Building on a record-breaking 2025 event that drew over 700 delegates and unprecedented institutional interest, planning for the Impact Investment Summit Asia Pacific 2026 is in full swing.
Next year’s Summit promises to be bigger and bolder, with two new dedicated streams, a stronger focus on institutional investors including super funds, and more opportunities for dealmakers, companies, and capital providers to connect.
Bringing together leading fund managers, foundations, governments, and global experts, attendees can expect deeper analysis, live dealmaking, and unparalleled access to the region’s most influential voices in impact investment.
“Following the success of the 2025 Summit with over 700 attendees, we’re excited to have started planning for the 2026 event. I was overwhelmed by the positive feedback this year and I’m excited by our early conversations about next year’s program.” – Kerry Series, Director, Impact Investment Summit.
New streams announced
In 2026, the Summit will again delve into impact investing across the streams of Climate & Environment, Healthcare, Communities & Inclusion, and Biotech & Medtech. It will also include two new Streams – Asia Pacific Investment Opportunities and Partnerships and Systems Change Investing.
Asia Pacific Investment Opportunities and Partnerships
As explored by Nicholas Moore – Special Envoy for Southeast Asia for the Commonwealth Government and former CEO of Macquarie Group – in his 2025 Summit address, there remain massive unmet needs and opportunities in the Asia Pacific region, especially in renewables and infrastructure.
This opportunity for impact investors was also explored in the panel discussion ‘Impact Investing for the Billions: The Southeast Asia Opportunity.’ The discussion spotlighted Southeast Asia as one of the most dynamic and diverse regions for investment, with nearly 700 million people across 11 countries, a growing middle class expected to surpass 300 million by 2030, and a median age of just 30 – offering a powerful combination of scale, youth, and momentum.
This growing appetite for investments through Asia-Pacific has prompted the creation of a new Stream in 2026 dedicated to Asia Pacific Investment Opportunities and Partnerships.
“Having spent a significant part of my career investing across the Asia Pacific, it is great to have a dedicated stream for the region’s impact investing activities and opportunities,” said Kerry Series.
David Hetherington, CEO, Impact Investing Australia added:
“This year’s Impact Investment Summit Asia Pacific resonated strongly with institutional investors – with their needs and interests increasingly reflected across the program.
“We welcome the stronger focus on Asia Pacific investing throughout the Summit’s content, highlighting the growing importance of our region in shaping the future of impact investing. As Australia’s peak body for impact investing, IIA is proud to once again support this premier annual event.”
Systems Change Investing
The 2026 Summit will also more deeply explore adopting a systems lens to investing to both drive change and benefit from change in the global economy.
This topic generated a lot of conversation at this year’s Summit, largely thanks to a revealing keynote address from Viktor Shvets — Global Strategist, Macquarie Capital and author of “The Twilight Before the Storm – From the Fractured 1930s to Today’s Crisis Culture – How to Avoid a World on Fire”.
Viktor warned that climate change, seismic economic shifts, AI, geopolitics, and war are converging to create a crisis not seen since the 1930s. We are living through a “twilight before the storm,” a tipping point where growing discontent risks tearing down existing systems.
This new stream will explore how impact investors can help shape outcomes of this systems change and areas they can invest in.
It has the support of Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), a United Nations-supported network of investors. PRI Senior Responsible Investment Manager Abi Curtis said:
“The UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment is pleased to be a supporter of the 2026 Impact Investment Summit. We look forward to a great line-up of impactful speakers to delve into the system-level challenges and opportunities facing investors and other stakeholders.
“Many investors are increasingly investing for sustainability impact, as they see achieving sustainability outcomes as also instrumental in realising their financial goals. PRI reporting data from 2024 shows that the maturity curve is continuing – investors are expanding their responsible investment practices, with the aim of enhancing risk-adjusted returns.
“Asset owners are demonstrating greater ambition and action, and investment managers’ approaches to responsible investment are becoming more granular. Action in private markets is continuing to expand, and social issues are rising up the agenda. At the same time, more investors are taking action to address climate-related risks and opportunities.”
A non-negotiable on the annual calendar
The 2026 Summit will build on the resounding success of this year’s Summit, which saw a 30% jump in attendees comprising active institutional investors, Australia’s largest foundations and family offices, advisors eager to learn, government looking to partner, and companies and funds seeking capital to scale their impact.
Attendees provided overwhelmingly positive feedback. Andrew Bird, Managing Director at Foundstone Advisory, said:
“As impact-led strategy advisors, the Impact Investment Summit has become a non-negotiable on our annual calendar. The summit is a hallmark event for leaders of for-purpose organisations across Australia.
“The 2025 summit was an exceptional opportunity to connect and collaborate with institutional investors, Australia’s largest foundations, family offices and key government stakeholders across the social impact investment landscape.
“Keynote speakers shared the latest global impact investment trends, panel sessions provided live insights from leaders scaling impact solutions, and pitch sessions direct from prominent founders showcased real-world ground-breaking opportunities.
“The summit brings together all the critical players across service providers, funders, government and advisors to open up new opportunities and facilitate systems change. It’s one of those genuine opportunities to meet and connect with the smartest minds and decision makers in this space.
The value in attending and participating in impact investment conferences – more broadly – was analysed by Sorenson Impact Institute, who collected insights from hundreds of respondents into the question: are conferences effectively meeting the needs of the impact investment field?
The results were summarised in the report, Impact Convening Insights, with the data revealing impact professionals resoundingly recognise the value of convenings, finding them as “somewhat or extremely helpful in achieving their goals and nearly half attend at least one event per year, with most attending several”.
“Where I work, we always say we don’t do hard things alone. In the capital markets in particular, you need community to have any hope of doing anything new or mitigating anything bad.”
The 2026 Summit Program
Impact Investing For Advisers, Foundations, & Family Offices
Access experts and specialists to advance your understanding of the opportunities available for investment in positive impact companies, organisations, and projects and share your ideas and deals with other advisers, foundations, and family offices.
Sessions will focus on accessing and generating new ideas, researching funds and deals, and pitches from early-stage companies through to institutional-grade funds.
Impact Investing for Institutions
Hear from major funds, super funds, and government institutions about their existing exposures to positive impact assets and companies and their processes to determine how they allocate capital.
Sessions will also include presentations from existing portfolio companies and funds, asset consultants, and internal fund teams.
Impact Focus Areas
To identify investment opportunities and facilitate capital flows to address pressing social and environmental challenges, the Summit will focus sessions on key impact investment sectors with keynote speakers, expert panels, dealmakers, and investors.
Each sector will have a separate stream enabling Summit attendees to delve deeply into one area or join sessions most relevant to them across the themes.
- Climate & Environment: investing in solutions that reduce emissions, protect ecosystems, and build a more sustainable, low-carbon future.
- Healthcare: better health through equitable access, early intervention, and investment in systems that prioritise wellbeing.
- Communities & Inclusion: improving outcomes and ensuring safer, fairer, more inclusive communities for all.
- Biotech & Medtech: accelerating breakthrough innovations that enhance diagnosis, treatment, and the delivery of affordable, scalable solutions.
- Systems Change Investing: adopting a systems lens to investing to both drive change and benefit from change in the global economy.
- Asia Pacific Investment Opportunities and Partnerships: engaging with our region to identify investment opportunities in developing and frontier markets and develop partnerships to scale impact investing.
Pitch Sessions
Following the keynote presentations and panel sessions, companies and funds in each sector will pitch to investors, providing attendees with live capital raising opportunities.
The Impact Investment Summit Asia Pacific 2026
Planning continues and we invite you to help co-create the Impact Investment Summit 2026. This is your chance to help shape the conversation, share your expertise, bring together investors and key stakeholders to address the pressing social and environmental challenges of our time, and showcase investment solutions.
“The new content and speaker suggestions have been inspiring, and the conversations with Partners looking to be involved gives me every confidence the 2026 Summit will be bigger and better again,” – Ben Curtis, Commercial Director, Impact Investment Summit.
The Impact Investment Summit Asia Pacific 2026 will take place on 25-26 March 2026 at ICC Sydney. For more information see – https://impactinvestmentsummit.com
Early Bird tickets are available here.
Partnership opportunities are still available – those interested should reach out to Ben Curtis at bcurtis@intermedia.com.au or 0415 404 264.