Moments that mattered: Mathu Jeyaloganathan, UnLtd

Mathu Jeyaloganathan scooped this year’s NatWest WISE100 Social Investment award. She joined as investment lead at UnLtd not long before Covid-19 hit in March 2020, and has since been instrumental in setting up a brand new Growth Impact Fund. 

Sharing her story before a live audience in London, at last month’s WISE100 awards ceremony, Jeyaloganathan recalls a significant moment when she was at school in Sri Lanka.

Finance is a language that has been created by the privileged and the powerful

Aged 11 and asked what she would change about the world, she stuck a one dollar note to a scrapbook and drew a big red cross through it. She wanted to live in a world with no money. 

As a refugee whose family claimed asylum in Canada, Jeyaloganathan reflects on how money always represented a lack of belonging and inequality to her – until she found the world of social enterprise and social investment. 

• Read more from Mathu Jeyaloganathan: Racism in social investment is institutionalised – white allies must step up

But the social investment sphere has a lot of work to do. “Finance is a language that has been created by the privileged and the powerful,” she says. 

Watch Jeyaloganathan’s moment that mattered above, and check back soon for more stories from the WISE100 network.

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