William F. Foote
President and Founder, Root Capital Inc.
Board Member, Open Learning Exchange, Inc.
William Foote is the president and founder of Root Capital (formerly EcoLogic Finance), a social investment fund that provides affordable credit, financial education and market access to environmentally sustainable, grassroots enterprises in the developing world. Mr. Foote has an extensive background in cross-border investment and economic development in Latin America and Africa. Prior to founding Root Capital in 2000, Mr. Foote worked as a financial analyst in the Latin American Corporate Finance Group at Lehman Brothers, Inc and as a journalist in rural Latin America. His experiences as an investment banker and reporter gave him insight into how the capital markets could be used to support grassroots economic development and environmental conservation.
Mr. Foote is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and currently serves on the Sustainability Committee of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Since 2005, Root Capital has received the Fast Company/ Monitor Group Social Capitalist Award; the International Chamber of Commerce/ UNDP/ Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum World Business Award in support of the Millennium Development Goals; and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.
In 2006, Mr. Foote was named one of the Boston Business Journal’s “40 Under 40″ award winners, which recognizes the leading young business people in the Boston area. He holds a B.A. in history from Yale University and a M.Sc. in development economics and economic history from the London School of Economics. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.
