being sustainable? 

Is this something that we can't afford to do or is it something that we need to afford to do? 

Because there's a very big divide I'm seeing, I can say this as an outsider. 

In America between this whole it's greenwashing versus it's a necessity. 

And when you throw in the economic climate moving forward, people are kind of seeing it as a bit of a niche 

or a luxury. What are your thoughts on that? 

Well, I think you're seeing in the US right now, a well-coordinated anti-ESG movement. 

It's become politicized, which is really too bad, because frankly, what you're doing in ESG 

is simply taking more data into consideration and making a more informed decision and mitigating risk, 

and in the long-term making better investments. 

And this has been borne out in a number of studies, Tamara, in terms of investments that have been invested 

with an ESG lens and how those funds have performed. 

Versus those that haven't. And in the longterm, where you're taking climate risks, 

into your consideration, and there's real risks as we see every day around the world, 

You know, we're seeing an increase in natural disasters. 

This is floods, droughts, you know, 

all kinds of storm-related, weather-related issues increasing at the pace of about 5X over the last 50 years. 

And these all create risks that have to be essentially taken into account as we make better decisions, as we're prudent. 

And I think, you know, there's a real concern about some of the treasurers in the states, 

particularly red states, I hate to say it because it's become politicized, 

that they don't want these risk factors included, 

in their bond ratings because they're likely. 

To affect their bond ratings. So it's a sensitive issue. But if I'm an investor. 

And I'm investing in something and I want to make the best informed decision, 

I want to take all of the data into consideration when making that decision. And that's what pretty 

sustainable investing is doing. And over the long term, it'll bear out in outperforming those that 

don't take into account those risks. And I mean, when you look at the top 3,000 

companies are doing $2 trillion worth of damage to the environment every year. 

And that's something that you and I probably won't be around to try and fix, but we're not 

getting to net positive. And you bring up an interesting point. I believe, and there is data 

that shows that impact investing does get a better return. 

So I think it's important that we educate people on that and make that more known. 

But for leaders who are listening, they're kind of in a hard place 

because they're having to stand for something 

and almost get involved in what's seen as politics. 

So what would you say to leaders who want to stand for impact, 

who want to stand for ESGs and do their part, 

yet are being, you know, coming across, you know, this sort of, I guess, pushback as a leader. I mean, you know, it's always been our job to stand up and lead, but this this in particular seems quite sensitive. So what is your advice to the leaders out there that are impact and purpose driven? 

Well, I think that, you know, there are many leaders, not only in government, but in business. 

Larry Fink, for example, is taking a lot of heat right now. BlackRock, you know, trillions, 

the largest fund manager, and they have funds that are managed for ESG and others that are not. I 

I mean, they're that large, but he has really made the case about what we call stakeholder 

capitalism. And that is looking at the whole picture, not just shareholder and how it makes 

for better investing. And he's weathered that. And I think you have to have leaders that are 

willing to stand by principle. And there's a lot of disinformation, at least here in the US, about 

what ESG is. And, you know, I think education is really important because people, when they really 

understand it, and understand that it's simply taking risks into consideration when you're 

making these investments, you know, I can't see how you can be against that. You know, 

the other side would call it, you'd have to call it risk washing, because you don't want to take 

risk because of some political reason, or you don't want to consider risk because of 

some political reason, it may affect your own performance, so to speak. 

I couldn't agree more. And I think the more of us who get together and work on this and have these conversations as a group, the better. 

And it's interesting, the perception of people with money, we're all meant to be sitting around, you know, on our boats and our yachts having drinks. 

And it's quite the opposite. You know, we're coming together and actually talking about the billions of people who are invisible, 

who are being left behind and that gap is getting bigger. 

It's not getting any closer. And I really do believe to my core 

that businesses will solve these problems, not governments. 

So, you know, another one is Paul Polman from Unilever. I love his latest book, A Net Positive. 

And, you know, looking at as, you know, we're not trying to go from here down, 

bring this down to zero. 

We actually want to look at it this way and actually go from down below, 

come to net positive and then go beyond. 

And I think that's something that you've always had intrinsically in you, 

in your DNA, in your genius, in your purpose, is that we go beyond. 

And I wanna thank you for representing and continuing to, you can be retired, but you're not. 

And I don't know what retirement would look like for both of us. 

I think we drive everybody insane. 

Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to share this time and my thoughts with you. 

Tamara and and hopefully we can do it in person sometime either in Australia or in Utah. 

Oh, I love that both beautiful parts of the world. And it's not maybe it's a definite I think the. 

Universe has its plans. Well, I love virtual I'm still an old school in person. We will have brunch 

soon. And thank you so much. Really, this is for me about showcasing, you know, the people who 

who might be known as billionaires 

that are really not interested in showing up in the flashy cars and running around town 

and doing all those crazy things. 

We really need to show the leaders with money who are doing the right thing 

because money isn't a bad thing. 

It's not that we have to look at people with money as those that are greedy, 

but instead shift that perception for those that are listening around what money can do to help others. 

And really money is just energy and how do we create a more positive give back energy 

on this planet and, you know, because we can't take it with us. 

So thank you for setting this path for us. 

And I would say the billion that I'm looking forward to reaching 

are reaching a billion people through impact investing 

and the work that we're doing. We're at about 600 million people now. 

So, you know, we've a little ways to go. We measure those that we're impacting. 

We wanna get to a billion. 

Well, I am here and happy to help in any way. 

I love your vision. Thank you so much for your time. and I can't wait to see you in Utah. 

Music.