Service Design (MA)
Kyle Zeno Macdonald
Kyle is a designer, strategist, and venture builder that likes to ask “What if…”
He works as a catalyst at the intersection of business, technology and the planet, crafting clarity from possibility in order to deliver impact.
He has coached more than 150 founders as they navigate the “how” between “now” and “next”, leveraging his close on 10 years experience across the world of private wealth, start ups, and social entrepreneurship.
The RCA has allowed him to apply his full stack of design methods for project partners including: CERN, Thoughtworks, British Airways, Lexis Nexis, The Belmond Group, Telefonica and “A Moonshoot Factory”.
Having also exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery in London, recent work of his can be found in Forbes and Venture Beat.
This degree is more his mom, Antonella, who will never see him graduate but inspires him daily.
“Value is not intrinsic; it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment.”
- Ludwig von Mises, Austrian Economist.
EVERGREEN is a bold project, exploring how to incentivise a transition towards a sustainable economy.
Starting from an exploration of the venture capital industry, which functions as the “mid-wife” for many companies that go on to shape the future, it has evolved into a systemic solution tackling the climate emergency.
I began by unpacking ideas around an "invisible economy”, one in which things such as air, soil, biodiversity etc, are currently left unaccounted for when calculating the market value of products, services and systems.
These unaccounted “costs” are building up on an invisible balance sheet and and being passed on as "climate crisis debt" for future generations to settle.
Leading to questions such as: What is sustainability? How might we develop an economy which is regenerative rather than extractive?
And how can we redefine value, valuation and capital flows?
This project evolved through a series of interviews, design probes and provocations confirming the importance of positively engaging the next generation of wealth owners to reallocate their growth capital towards ventures which are regenerative, inclusive and just.
EVERGREEN was refined as COVID19 ravaged our fragile global economy, a time when building back better and greener seems more urgent than ever as we look for the right models for stakeholder economics.
So many inspiring inputs and support was offered from Imperial College, Sustainable Ventures, and Planethon.
This project has had too many wonderful people both from inside the RCA and beyond to thank. But I am grateful for the opportunity to share it and am more than happy to discuss it in future detail over a coffee.
EVERGREEN - A Private Venture Club Tackling Climate Opportunities
It's time to build back better and greener — As our fragile shareholder economy buckles from a lack of resilience, the future requires we build back better and greener now.
But pressure grows on our natural systems and in response policy and society at large are demanding business take their foot off the gas, so to speak, of growth and begin to take into account environment as a stakeholder.
This puts investors in a tricky situation: How to define and source sustainable ventures, which are both good for the planet and long term growth?
One group of investors, however are uniquely positioned to be able to leverage this opportunity to their advantage. Ultra High Net Worth Individuals.
Unlike large institutional investors, like pension funds and banks. Ultra High Net worth individuals don’t have to answers to shareholders. They are the shareholders.
The have capital that is agile and that can be deployed and make fast and measurable impact.
EVERGREEN services this market in order to accelerate the much needed transition to a sustainable and just economy.
Service Feature 01 - EVISORY — Unlike traditional financial advisory, sustainable investing is evolving and needs cross-disciplinary input, at the tap of a button.
Service Feature 02 - DEALHUB — Prototyping with a younger generation of UHNWIs, it became clear that an on-demand digital service was going to need to be at the core of the club.
Service Feature 03 - PEERS — Beyond technical empowerment, high motivators were for action were: social influence and visible affirmation.
Service Feature 04 - EMPACT — Direct involvement and opportunity to experience tangible impact are the appeal behind investing in startups for my next generation investors.
Visiblity in Context
Legacy in Cotext
The Member's Experience Journey
Digitally Native but a Human-Centred Service
As a sustainable investment ecosystem, it curates deals for Ultra High Net Worth Individuals and their Family Offices - giving them the integrated financial and environmental advisory needed to align their portfolios with companies that are already shaping the future.
This selective club incentivises it’s well positioned class of investors to direct their agile capital towards sustainable companies. It does this by making it easier, financially appealing and giving them the opportunity to find a sense of purpose through their investment decisions.
As demand for sustainable companies increases, private market data to benchmark performance is hard to come by, but a platform like this would turn the blackbox of private market investments - into a green one.
Ultimately redefining value creation - through changing the metrics, methods and reasons for investing in new and scaling ventures needed to tackle climate change.
Welcome to the Climate Emergency
There is an urgent need for a reallocation of "Growth Capital"
Ethnography
Intervene in the "Flow of Influence"
The 1% are the Custodians of Our Economy
The 1% are New Venture Capital
Meet Potential: The Impact Activists
Help to Empower: Frontline Change Agents
He suggested that if I wanted to solve for fundamental issues surrounding sustainable investment - follow the flow of influence. Design a solution for those who have the most influence in the system.
If we look at the top of the system, often called the 1%, and in financial circles referred more technically as Ultra High Networth Individuals.
And increasingly the next generation, who are due a 4trillionUSD transfer of wealth with in the next 5 years, want to invest up to 32% of their investment portfolios into sustainable ventures.
But defining and sourcing sustainable ventures is’t that easy, and neither is measuring impact over time.
Using Design to Make Ideas Reality —
Validation from Sustainable Finance Experts
But beyond that, it opened up serval opportunities to take certain features of the project further. A venture capital firm is interested in building out the DEALHUB, although in a more B2B format, whilst a Family Office advisory in the nordics is interested in embedding the design practices, used to define and deliver sustainable strategies, as a service offering for their UHNW client base.
Personally, the primary learning I have taken away from this project is that the time to start collectively tackling the climate emergency was yesterday. The solutions lie within anti-disciplinary collaboration, where we stop asking how things should be and move towards how things could be.