Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Careers, Workplace and Religion
Helping the middle class: part 2 of a interview with Gloria Nelund

Helping the middle class: part 2 of a interview with Gloria Nelund

Last updated on: June 24, 2015 at 12:33 pm by Ethix

Helping the middle class: part 2 of a interview with Gloria Nelund 2015-06-15T12:48:09-05:00 Ethix

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

[Read the beginning of our interview, reprinted from Ethix, in yesterday’s post.]

Why did you start TriLinc Global?

I wanted to be able to use all of my experience, my contacts, and everything that I’ve developed in my 30-year successful career on Wall Street to do good in the world. That’s the simple answer.

The bigger story is, I wanted to use the rest of my life to serve God. I used to always think that in order to really do that you had to be a missionary or a pastor or you had to do something that was extremely self-sacrificing. After I retired from Deutsche Bank, I went through a period of three years building my relationship with God trying to figure out what I should do with the rest of my life. I realized it is God who has given me all of these talents, skills, and resources, and frankly, I just wouldn’t be good at doing a lot of those other things. The best value that I can bring to the world right now is to deliberately use my talent, skills, and resources to help the world through business. I’ve come to a place in my life where I could feel good about resuming what I had done before, but decided I would rather apply all of that learning and those skills and those contacts to something that helps the world in this significant way.
The best value that I can bring to the world right now is to deliberately use my talent, skills, and resources to help the world through business.

U.S. Job Creation?

The middle class seems to be going away in the United States. Does your approach apply to addressing this issue as well?

That’s a great question and we’ve been asked that more and more lately. All of our funds will be global so they can be invested anywhere, including the U.S. While our primary focus is developing economies, where the opportunity and impact are often the greatest, the current condition of the U.S. banking sector has created an opportunity for us to invest locally in underserved communities.

What, in your view, are some of the things needed to create more middle class jobs in the U.S.?

I am very much a proponent of structures, whether it is tax incentives or regulatory structures that stimulate entrepreneurial small business. I find the current environment lacking in this respect. It goes back to why we’re focused on supporting small business in other countries. At the bottom of it, everybody is driven to want to take care of themselves and their families. People want to be successful and if they can generate something, then they’re going to do that. If you look at U.S. history, you see a story of entrepreneurs, people who come here to succeed because they want to do it for themselves. They don’t want government to do it for them.

My belief is that it’s better to create an environment where entrepreneurs are empowered to create their own success. That is not to say that we should be free from regulation or oversight. That’s not good either.

Every time I hear someone say we don’t need regulation, I suggest they try to set up a business in the Central African Republic.

Exactly. There’s a balance, and anytime you get out of balance it creates a problem. That is a very good example.

With impact investing, you are measuring not just the money the investor can earn, but also the way this money supports communities. This seems consistent with a statement that Roger Lowenstein made about banks in his book The End of Wall Street: “The proper end of Wall Street is to oil the nation’s business; it became, in the bubble era, a goal in itself, a machine wired to inhuman perfection,” p. 297. How do you avoid the trap of starting with this outward objective and then falling back into the objective of making lots of money?

Balance is once again crucial here. For a business to sustain itself, it needs to be profitable. Thus, profitability is a critical driver of sustainability. The presence of a profit motive is not the problem. It’s when that is the only motive that problems arise.
For a business to sustain itself, it needs to be profitable.

Aren’t you creating a virtuous environment as well by putting pressure on your competitors to do the same?

Exactly. Even with our impact reports, we want complete transparency and accountability. We’re going to set the standard high so that anyone else who comes in will have to do likewise. We’re not saying we shouldn’t make money, because we should. It keeps us motivated and interested and pays our bills. But we have an objective beyond money. We look to serve our real purpose, which is to reduce global poverty and promote a more sustainable world by providing growth capital to responsible businesses. As TriLinc’s leader, I need to keep living up to that purpose of changing the world through capital resources.

How do you instill this into your team so this goal is not just dependent on you?

You ask a good question because I want this to outlast me. It’s got to be instilled in every person we hire. I’ve been very careful about the character of the people that we bring in. We’ve had the opportunity to bring in some very talented and experienced people who ultimately just wouldn’t represent us well. They could do the job, but at the end of the day there’s a cost to not having everybody absolutely committed to this purpose and cause. We talk about this all of the time. We do volunteer work together as a company to try to keep everybody focused on the goal of serving others.

Stay tuned for an upcoming post on what Nelund thinks about banks being “too big to fail” and what she’s learned working as a woman in a male-dominated industry! Kind permission is granted by Seattle Pacific University and the Institute for Business, Technology, and Ethics for the use of this material from Ethix magazine, where it first appeared March 2012.

Ethics

Faith and the Marketplace

Previous Post

June 23, 2015

Defining financial success: part 1 of an interview with Gloria Nelund

Next Post

June 25, 2015 10 Steps Toward Becoming a Culturally Engaged Church

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Audio posts Bible and Work Book Review Books Budgeting Calling Common Good Community Development Conferences Discipleship Economics Entrepreneurship Ethics Faith and Family Faith and the Marketplace Faith and the Workplace faith and work History of Work and Vocation Leadership Local Church Meaning New Blogger News Prayer Relationships Seminaries Theology of Work Uncategorized Video posts Vocation Worship Resources

Select a Month April 2026 October 2025 September 2025 July 2025 April 2025 January 2025 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 August 2023 July 2023 April 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 June 2021 May 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 April 2018 March 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What tax collector wrote a Gospel and was called by Jesus?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Luke Matthew Mark Barnabas