Dr Jamie Newth
FOUNDER & CEO
Jamie leads the Soul Capital team drawing on his expertise from a career in entrepreneurship, strategy, and growth across private, non-profit and social enterprise sectors. He is a Senior Lecturer of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Auckland Business School where he leads research into social innovation and impact investment. He sits on the National Advisory Board for impact investment in New Zealand, and the Board of Ember Wellbeing Trust, a community mental health provider, and chairs its ventures arm, Ember Innovations.
Dave Curtis
EXEC DIRECTOR
Dave is a strategic thinker, trusted advisor and collaborative coach, with a naturally intuitive and human centred approach to creating impactful solutions. Alongside being an Exec Director of Soul Capital, Dave is an executive coach and advisor.
Dr Deborah Shepherd
DIRECTOR
Deb has spent the last 20 years working with entrepreneurial businesses as an advisor, researcher, investor, and director. She is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland Business School alongside being a Director of Soul Capital. Her interest in social entrepreneurship and impact investment stems from an optimistic belief that eventually all businesses will prioritise impact success in equal measure to financial success.
Alex Dallas
INVESTMENT PRINCIPAL
Following a long career in corporate finance (CPA qualified), Alex moved into the start up space as a CFO, raising capital and negotiating acquisition. She is involved in several start up’s and SMES at an executive or governance level. The last several years have been spent focusing on impact investing, as a senior manager in an impact fund based in Tauranga. In this role, Alex has lead teams to evaluate and work with investee companies to make successful investments.
Ben Seto
INVESTMENT MANAGER
As an Investment Manager at Soul Capital, Ben sources, analyses and supports Kiwi founders in scaling up their impact ventures. Prior to Soul Capital, Ben spent several years in venture capital as a venture builder at Beca’s Corporate Venture team and at NZ Growth Capital Partners. Ben has also had buy-side exposure internationally, having worked in Tokyo conducting equity research on listed technology companies.
Rachel Benitez
INVESTMENT ASSOCIATE
As an Investment Associate with Soul Capital, Rachel manages our deal flow pipeline and works closely with founders throughout the due diligence process. With her background as a scientist, she has a natural drive to observe and ask questions. Rachel joined Soul Capital after working in early-stage venture capital funds in Aotearoa, with the belief that investment decisions driven by purpose and meaningful relationships can bring about positive change in our world.
Jamie Smith
INVESTMENT ANALYST
Jamie is part of the deal team at Soul Capital to assist in working with founders during due diligence processes, managing inbound deals and assisting in strategic outputs. She comes from a science background having studied Medicinal Chemistry, and a Master's in Public Policy. Driven by a desire to create positive change for all communities living in Aotearoa, Jamie’s interests align well with our kaupapa at Soul Capital and how we are working to make impact investing mainstream.
James Stewart
ADVISOR
James is an experienced commercial and investment professional with a passion for seeing change across our society. As the Director of Gemelli Consulting, James provides project finance and commercial strategy advice to social enterprises and non-for-profit agencies to help unlock opportunities by which they can have further positive impact on our world.
A multi-talented team from a range of different backgrounds who’ve come together for the purposes of making change through capital.
