Finance, Acquisitions, and Mergers | Impact Investing Series

Impact Investing Hub is hosting an impact investing series for social enterprises, not-for-profits, foundations, institutional and impact investors and professional advisors. This series aims to enhance understanding and practical applications of impact investing. This session is 3 of 3.

Buy tickets to the other two sessions here: 

Impact Investing 101 | Friday 31 October, 12.00-1.00pm AEDT

Impact Investing in Asia | Friday 7 November, 12.00-1.00pm AEDT

Finance, Acquisitions, and Mergers | Friday 14th of November, 12.00PM - 1.00PM AEDT
Acquisition is a genuine model for starting a social enterprise. Dig into the challenges and opportunities of mergers and acquisitions and think about what great outcomes look like.

Learning Outcomes

In this session you will:

• Understand acquisitions and mergers as a viable model for starting or scaling a social enterprise, including the key opportunities and challenges.

• Identify what great outcomes look like in mission-driven mergers or acquisitions, balancing financial sustainability with social impact.

• Explore how impact investing can be used to finance acquisitions and collaborations in the social sector.

Facilitator

Jessica Mendoza-Roth

Jessica is the Founder and Director of the Social Impact Hub. The Social Impact Hub collaborates with social purpose organisations to advise, educate and mobilise capital to accelerate change. Jessica is also a consultant to the impact investment sector, having served as the Impact Strategist for Blue River Group, an independent impact investment services firm, and opened the Sydney office of Impact Investment Group. Previously, Jessica was a Solicitor at King & Wood Mallesons in Sydney. She holds a B.A. and LL.B. (with First Class Honours) from UNSW and a LL.M. from Harvard Law School, where she was the recipient of the R.G. Menzies Scholarship to Harvard, and she studied social entrepreneurship, philanthropy and impact investing.

Panelists

Andy Skidmore - The Youth Impact Foundation

Andy is the CEO of The Youth Impact Foundation, a not-for-profit social enterprise aimed at changing the narrative for young people across Aus and NZ by reducing duplication and amplifying impact. The Youth Impact Foundation works with over 200,000 young people a year across Australia and New Zealand.

Personally he is passionate about helping business and people rethink how they do good. Andy spends his time outside The Youth Impact Foundation working with businesses, charities and social enterprises to build thriving organisations, lead authentically and do good.

Matt Knopp - DEInvestments

With nearly 25 years’ experience across the UK and Australia, Matt is a social impact leader specialising in field-building, social enterprise, and philanthropy. He brings a systems-thinking mindset and deep practical expertise in supporting organisations to navigate complexity, build capability, and deliver long-term impact.

Matt is currently Head of Investments at DEInvestments, a newly formed national philanthropic funding collective and DGR1 organisation dedicated to improving employment outcomes for people with significant disability in Australia. DEInvestments brings business, government and philanthropy together to encourage innovation and connection across a system that needs to work better, creating jobs defined by wages, conditions and choice. Its goal is to help enable 270,000 better jobs and 100,000 new opportunities over the next decade through practical, collaborative investment at the system, regional and enterprise levels.

Prior to this, he completed a 3 month contract as Expert Assessor to Office of Social Impact, Queensland Treasury and in May finished five and a half years at the Paul Ramsay Foundation (PRF), one of Australia’s largest philanthropic organisations. Here, Matt drove the design and management of a $100 million employment-focused portfolio, including $60 million invested into work-integrated social enterprises between 2022–2024. This work supported organisations employing people with lived experience of incarceration, disability, and economic exclusion, shaping a funding approach that centred learning, partnership, and systems change. He also played a key role in PRF’s COVID-19 taskforce, strengthening partner capability during crisis.

Previously, Matt co-founded Eastside People, a leading UK intermediary in the social impact sector, where he led strategy, product innovation, and business development. He built national programs supporting investment readiness, entrepreneurship, and mergers in the non-profit sector, as well as 3SC; then the UK’s fastest-growing social business supporting more than 1,200 organisations to bid for and deliver public contracts through consortia.

Throughout his career, Matt has worked at the intersection of strategy and execution, troubleshooting with social enterprises, brokering complex partnerships, and building trusted relationships with changemakers. He has served on the boards of high-impact organisations including Bikeworks, Reach, Trident Group (UK), and Campbell Page (AUS) regularly contributing to thought leadership across field-building, impact investment, and collaborative models for change.

Victoria Adams - For Purpose Investment Partners

As Managing Director at FPIP, Victoria leads the investment team in acquisitions, overseeing the structuring and due diligence for new transactions, management of portfolio companies and impact reporting. She also plays a key role in investor and stakeholder management and capital raising. Victoria is a board member for FP Aged Care Australia and Able Foods.

Victoria also serves as a board member and Treasurer for The Footpath Library, a not-for-profit focused on access to books and reading glasses for people experiencing homelessness. Prior to joining FPIP, Victoria was an Executive Director for Pollination and Head of Social Infrastructure in the Investment Team at the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. She has significant corporate finance and investment banking experience gained from roles at Deloitte, Goldman Sachs, and Macquarie Capital, which she joined after starting her career as a Civil Engineer.

Victoria holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) and a Masters of Commerce from the University of New South Wales, and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.