Mark Hepworth
Mark is a multidisciplinary economist and entrepreneur whose international career spans academia, public policy and business consultancy. As co-Founder of The Good Economy, he leads the firm’s Place-Based Impact Investing (PBII) work which includes research and policy thinking off the back of the ground breaking white paper Scaling Up Institutional Investment for Place-Based Impact, developed with the Impact Investing Institute (III) and Pensions for Purpose. Mark also led the creation of PBII Labs, TGE’s PBII strategy consultancy offering, and PBII Collaborations which includes PBII R&D and Knowledge Bank, and the PBII Network, a pioneering collaboration between institutional investors and local authorities, co-hosted by TGE, the Institute for Economic Development and the III. The overarching objective of the Network is to create a trusted environment where local authorities and private investors can meet for knowledge sharing, mutual learning and the development of innovative financing solutions to scale-up institutional investment as a force for good in helping places across the UK achieve local economic resilience, prosperity and sustainable development.
Mark has deep knowledge of the UK economic development landscape through his research at the Universities of Newcastle and London and policy consultancy at the Local Futures Group, which he co-founded in 1997 (now part of Grant Thornton). Known for his seminal work on the IT revolution and the knowledge economy, he has taught at UK and overseas universities, acted as an expert adviser to the UN Economic Council, the OECD and the European Commission, and undertaken strategy consultancy for IBM, Microsoft, BT and other corporates.
Prior to The Good Economy, Mark was a Visiting Professor at Birkbeck College London and Founding Director of Geoeconomics, a research and strategy consultancy which produced local economic strategies and impact assessments for infrastructure providers and private equity investors. As a consultant to Big Issue Invest, Mark co-created the social assessment methodologies underpinning the Threadneedle UK Social Bond Fund and Standard Life Investments’ UK Equity Impact Employment Opportunities Fund.
Mark has a degree in economics from the University of Warwick and a doctorate in economic geography from the University of Toronto.
Read Mark's contributions to TGE's blog here
Sarah Forster
Skills and Experience
Sarah co-founded The Good Economy in 2015 to enhance the role of business and finance in inclusive and sustainable development. She acts as a trusted advisor to clients across the private, public and social sectors.
From 2007 to 2015, Sarah was Deputy CEO of Big Issue Invest (BII), the social investment arm of The Big Issue. She played a key role in growing BII from start-up to becoming one of the UK's leading and most pioneering social impact investment intermediaries. Prior to this, Sarah worked for the New Economics Foundation, responsible for research and policy work to advance the fields of social investment, community development finance and measuring social returns on investment.
Sarah started her career in international development working for Afghanaid, a charity providing emergency aid and livelihoods support to war-torn communities in Afghanistan, based in Peshawar, Pakistan. From 1992 to 2001, she worked for the World Bank where she had a fast-track career from Young Professional to Senior Economist. She led the design of large-scale poverty alleviation investment projects in Africa, South Asia and the Balkans, with a focus on microfinance, municipal finance and community-led development.
Sarah developed expertise in post-conflict countries and spent four years living in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina working with the team responsible for managing the $5 billion post-war reconstruction and development programme. Achievements included leading the award-winning Local Initiatives Project, which established a national wholesale institution that successfully supported the development of sustainable microfinance institutions providing access to financial services to low-income entrepreneurs at scale. The project design was later replicated in several other countries.
Sarah has a BA from Queen's College, Cambridge University, an MA in Economic and Political Development from the School of Public and International Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University, New York and in 2017, Sarah was recognised as one of the UK's leading Women in Social Enterprise.
External Appointments
- Non-Executive Director, BioGuinea (Guinea-Bissau)