With over 20 years of experience across Australia and internationally, Kylie Charlton has exceptional expertise at the intersection of mainstream capital markets, impact investment, and philanthropy. Her career reflects a deep commitment to mobilising capital for meaningful environmental and social change.
Kylie currently serves as Managing Director at Australian Impact Investments and is a Co-Founder of Unitus Capital. In April 2025, Kylie joined Australian Communities Foundation’s Board and has since commenced as Chair of ACF’s Impact and Investment Committee, where she is helping drive our strategic approach to purpose-led investment.
In this Q&A with our Director of Community and Philanthropy, Carly Severino, Kylie shares her top priorities for the Committee, her vision for the future of philanthropy and impact investing in Australia, and more.
Hi Kylie, can you tell us a bit about your background?
I started my investment career in a very traditional way: working for investment banks and commercial banks. Eventually, I got to a point where I thought ‘I don’t really want to do this anymore’ – I loved the technical aspects of the role, but I really wanted to align it with who I was as a person. I thought, ‘How am I going to use these skills to make communities and the planet a better place to live?’ I like spreadsheets, getting deep into numbers, and knowing the capital I’m dealing with is going to something meaningful. When you translate that to Australian Communities Foundation (ACF), that’s really what the organisation is trying to do with its portfolio: something meaningful, while still having investment discipline.
My real focus is to have people start to think about the impact they can have from all their capital and resources.
Is that what attracted you to ACF?
I really like that ACF has led the market in thinking about how an investment portfolio and the money sitting in a portfolio aligns with purpose. It’s an important consideration that some foundations have been slower to come to than others, yet there is so much value in aligning capital with purpose. Additionally, ACF’s commitment to making structured philanthropy available for more people in Australia is really important. ACF’s mission to activate a nation of givers… it’s fantastic work.
What’s a moment or project that’s deeply resonated with you on your impact journey?
In India or Kenya, where I spent a lot of time when I first transitioned my career to impact investing, you see the real difference that small amounts of money can make, like a microfinance loan to a woman or a family. Organisations providing those loans end up being very successful in their own right as businesses, accelerating access to inclusive banking services for a much larger group. In terms of more recent years, my team at Australian Impact Investments arranged two syndicated financings to help launch then expand Ngutu College – a K-12 school in Adelaide that fully integrates Indigenous knowledge and culture alongside the national curriculum. The school has a reconciliation thesis as well, and to me that’s really exciting.
How would you characterise the investment position of ACF at this point?
I think it’s one for other trusts and foundations to look to. It has demonstrated to the marketplace that you can have a portfolio that’s aligned with values, broadly does no harm, and proactively drives social or environmental outcomes. ACF’s investment in disability housing is a great example. We’ve seen returns coming back from those investments – they’re positive and adding value to the portfolio. The funds invested are also closing a significant gap in Australia in terms of the availability of fit-for-purpose housing for people living with disability.
What are your top priorities or hopes for the Impact and Investment Committee in the next 12 months?
We are keen to explore doing more with catalytic capital that may involve some level of return concession but have the potential to drive significant impact. If approached thoughtfully and applied to a small portion of the portfolio, these investments can still align with ACF’s overall financial goals. For me, this is the conversation we need to be having now. We’re well into the seventh year of ACF’s impact investing journey, and it’s time to ask: how do we continue to push the envelope?
What are your hopes for the future of philanthropy and impact investing in Australia?
Growth is really important in the sector. We are always going to be in a position where we need philanthropic capital to address social and environmental challenges. But my real focus is to have people start to think about the impact they can have from all their capital and resources. I don’t think we’ve had that conversation well in Australia yet. There’s a lot of money sitting in trusts and foundations, tied up in investments poorly aligned with their purpose and mission. It’s not about putting everything into high-risk for-purpose enterprises. It’s about building investment portfolios that, at a minimum, do no harm, then to start to move capital into things where there is a track record of acceptable financial returns alongside social and environmental outcomes. That’s where our money should be invested.
