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Meet the Team: Gayle Peterson

  • 7 days ago
  • 9 min read

Tuesday, 1st September 2026

By Paula Perrelli dos Anjos



I spoke to Gayle Peterson on an ordinary afternoon, her in Oxford, me at my desk in London. It didn't feel ordinary for long. Gayle has a way of turning a scheduled interview into a conversation you don't want to end, and about ten minutes in, I felt like I could listen to her for hours.


That’s exactly a quality you want from teachers. Gayle directs the Impact Investing Programme at Oxford's Saïd Business School, and years before Amazonia Impact Ventures (AIV) existed, Aldo and several of our colleagues sat in her classroom. She remembers it vividly: our co-founders around her kitchen table, sketching out AIV's Theory of Change. Years later, she still speaks of us with affection. She's been a mentor and champion ever since.


At one point she described herself as "the queen of opening yourself up to what is going wrong in order to improve". Gayle moves through the world with a kind of reverence for landscapes, shaped by a childhood in a family deeply committed to justice, nature and community. For her, impact is never abstract. It is rooted in real communities and the courage to build partnerships that stretch across borders. 


This is the fifth chapter of our "Meet the Team" series, where we sit down with the board and advisors who shaped AIV, following our conversations with Mark, Florian, Richard and Dieter.


By Paula Perrelli dos Anjos


What is the story that drew you to support Amazonia (AIV) as an advisor?


Amazonia Impact Ventures has a very special place in my heart. Aldo (Soto, Co-Founder and Managing Director) attended our early social finance programme, and over the years we’ve had five colleagues from AIV involved. I remember us sitting around my kitchen table developing the theory of change and the inner workings of the organisation. Watching that evolve has been remarkable. AIV shows the deepest commitment to taking what they’ve learnt and making it a reality.


It has been a wonderful experience, and something I think is worth showcasing, because these are deeply committed colleagues from finance. And in Aldo’s case, there is also a profound commitment to the environment. As a visionary leader, he understands the finance side, but what he feels most deeply is the importance of creating opportunities for real people to do real work on the ground.


For me, AIV exemplifies what we want to achieve in impact investing and social finance: uniting kindred spirits to create change that matters both globally and locally. It’s inspiring. It’s very hard work. Building collaboration isn’t easy, and securing investors isn’t easy. It has been a journey to get to where you are now. The fact that we’re having this interview, that you have other advisors being showcased, that you’ve won numerous awards and are now being invited into new spaces, that’s a wonderful story to document. I’m proud of everyone involved, both as a mentor and as a supporter.


About the personal values and experiences that shape your connection to the Amazon and to this work?


When we think about the Amazonian countries, it’s not just the lungs of the Earth, it’s the heart of the Earth. It is the essence of Mother Earth. The fact that we, as a world, have not recognised that importance is devastating. My own background is rooted in nature and conservation. I grew up in a family deeply committed to protecting forests, prairies, and special places around the world. So the idea of planting seeds, and what transformation really looks like when people go through our programmes and leadership opportunities, resonates strongly with me.


Because of our experience with colleagues at AIV, we’ve been developing what we call “action investing”. We create exercises in class that teams work on throughout the week, and the challenge we set is usually to design a significant nature‑based investment fund. It can be anywhere in the world, but it forces colleagues who know nothing about nature or ecosystems to engage deeply with those systems.


We often use the term “ecosystem” metaphorically in finance, but true ecosystems only exist in nature. The richness of an ecosystem is something you can only understand by engaging with it. The value of people learning that through these actions‑investing exercises has been monumental. Colleagues who arrived knowing nothing about nature or community become energised by it. I hope many of them will go on to seed new ideas about why forests and communities are so important, and what value they bring to our world and our economy.


It feels like a cycle: you influence people to create something, and the creation influences the learning and the teaching.


Exactly, and there’s real energy around it. People love it. You have a team of very diverse individuals from around the world building, in most cases, a nature‑based investment. They choose the geography and the type of investment, and it forces them to engage.


I’m also doing research at the moment on AI and its impact on the value chain. If we look at where AI is heading, there’s about $1.5 trillion being invested annually in infrastructure. Yet we haven’t fully considered the implications for natural resources. Most of the rare minerals needed are located in four major biomes. So the race for rare minerals is now competing directly with the race to protect biodiversity and to use biodiversity as an economic tool for local communities.


What do you think are the most structural barriers preventing capital from flowing to Indigenous peoples and to forest‑based enterprises in the Amazon?


I think there are several. One is simply a lack of knowledge. Colleagues in finance are taught certain things (supply chains, scale, financial modelling) but they’re not taught about the value of the Amazon, except in terms of exploitation: soybean production, timber harvesting, agricultural expansion. They’re not taught about conservation or the economics around it. Education is really important.


I also think that once people are educated, and once the business case is made, many genuinely want to do the right thing. But within their institutions, they struggle to gain traction. And then there’s the backlash around climate change. It is pulling people away from environmental commitments. I hope it’s temporary, but we don’t have time to wait.


Based on your experience evaluating strategies around the globe, where do you think KPI‑linked finance succeeds, and where does it fail in practice?


I think impact measurement and KPIs suffer, again, from the fact that people simply aren’t familiar with what is relevant when looking at investments in local Indigenous communities.

That lack of knowledge and commitment translates directly into what people choose to value as KPIs. What AIV is doing is measuring the right things: what is actually happening in local communities. But for many investors, the first question is still, “How much money are you making?”


Often, when we speak to financial institutions, we lead with the natural and social impacts, rather than the financial implications. And when you’re focused on local communities, people in finance tend to ask the same questions simply because they don’t know any better. The most important thing you can do with investors is to take them to the place itself. Let them experience it. If you’re sitting in Luxembourg or London and you’ve never been to Amazonian communities, it’s very easy to tick a box and make a decision that isn’t relevant.


From your experience, how do you distinguish those in nature finance who will succeed from those who will struggle?


I can say what I’ve learned. The ability to build new partnerships and work across disciplines is really important, not just collaborating with our ecosystem of friends but imagining the partnerships we haven’t tapped yet. The second is speaking the truth about what’s working and what’s not, and how you’re growing. Documenting that learning and sharing it is really important. That’s a sign of maturity as opposed to fearfulness. 


We analysed 250 funds. The most successful have technical assistance elements. They work with communities. They help communities and AIV does that. Can you be that navigator and translator to help people work on the ground, to understand and represent intermediaries? That’s often missing in big investments. So honesty, building from the ground up, showing other people how to do that, taking the leadership mantle and wearing it. That is all essential.


If you could redesign the system from scratch, what is one thing you would change in the social finance sector?


I would like our leaders in finance to be brave and to not bow to politics. Because climate change is real. Watching what's happened globally as more and more financial institutions jettison their climate programmes, it makes no sense. For me, you can't have an MBA programme without introducing a truly values‑chain approach that looks at nature, that looks at Indigenous communities. So I think that we, as a world, have to rethink our commitment and how we use capital. We were on a trajectory to do that, and then politics changed.


How do we begin to unify people around the really important things for the survival of the planet? It is common sense, not politics. Politics should be common sense. So how can you be driven by commitment, compassion and a recognition that our children deserve more?

What success looks like for me is when I have our students, who come from big companies around the world, coming up to me at a conference and saying, “No one's talking about community here. Why is no one talking about the communities here?” We're getting traction.


What in your life took you towards this path? Which influences shaped the way you think and helped you build the career you have today?


I was mentored and loved deeply by people who believed I could do anything in the world. My father and mother were deeply committed to justice, to nature, and to community. I did not chart my course. Serendipity drew me to Oxford. I had gone from running different nonprofit organisations, being involved in law, and being involved in policy. I ended up going to graduate school in Oxford because I found philanthropy was missing a moral compass in this area, and I wanted to learn more about how we integrate leadership into philanthropy based on the values we project. And I didn’t find that.


I came to Oxford and was going to do my thesis on performance measures, and leadership became a driver for me. My research was: who are the leaders in the world exemplifying compassion, collaboration, working with community, creativity, and the cornerstone of being honest.


My journey to find them was to go around the world (twenty countries) and interview people to say: who exemplifies best practice when dealing with complex issues at a community level? What are we learning from them? And are they willing to share the mistakes they made? And the good news is there are a lot of remarkable people who said, “I want to know what I did wrong. I want to help others in this learning process”. I’ve been fortunate to be able to showcase their work, and that’s what we teach.


I’m kind of the queen of “open yourself up to what is going wrong in order to improve”. I hope that what we bring into the classroom, and I hope that’s what has inspired your leaders within your organisation, is to make the drive and commitment to change the world, to make it a better place. I think AIV is the essence of what we need to preserve.


Instant Insights:


Life beyond work?

I'm in nature. That's where I go. My husband loves to cook, so I love to shop with him in local grocery stores. Having meals with my family, having meals with our friends. And I love what I do. So when I’m not working, I love learning about the culture and being around people who want to show me and share their communities and their lives. Also generating new ideas to deal with the most complex issues in the world.


Any book, podcast or thinker who has inspired you recently?

I’ve been working on values‑based investing. What shapes our values that will inform how we make investments? How does faith enter into how we make decisions? There’s nature, spirituality, arts, culture, family and community. There are different ways our values are nurtured. One of the things I’m reading is How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith. It’s written by Mariann Edgar Budde.


Would you share any hidden talents or hobbies, something people might not know about you?

I love renovating houses. I love taking a house that’s in shambles and renovating it. I’ve done this in 15 different houses throughout 30 years of my life around the world. I’ve seen something that spoke to my heart and renovated it, worked with local contractors, created something new. Taking something that was delinquent or neglected and making it home is joyful.


A place you’ve visited or lived that you loved the most.

I’ve had a life that allows me to travel to sixty countries in the world. Right now, immersing myself in Amazonia and Patagonia. And I love Japan, China, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore. I’m lucky to say I can go to different parts of the world and work with people I adore and love, who are doing remarkable things.


What’s one question you think I should have asked you, but didn’t?

I would ask you: what could you do differently? AIV has been around for six years now. I understand how difficult it is to raise money. I understand how difficult it is to work on the ground and build relationships. So I would ask, “What is your bold big vision?” Who haven’t you worked with that you want to bring to your table? And I would challenge you to go back to find out where the money is, and can you influence that?



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