All roads lead to impact: in conversation with Jake Hirsch-Allen

In conversation with Jake Hirsch-Allen, who currently leads higher education and workforce development systems at LinkedIn.

SVX is delighted to be hosting the All-in Impact Gathering in the idyllic region of Prince Edward County (PEC) this October. In the lead up to this exciting event, we will be sharing the stories of some attendees, peer advisors, and expert coaches to give a taste of what the Gathering will entail.

Q: How did you come to be in your current position at LinkedIn?

I’ve worked in government relations, online learning, and social impact in a variety of capacities over the past decade. I first started out as a public international and international criminal lawyer but became a frustrated with some of the challenges that the international legal system faced as a result of the influence of nation-state politics on the judicial process.

I changed gears and started working in intellectual property law in an attempt to have a greater social impact via the private sector. During this time, I was again frustrated but it was due to the corrupting power of capitalism on patent trolls and big pharma. The silver lining was that it allowed me to focus on side projects like access to medicines (specifically the Health Impact Fund, which is the pay for performance alternative to the patent system to incentivize drug development) and tech start-ups. This work eventually led me to education when a manager of mine was asked by Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Education, to assist with the creation of a global online learning platform.

While we didn’t achieve our goal to tap the potential for online learning in disadvantaged populations, we brought together the major online course providers. This included edX and Coursera, organizations like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Intel, Rockefeller Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and Brookings Institution, and some of the more tangentially related organizations like LinkedIn and the game producer Rovio.

Alongside this, I started a software development company with a couple of colleagues, and found quickly that we couldn’t hire enough developers. About five and a half years ago, we started a software development bootcamp called Lighthouse Labs that is now the foremost educator of software developers in Canada.

A few months later, I joined LinkedIn in their Sales Solutions group and almost immediately began working on our labour market information, which we call the Economic Graph. Much of my work since then has been supporting governments through LinkedIn’s data, such as what industries are growing and shrinking, what skills are in demand in which regions, or industry demographics, migration patterns, and learning pathways.

More recently, as part of LinkedIn’s Learning Solutions team, I negotiated an agreement with the Government of Ontario to provide access for every post-secondary school, all 45 colleges and universities, and all the million faculty and staff in Ontario to what is now called LinkedIn Learning. It’s comprised of over 13,000 courses in everything from project management, to communication, or even how to use most major software. This groundbreaking public-private partnership opened up the possibility for LinkedIn to collaborate with governments to tackle the challenges associated with the future of work and learning in new ways.

Q: Congratulations on the launch of LinkedIn Learning! What experience do you have within the impact investing space?

I found out about impact investing mostly through the social impact work that I was doing through my law career and online learning. The areas that I have been able to leverage the greatest impact are where I have balanced pragmatism with altruism. I actually think that I’m having a larger scale impact here at LinkedIn than I ever did running or creating start-ups, working in government, or working in academia because LinkedIn and Microsoft are such huge corporations that already work around the world in financially and socially impactful ways.

Q: How have you seen the impact investing space change through the years that you have engaged with it?

Looking specifically through the lens of online learning, many companies that deliver online learning programs are social impact initiatives. Early on in my career, I found that ensuring that there was a return on investment for the investors in those companies was often supported largely by the international development, government, and non-profit communities rather than the for-profit communities.

As the importance of social impact grew through the years, though, finance began to take notice. It started to become imperative that the largest corporations on the planet begin looking at their social impact as opposed to only their stakeholders’ interests. It also began to focus government attention on how they could partner with those financial institutions to achieve a greater impact socially.

Q: Where do you see your relationship with SVX in the future?

I’m on the boards of the Canadian Club of Toronto and Hot Docs Cinema and have thought about how the social impact investing space, and some of SVX’s portfolio companies, could be more prominently featured at these two organizations. I’ve also considered how my next career move, or Next Play as we’d say at LinkedIn, could be related to social impact investing and the implications of the social impact world and the world of ESGs (environmental, social, and governance) merging into mainstream finance.

Q: Where do you find the value in players like SVX in the impact investing space?

One of the frustrations that I continue to run up against is the impulse of governments, especially ones that are wary of the neoliberal influence of these large corporations, to impulsively not work with corporations on the most important projects. Often a smaller or more altruistic country — like Canada — can have more impact by influencing the larger actors than by building its own equivalents. While we push back on the visible projects, we invest massively in multinationals behind the scenes because it’s less politically risky. Where we work closely with others and push them, I think we tend to have greater influence. I’ve seen SVX play a similar role in the impact investing space.

We are in Canada, we are in Toronto, so what is it about where we are geographically and socially located that enables us to potentially have more impact than others? Perhaps it’s our diversity, our humanity, or our focus on dignity?

SVX has emerged as a thought leader in the Canadian impact investing space, but I think could be a much stronger presence. Finance must be pushed toward being more impactful and inclusive, so as impact investing becomes more evidence-based, there is an opportunity for us to do greater good than ever before. Impact investing will likely be all investing in the future, and my goal through working with SVX is to expedite that process.

Q: What do you hope to take away from the All-in Impact Gathering?

My previous experience with SVX has already brought me into an amazing community within the impact investing space. At All-in Impact, I’m looking to see how I can further integrate into the SVX community and do more to help SVX achieve its broader goals. Joining the SVX community is one way of expanding my own community, and I believe that sharing the ideas that I learn from my communities is a way by which I can expand my influence hopefully for the betterment of humankind.

Furthermore, I think that I still have much more to learn about how to invest my own resources and encourage others to do so as well. I think this learning can be accomplished socially, professionally, through technology, and at especially at events like All-in Impact, where I am both inspired and educated. For me, the key value of All-in Impact is going to be able to build those close one-on-one relationships that I can leverage to spread the good work — and good word — of impact investing.

Connect with Jake on LinkedIn here.

If you are interested in attending the All-in Impact Gathering in October, please visit the website here for more information and to register to attend. Spots are limited.