In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Marla Blow, the president and CEO of the Skoll Foundation, the leading philanthropy focused on social entrepreneurship and innovation around the world. Over the course of this conversation, we learn how Blow's career in finance and financial inclusion, across the private and public sectors, would prepare her to lead a dynamic institution and community of innovators in this era of extraordinary change — and resilience.
We begin with important elements of Blow's origin story, including her childhood outside of Atlanta, a city (then) on the precipice of rapid growth, where she was drawn to the idea of helping people translate opportunity into long-term financial security. "I thought I could help people make better decisions," she said. That instinct would carry her to Wharton, Wall Street, an MBA at Stanford, and to Capital One, where she learned the discipline of applied behavioral economics and consumer lending. In the Obama Administration, Blow joined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she began to see more clearly the full landscape of American consumers — including those who were not well served by the traditional financial system or many of its products. That realization led her to found FS Card Inc to provide fairly priced credit to underserved consumers, an experience Blow describes as a "crash course" in entrepreneurship and the capital markets. Following the successful sale of FS Card, Blow helped lead Mastercard's Center for Inclusive Growth, where she was able to pursue financial inclusion at scale.
Blow speaks candidly about the extraordinary moment in which she assumed the CEO role at Skoll in 2025. The dismantling of USAID and broader cutbacks of support to and from multilateral finance institutions sent seismic shocks through the social entrepreneurship ecosystem that Skoll has supported since 1999. "I don't think any of us could have predicted that things would shift in this magnitude, or that they would shift this quickly," she says. And yet, Blow also describes with great admiration the resilience of individuals and organizations "that have been able to figure out how to pivot," efforts the foundation supported with a $25 million "pivot fund." Blow draws on the analogy of a forest of seemingly freestanding trees that are deeply interconnected beneath the surface. "It's the roots that enable them to transmit nutrients, to transmit information, to rebuild and regrow after absorbing and experiencing a shock," she says.
We also discuss a signature dimension of Skoll's work: the role of catalytic capital in driving impact. Today, approximately 80 percent of Skoll's endowment, managed in partnership with the Capricorn Investment Group, is aligned with the foundation's impact objectives in climate change mitigation and resilience, economic opportunity, health care, and responsible stewardship. Blow explains that these kinds of investments are not concessionary — their "financial returns continue to meet or exceed the performance of comparable asset classes" — and are exemplified by social enterprises like Apis & Heritage Capital Partners, a 2025 Skoll Award recipient that transitions small businesses to employee ownership – and has enabled main street workers to increase their net worth by a factor of ten.
We close with Blow's sources of optimism. They begin, she explains, with community — the cross-ideological partnership emerging across philanthropy, the private sector's increased engagement, the deep networks built over more than two decades of convening social entrepreneurs at the Skoll World Forum. "We are going through something, it's going to take a toll," she says. "And there is a light on the other side of it. We can continue working toward that light."
Mentioned in this episode:
The Skoll Foundation
Skoll World Forum
Transformation and Renewal in the Impact Ecosystem, The Skoll Foundation 2026 Annual Letter
Capricorn Investment Group
Evolving Philanthropy for Collective Action, (Stanford Social Innovation Review, Blow & Gips, 2024)
Apis & Heritage Capital Partners
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth
