News Release

Milken Institute 2025 Finance Forum Welcomes Business, Government, and Cross-Sector Experts to Discuss US and Global Resilient Infrastructure, and Bottom-Up Economic Development Strategies

5 Mar 2025

Chad Clinton

Director, Media Relations

Chad Clinton is the director of media relations for the Milken Institute. Hired to this role in August 2021, Clinton develops and executes strategies to amplify the Institute’s core messages by generating coverage of its pillar workstreams, experts, and events.

Topics

Finance

Economic Landscape

Regional Economic Development

Financial Markets

Social Entrepreneurship

The dynamic program highlights the Institute’s new Pathways to Capital platform to drive inclusive economic growth

Washington, DC (March 5, 2025)—Today, the Milken Institute 2025 Finance Forum convenes more than 250 leaders, innovators, investors, and policymakers dedicated to identifying innovative ways to fund, finance, and deliver critical community infrastructure projects and economic development initiatives globally.

This year’s event, with the theme of Building Resilient Communities, focuses on US capital deployment and capacity challenges while exploring emerging opportunities and key trends in international public finance. Key discussion topics include accelerating climate resilience, risk and insurance reforms, smart federalism and outcome-based budgeting, small business creation, regional innovation, and bottom-up growth.

“These are the brightest minds who share a commitment to uplifting communities through outcome-based financing and innovative capital deployment,” said Dan Carol, senior director, Milken Institute Finance. “In the current era of fiscal constraints, we must revamp how we think about deployment so that underserved areas receive the capital they need to thrive.”

The Finance Forum serves as a unique platform for cross-sector networking, featuring peer-to-peer events, such as the Investors Roundtable on Infrastructure and Regional Tech Hub Partners, and strategy sessions dedicated to small business and entrepreneurship.

The speaker lineup includes more than 50 leaders in government, philanthropy, and the investment community and has been carefully selected to ensure that thoughtful, unique perspectives and expertise are represented, helping to produce a diverse range of insights and discussions to captivate and inspire participants.

Speakers and panelists include Doug Arendt, executive director, NREL Foundation; Samatha Berg, co-CEO, NextStreet; Carolyn Bordeaux, president, Concord Foundation; Régine Clément, CEO, CREO Syndicate; Evan Feinberg, senior vice president, Stand Together; Kim Folsom, founder, chairperson, and CEO, Founders First Capital Partners; Lauren Grattan, co-founder and chief community officer, Mission Driven Finance; Amy Hepburn, CEO, Investor Leadership Network; Van Jones, CNN host, New York Times-bestselling author, and founder, DreamMachine.org; Andreas Karelas, founder and executive director, RE-volv; Amanda Li, chief operating officer, Banyan Infrastructure; Maya MacGuineas, president, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget; Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, CEO and founder, Red-Horse Financial Group; Michelle Moore, CEO, Groundswell; Michael Novogradac, managing partner, Novogradac & Company LLP; Lynn Overmann, executive director, Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation; Tony Pipa, senior fellow, global economy and development, Center for Sustainable Development, Brookings Institution; Matt Posner, head of public finance, The Resiliency Company; Brooks Preston, managing director, Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets; Toby Rittner, chairman, CDFA Foundation; Angela Rodell, principal, Rodell Consulting; Shaolee Sen, head of small business, corporate responsibility, JPMorgan Chase & Co.; Jigar Shah, senior fellow, World Resources Institute; Ja'ron Smith, chief advocacy officer, Opportunity Funds Association; Ryan Streeter, executive director, Civitas Institute, The University of Texas at Austin; Phillip Swagel, director, Congressional Budget Office; Mark R. Warner, U.S. Senator (Virginia); and Ben Watkins, director, Division of Bond Finance, Florida.

During the Finance Forum, the Milken Institute is introducing its Pathways to Capital platform, a one-stop destination to help underserved communities grow economically through public-private partnerships. Rachel Reilly, who recently joined the Milken Institute as a senior director, will lead the Pathways to Capital program. The initiative strengthens the Institute’s long-standing commitment to fostering equitable access to capital, supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses, and driving sustainable economic development.

The Pathways to Capital platform is a hub for direct services, partnerships, and actionable solutions that bridge people, businesses, and communities to catalytic capacity and financial resources. The program accelerates capital deployment to overlooked entrepreneurs and small businesses and supports local economies with innovative financial models. Areas of focus include:

Inclusive Capitalism – focuses on reshaping financial markets to promote long-term value creation that benefits all stakeholders. This initiative champions policies and investment strategies that drive economic inclusion and scales up successful money managers building community wealth.  
10,000 Communities Initiative – a bold effort to connect capital with community-led solutions. This initiative aims to help thousands of underserved urban and rural communities across the US access funding, capacity, and talent to advance critical community infrastructure projects.
Initiative for Inclusive Entrepreneurship – a program dedicated to increasing capital access for historically underserved entrepreneurs by engaging investors, policymakers, and business leaders to create pathways for scalable, high-impact enterprises.

“Our goal is to ensure that capital reaches those who need it most—entrepreneurs, small business owners, and communities that have been forgotten by the financial system,” said Michael Piwowar, executive vice president of Finance at the Milken Institute. “By aligning these initiatives, we can drive comprehensive change to build a stronger, more diversified, and more resilient economy.”

Other highlights of the 2025 Finance Forum include sessions focused on domestic capital deployment priorities, including “The New Vision for Bottom-Up Growth and Innovation: Little Is the New Big,” “Incentivizing Investment in Innovative Critical and Emerging Technologies,” and “Outcomes over Orthodoxy: Opportunity Zones 2.0 and Next Generation Public-Private Partnerships.”

Session programming on international finance challenges includes “Retooling Disaster Preparedness and Response: New Directions and Opportunities for Resilient Recovery,” “Global Debt Levels: Opportunity to Innovate,” and “Investor Leadership in Sustainable Infrastructure Investing and Climate Finance: On the Road to Brazil.”

The Milken Institute is livestreaming all Finance Forum public sessions, expanding access to the event. Review the full agenda and speaker lineup, and watch the public sessions.

For updates on the event, follow the Milken Institute on BlueSky, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and Facebook using #MIGlobal.

About the Milken Institute

The Milken Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank focused on accelerating measurable progress on the path to a meaningful life. With a focus on financial, physical, mental, and environmental health, we bring together the best ideas and innovative resourcing to develop blueprints for tackling some of our most critical global issues through the lens of what’s pressing now and what’s coming next. For more information, visit https://milkeninstitute.org/ 