Who We Are - Flexible Capital Fund

Flexible Capital Fund Board of Directors

Flex Fund Background

The Flexible Capital Fund, L3C (Flex Fund) is a low profit, limited liability company launched in 2011. Managed by the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, the Flex Fund is supported by 38 investor members committed to helping small and innovative growth-stage companies in the green economy stay and grow in Vermont.

The Flex Fund recognizes that companies in rural areas, like Vermont, tend to be smaller and work on a less than global scale. These rural companies may need a form of “equity” to fuel growth but need it in lesser amounts and perhaps at lower returns than traditional venture capital requires. The Flex Fund offers Vermont financing which balances equity features and returns with the realities of Vermont’s small business environment.

Technical assistance, mentoring, and access to networks go hand in hand with flexible risk capital to meet Vermont early and growth stage companies’ needs. The Flex Fund offers access to the CEO advisory services and a breadth of other business and leadership networks essential to the sustainable growth of a business.

Mission

The Flex Fund’s mission is to invest in growing Vermont companies that fill a gap, or strengthen the supply chain in sustainable agriculture and food systems, forest products, renewable energy, clean technology, and other natural resource sectors. By helping our portfolio companies grow their businesses, we accelerate the rate at which Vermont, and the region, moves towards healthy food systems, renewable energy, and climate change solutions, while preserving Vermont’s working landscapes and building resilient communities.

The Team

Janice St. Onge, President, Flexible Capital Fund, L3C. Board Manager since 2010.

Janice St. Onge is President of the Flexible Capital Fund, L3C (“Flex Fund”), an impact-focused, CDFI fund, providing flexible risk capital (revenue based financing, subordinated debt and equity) to Vermont’s food system, forestry and clean technology businesses. As President, Janice manages all facets of the Flex Fund’s operations, including raising capital, deal flow, due diligence, and portfolio / financial management. Janice brings economic and business development, as well as financial expertise to the organization, having served in the technology, financial services, higher education and state government sectors during her 25+ year career. Previously, Janice served as Director of the Vermont Business Center (now the Center for Leadership & Innovation) at the University of Vermont and was the Technology Business Development Director for Vermont’s Department of Economic Development. She received the 2001 National Tibbetts Award in recognition for her outreach work with the Small Business Innovation Research program in Vermont. As Assistant Vice President at Peoples Bank, she originated and managed a $21 million commercial loan portfolio. Janice is a graduate of the University of Utah with a B.A. in Marketing and is an alumnus of the Snelling Center for Government’s Vermont Leadership Institute. Janice is a 2018 Fellow of the Just Economy Institute, whose mission is to support financial activists who are shifting the flow of capital and power to solve soical and environmental problems. She is a founding member of the Vermont and Northern New England Women’s Investors Network, and Slow Money Vermont and serves on the Vermont Small Business Development Center Advisory Board. A Stowe, Vermont resident, Janice was co-founder of the Stowe Energy and Climate Action Network and is a former International Ski Federation (FIS) World Cup Freestyle Skiing Judge.

Board of Managers

The Fund Board of Managers has authority over certain Company actions such as the adoption of the Company’s budget and the approval of loan transactions, expenditures and investments in portfolio companies. Currently, the Board of Managers consists of three Class A Managers and two Class B Managers. Additional officers include President and Secretary. Names and biographies of the Fund Board Managers are detailed below.

Dorothy Suput

Christine Donovan

Senior Fellow, Energy Action Network

Christine Donovan joined Energy Action Network’s (EAN) Board of Directors in 2015 and now serves as a Senior Fellow at the non-profit. Energy Action Network (EAN) is a diverse network of over two-hundred non-profits, businesses, public agencies, and other organizations working together in a collective to achieve Vermont’s climate and energy commitments in ways that create a more just, thriving, and sustainable future. Christine is also President of C.T. Donovan Associates, Inc., a renewable energy consulting firm founded in 1985 with a diverse portfolio of public- and private-sectors clients nationwide. In addition, Christine completed 10 years of consulting team and business development leadership at VEIC in Burlington, Vermont in 2019.

Christine served on the first national climate work group formed by President Clinton in 1993 and has Chaired or served on the Board of Directors of the American Solar Energy Society, Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, Maine Solar Energy Association, Renewable Energy Policy Project, National Biofuels Roundtable, Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, Flexible Capital Fund, as well as numerous cultural and civic organizations in Vermont. Since March 2021, she has served on the Subcommittee of the Vermont Climate Council charged with developing “cross-sector mitigation” strategies for achieving the state’s aggressive Global Warming Solutions Act.

Jed Kalkstein

CFO / Strategic Management Consultant

Jed Kalkstein possesses a diverse background that includes operating roles in executive management of startup and growth stage companies, turnarounds, and venture capital investing and has participated on several corporate and non-profit boards of directors. Jed is currently contract CFO for SmartEquip, in addition to offering a range of finance and operations support to growing companies. Mr. Kalkstein was a partner at Connecticut Innovations, Inc., a state-affiliated venture capital fund. Prior to Connecticut Innovations, he was a strategic consulting and corporate development professional at Arch Chemicals and served three years as a political appointee at the U.S. Department of Justice in both the policy and legislative affairs offices. Mr. Kalkstein graduated with honors from Hobart College and received a BA in Philosophy and Political Science and holds an MBA from the School of Management at Yale University.

Louisa Schibli

Chief Engagement Officer and a member of the Investment Committee, Rural Works Partners

Louisa Schibli, Chief Engagement Officer for Rural Works Partners, a Rural Business Investment Corporation that provides growth capital to rural businesses that are doing their part to protect our planet and generate community wealth and economic resilience. She is the co-founder of Milk Money Vermont, an online equity crowdfunding platform connecting everyday Vermonters to Vermont businesses looking to raise capital. She was a 2019/2020 fellow at the Just Economy Institute, focusing on the support of financial activists and use of different forms of financial, social and natural capital to generate positive social and environmental change. She’s also a founding member of the Vermont Women’s Investor Network (VTWIN) that supports female investors, founders and local innovation ecosystems. She was a 2021 Vermont Leadership Institute graduate While living in Switzerland for 12 years and earlier in her career, she worked in physical commodities trading at Glencore. Louisa lives and works in rural Vermont.

Dorothy Suput

Senior Fellow at the Croatan Institute

Dorothy Suput is a Senior Fellow at the Croatan Institute, an independent, nonprofit research and action institute. The Croatan Institute’s mission is to build social equity and ecological resilience by leveraging finance to create pathways to a just economy. Dorothy’s work is guided by a desire to contribute to a world where we are living within planetary boundaries. Her career is focused on developing regenerative farm and food systems. Dorothy trained as a biologist, became a Farm Bill organizer, and honed her skills in program and organizational development. A hallmark of her approach is to address immediate needs while contributing to system change.

She is an independent consultant working at the intersection of soil health, farm viability, local and regional food systems, and financing. Clients include non-profits, community development finance institutions, and economic development agencies in the US and EU. Her projects range from program and businesses development to non-profit capacity and leadership development to federal advocacy.

She founded The Carrot Project, one of the first US organizations connecting private investors to sustainable farms. The work was guided by multi-stakeholder research to understand why farmers struggled to get financing, examining the twin roles of business technical assistance and financing in farm viability, and the development of outcome- based trainings. The Carrot Project’s programs helped hundreds of start-up sustainable farms succeed while influencing how farms across the US get financing. Dorothy co-founded the Agricultural Viability Alliance to bolster the ecosystem for business development services and steward the National Farm Viability Conference.

Dorothy grew up in the Midwest where her interest in conservation and the environment began. After college, she moved to Switzerland as a student research fellow in a biology lab and then worked for Swiss and German biochemical companies. Her commitment to local and regional farm and food systems grew out of the incredible contrasts of Midwestern agriculture to the locally focused, frequently organic, food and farming system in Switzerland. She serves on the board of the Flexible Capital Fund, which provides revenue-based financing in the natural resource and working lands space, and the Northeast SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education) Technical Committee, and the Advisory Board for The Carrot Project. When not immersed in work that she loves, you can find her outdoors (hiking, horseback riding, gardening); reading fiction or history; and practicing German.

Investment Committee

The Investment Committee serves to review and recommend for approval to the Board of Managers investment opportunities. The IC has the capacity to recommend – or not recommend – investments to the Board, but does not have decision making authority. The IC serves as a means to support and strengthen due diligence in the investment process. The following serve on the Investment Committee:

Tammy Newmark

Tammy E. Newmark, CEO and Managing Partner, EcoEnterprises Fund.

A leader in impact investing, Tammy Newmark has over thirty years of experience in the field. Newmark launched EcoEnterprises Partners II, LP in 2012 under EcoEnterprises Capital Management, LLC in which she is a partner. She served as President of Fondo EcoEmpresas, S.A., EcoEnterprises Fund’s first fund under management, for The Nature Conservancy from 1998 to 2010. Newmark directed Technoserve, Inc.’s environmental business advisory services in Latin America and Africa. Prior to that, she was a founding officer of Environmental Enterprises Assistance Fund, the first venture fund that specialized in renewable energy, clean technology, and green investments in emerging markets. She established investment groups: Yayasan Bina Usaha Lingkungan and Preferred Energy Investments in Indonesia and the Philippines, respectively. She has also worked for the International Finance Corporation and JPMorgan Chase. Newmark is co-author of Portfolio for the Planet: Lessons from 10 years of impact investing, (Earthscan/Routledge Press, 2011). Newmark has an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

John W. Kingston

Former CEO of Butternut Mountain Farm, an industry leader in the production and packing of maple syrup and related products.

John was the CEO of Butternut Mountain Farm, an industry-leading producer and packer of maple syrup. He joined the Company in 2007 as CFO and then COO before becoming CEO in 2013. During his tenure Butternut Mountain Farm continued to experience dramatic growth. Prior to joining Butternut Mountain Farm, John had a career in public accounting (earning his CPA) and then commercial finance and banking. He was a Sr. Vice President of Corporate Banking for KeyBank at their regional headquarters in Burlington, VT from 1994 to 2003. John enjoys working with growing and dynamic companies looking to develop top flight teams. When he’s not working he enjoys outdoor activities, basketball, reading and travel with his wife, Diane.