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Esther Pan Sloane’s Shift From UN Diplomacy to Private Credit

January 16, 2026

Video Transcript

Hi, good morning and welcome to the Impact on FinTech TV.

I'm your host, Jeff Guinnerman.

I'm joined this morning by Esther Pan Sloan.

Esther is the managing director of Air Street Capital.

Esther, welcome to the show.

Jeff, always a pleasure.

You're also a longtime friend, so I don't want to pretend on camera that we're don't know each other a long time.

We met at the UN years ago where you were doing incredible work on private partnership and blended finance, and uh it's just interesting now to see you in the private market side of the world.

Tell me a little bit about your journey from the UN into the private.

Market space and impact in general.

Absolutely.

Well, before the UN, I was actually a US diplomat, so I was on the team, the US team that helped negotiate the Sustainable Development Goals, which are a UN roadmap for peace and prosperity for the world that you've been very engaged with and one of the first actually in the finance world to seriously engage.

So thank you very much.

And that was a long process.

It was 3 years of negotiating with 193 states, and we were all so excited when it was adopted in 2015.

And then the question was, now what, right?

What do these words on paper mean to anybody in the world?

Lot of pretty pins.

A lot of pretty pins, nice colors in the boxes, but how is this going to help anyone who's poor or help a woman send her child to school that there's actually no practical.

Effect if you don't execute it, and what you need to execute an agenda like that is money.

So then I went to a UN agency, which was working to attract private sector capital to the poorest 46 countries as the most effective way to fight poverty, to help people earn money and keep it.

And we did some interesting experiments there with blended finance, use.

Thank you.

Try to use public sector money to attract private sector money to direct investment flows into these poorer countries.

And after a while, it became evident that the UN does not own any assets.

It does not direct assets.

And so a lot of the discussion in the multilateral sphere about what Do about investment flows are just talking amongst peers who do not have the ability to direct flows of capital.

So then it made more sense to go to the asset owners or the asset managers and try to effect change from that side.

So I joined Avenue Capital Group in 2022.

They had an environmental private credit fund and then our team from that group.

Our group from Avenue Capital spun out with our first environmental private credit fund, and now we're a firm called Air Street Capital, and we are raising a second fund hoping to hit $800 million.

So I want to go even further back though.

So yes, you were an ambassador, but diplomat, a diplomat, sorry, but what drove you into this side of the world?

It's always good for, I think, the audience to understand, especially younger people that get to see the show, why does someone make a decision to go into the world of helping and ultimately helping with capital versus just taking advantage of the capital market.

It's amusing your incredible brains to just make money.

Where, where did that divergence happen for you?

Yeah, I was never interested in making money.

It was never a goal for me.

I was, I studied English literature and peace studies, so I studied English and international relations, and I was always really interested in how countries work, right?

Countries and systems that markets are set up certain ways, you know, you had, I studied in East Germany or in I studied in Germany and we had a professor who'd been in East Germany and he would tell us about the command economy and why it's inefficient because he had run it, you know, so he was, he was saying it's very inefficient to set prices and I can tell you why.

So when you realize that markets and economies are just ways to set up how people engage with each other and trade goods and try to live life and that there have been many ways of doing this over You know, many 1000 years of history, it's very interesting because it shows you what people value and what societies value.

So working on the development side, it showed that, you know, you can have the best intentions in the world, but your tools may not be effective.

And I think we have seen that capitalism with all of its flaws is the most effective tool that's ever been invented in all of these economic systems to help people reach prosperity with the right guidelines, with the right guardrails on it.

So it became very clear that giving countries money over many years since the postwar period did not help them leave poverty, but really what helped was structural change, reforming markets, and allowing people to earn money and keep it.

And then what drove me into diplomacy was I had been a journalist and so I was writing a lot about international affairs and that was fun, you know, it was, it was having a front row seat to what was happening, but after a while you start to see, oh, these, there's a game that's happening or there's this mechanism.

That's happening in the world.

I can write about it and tell people about it, or I can play.

And if I don't play, someone else is going to take the ball and they may take it somewhere I don't like.

And then this game might look like something that I don't agree with or create a world that I don't think is the best way to structure society so that the most people can thrive.

And so that's what made me take the Foreign Service exam.

So let's jump back into the present with Air Street Capital.

Talk to us about the work that Air Street Capital's doing and how it's helping to solve these challenges that we talk about, especially in an environment that is more tricky today than it was a couple of years ago, for sure.

Absolutely.

So we've seen in the last 10 years Real ebbs and flows of the attitude towards impact, sustainability, climate on the investment side, and you were very early with your firm about looking at the UN and these development goals and saying how can private sector finance make a difference, which is so appreciated because before the SDGs, the private sector was never considered a partner to government in these development agendas.

There was always. governments or the World Bank, these big institutions, it was their job to fight poverty, provide human rights, do all of these things to make citizens' lives better.

But for the first time in 2015, there was a recognition that the private sector has an enormous role to play.

It can move faster.

It's more nimble, and without these massive flows of finance, none of these ambitious goals will ever be achieved.

So at Airst Street Capital, we are an opportunistic private credit fund that makes investments into companies that create environmental benefit.

We screen every investment for the environmental benefit it will create, so kilowatt hours added to the grid or amount of renewable energy added to the grid or fossil fuels displaced or plastics recycled.

So we're very focused about what we track and measure and report to our investors to show that the impact that we are trying to achieve is actually real.

And at the same time we produce a market rate return because we don't think that investing in sustainability means you should make less money.

Absolutely, and we can't.

I mean we can't operate in the capitalist world and not drive positive returns to affect impact.

We have to figure out a way to marry the two.

We can see on the philanthropic side, climate change is getting 0.1%, maybe some estimates say as much as 2%, but a lot of that's going to mitigation.

It's not going to physical risk, so some of Biggest challenges we have certainly are not going to be solved by philanthropy, and if they're going to be solved in the capital markets, we have to be able to attract capital.

To attract capital, you have to show nominal market rate returns.

Exactly.

And one thing that we've seen, especially in this year with all the disruption in the international aid flows, is that if you have a development program or an aid program, the minute that grant funding stops, your impact stops.

And so you're very vulnerable to changes in political environments or decision making, whereas if you start a viable business and impact is part of the business, as long as the business makes money, the impact is sustainable forever.

So that's what we're aiming for and the kind of things that you're doing, they're not really.

I'm trying to think of the correct word here.

They're not really under attack by some of the administration today.

Um, it depends.

Some people don't like climate solutions, but if you call it grid resilience or reliable energy, everybody's in favor of that.

But it's the same investment, right?

So it really depends how you frame it and how you're looking at it.

And I think what I've tried to do is be very pragmatic.

We're very clear that climate is key to our entire business, but we're also clear that investment is also key.

So it has to hit both of those metrics, and if it's not 100%, if it doesn't have integrity on both sides, then it won't work.

It's interesting because we focus a lot on the same things that you do more in the public markets where you're operating on the private market side, but we started doing this in a world where AI was not a factor, and now we're both sitting in a world where AI and energy demand because of AI is Driving a totally different world than we lived in 5 years ago.

How is that impacting the work that you're doing?

It's tremendous.

So the rise of data centers and the energy demand and water demand of AI is pretty much on everyone's minds.

And so if you're in this area, you're seeing.

Proposals and deals for AI data centers everywhere and you see some pitches that seem slightly implausible, like 100% renewable energy to fund my data center or closed loop water so it will not take a drop of groundwater from the surrounding community, and those seem highly optimistic.

But at the same time there's really fantastic technological progress being made on how you can provide behind the meter solutions or distributed energy solutions or you have the hypersca or pay to.

Create a new and upgraded grid so that when they build their data center they are not drawing from the existing old, you know, overloaded power grid that's serving all the citizens, but then they pay the cost to upgrade the grid to provide the energy that they need.

So there are good solutions happening, but because it's happening so fast, it feels very overwhelming to some people.

Yeah, for sure.

It's also interesting because it goes into whether the AI growth projections are actually real because The data centers be built in scale as fast the energy projections are right?

Will the energy be there?

Will the water be there?

It's becoming an issue, I think that's starting to bubble up.

Some people are talking about it in the marketplace, but it doesn't seem to be reflective in the stock price these days.

What about things like nuclear and geothermal?

Are you looking into those areas?

We like geothermal.

We've looked at it.

We haven't made a geothermal investment yet.

Nuclear is very promising, but the timeframe to market.

It is very long and our investment period's 4 years, so we're a credit fund.

We hold loans for 2 to 5 years.

So something that's coming to the market in 1520 years is too long a bet for us.

So do you look at things where like utilities are trying to scale renewable faster and faster onto their grid as backup and provisions not just for data centers but just the overall grid demand that we're seeing today?

Absolutely, because as you mentioned earlier, the electricity demand curve is like this.

So what People thought the US would use in terms of power has been blown out of the water by 100 times.

So the power that America needs by 2030, by 2035, is exponential to what we have now.

So anything that can make grids more efficient, that can increase transmission capacity, that can help distribution reach the wider market, any of those solutions are definitely something we would consider.

And it's interesting because we're seeing this problem happen globally now, we're seeing energy demand, especially in Northern European countries that went kind of far ahead in scaling back nuclear and other things that are now trying to build data centers, they're having similar problems.

Do you operate just in the US or are you looking at opportunities internationally?

We're definitely looking at opportunities in Europe.

Our fun one was North America focused, so US and Canada, but business is so international.

Now that you can have a company headquartered in the United States as we do where much of their business is in Latin America or in other parts of the world and especially for Europe.

They had a real shock with the Ukraine war where they had to very swiftly change their energy provision and demand from Russian gas.

So we're seeing an acceleration of trends there towards renewable energy.

Interesting, interesting, and certainly probably in Europe a little bit easier to get funding around renewable energy than maybe in the United States right now.

I think the political environment is more clear.

The consensus around the threat of climate change is more clear, but I don't think it's easy to transition any of these legacy systems, right?

You're different countries, different.

Grid requirements, different regulations.

So I think it's tricky everywhere, yeah, and it's not just AI, it's electric vehicles, it's electric commercial vehicles.

It's just warmer temperatures need more air conditioning, needs more pressure on the grid in areas that before never had air conditioning.

So we're seeing this electric demand.

Be not just overemphasized by AI, but just even traditionally climate change itself and the drive for more renewables and more electric is also spiking the demand.

So I will say it seems like a great business opportunity for Air Street Capital for sure.

Well, we think anything that builds sustainability for the future is a great business opportunity.

Because we all need these things.

We need energy provision.

We need water, anything that can reduce waste.

I mean, there are technologies that turn waste into energy.

So all of these things that we treated as having no value in the past now have value.

And if you can sift through those processes and you can take the metals and cardboard and plastic out of your garbage and sell it and reuse it, why wouldn't we do that?

Awesome.

Great to talk to you.

Anything you want to tell our audience before we go?

We think that the future of renewables and sustainability is strong and that despite some headwinds, most people who are pragmatic look at the demands for energy and renewable materials and other products that society will have in the future. and realize that we have to come up with solutions.

And what's very encouraging is that there are so many brilliant entrepreneurs who are coming up with fantastic technical solutions and amazing technologies that can solve all the problems that we're facing.

And if we scale them quickly enough and if we invest in them, we can create the world that we want to see.

Awesome, great to have you on.

It was always great to see you.

That's it for the impact on FinTech TV.

I'm your host, Jeff Ginterman.

Until next time.

Esther Pan Sloane, managing director of Eyre Street Capital, joined host Jeff Gitterman on FintechTV’s TheImpact to discuss her unconventional path from diplomacy at the United Nations to sustainable investing in the private finance sector. The conversation explored the realities of impact investing, the role of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and how climate change and technological growth are reshaping modern finance.

Pan Sloane’s career began in international relations and development, where she served as a U.S. diplomat and played a role in negotiating the SDGs, which were established in 2015 to promote global prosperity and peace. While the goals are ambitious and well intentioned, she explained that the real challenge lies in mobilizing enough capital to turn them into reality, particularly in underserved regions. That realization ultimately drove her shift from public service into private markets, where she believed capital allocation could be more directly influenced to generate measurable outcomes.

At Eyre Street Capital, Pan Sloane focuses on the growing importance of private capital in solving global challenges. She emphasized that the private sector has become essential to financing sustainable solutions at scale. The firm concentrates on opportunistic private credit investments that deliver environmental benefits, evaluating each deal based on its real-world impact, whether through renewable energy development, waste recycling, or efficiency improvements. According to Pan Sloane, sustainability and profitability are not competing goals but complementary ones.

The discussion also addressed how attitudes toward sustainable investing have evolved over the past decade. Pan Sloane noted that while governments and large institutions once carried most of the responsibility for achieving the SDGs, private finance is now widely recognized as a necessary driver of progress. Without meaningful participation from private investors, she warned, many sustainability targets will remain out of reach.

Artificial intelligence and its rapidly growing energy demands were another key topic. Pan Sloane highlighted the strain AI-driven data centers are placing on power grids and the need for innovative energy solutions to keep pace. She pointed to opportunities for utilities to expand renewable energy capacity and modernize infrastructure, reinforcing the idea that technological advancement must be matched by parallel progress in energy systems.

When discussing emerging energy technologies, Pan Sloane expressed interest in geothermal power and acknowledged the long-term potential of nuclear energy, while also recognizing the extended timelines required for nuclear projects to reach viability. Her investment philosophy prioritizes solutions that can be deployed in the near term rather than those that may take decades to materialize. Eyre Street Capital, she said, is focused on directing capital toward sectors that offer both financial returns and tangible sustainability benefits.

Internationally, Pan Sloane noted that Eyre Street Capital is closely monitoring opportunities beyond the United States, particularly in Europe. Regulatory frameworks around renewable energy are evolving quickly, driven in part by geopolitical pressures such as the war in Ukraine. These developments, she said, underscore the urgency of building resilient and secure energy systems capable of withstanding global disruptions.

A consistent theme throughout the conversation was optimism about the future of sustainable investing, paired with a sense of urgency. Pan Sloane stressed that businesses focused on renewable energy and sustainability are not only viable but increasingly essential as global demand accelerates. Collective action and timely execution, she argued, will determine whether sustainability goals can be met.

As climate resilience and technological innovation continue to converge, the role of finance will only grow more influential. Eyre Street Capital’s model, which aligns sustainability with profitability, illustrates how responsible finance can drive meaningful change while delivering competitive returns. Pan Sloane’s perspective reflects a broader shift within the industry, where impact investing is no longer a niche concept but a critical component of the global financial system.

In closing, Pan Sloane’s insights point to a financial landscape in transition. Impact investing tied to sustainability is emerging as both a powerful investment opportunity and a key mechanism for advancing the SDGs. With leaders like Pan Sloane pushing practical, scalable solutions, the partnership between private capital and sustainable development is positioned for continued growth in the years ahead.

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