Robert Zulkoski

Robert "Bob" Zulkoski is a finance and investment veteran with roughly four decades of experience in global finance and fiduciary investment management, having, as a general partner, deployed more than US$5 billion of capital over his career. He began in traditional Wall Street and institutional finance as a Vice President at Kidder, Peabody & Co., later serving as Managing Director of GE Capital (Head of Asia Real Estate) and Executive Director of Oakwood Asia Pacific. He went on to become Managing Director and Head of Asia Special Situations Investments at Oaktree Capital Management, where his team was voted "Best Special Situation Manager" and "Best Distressed Manager" in a 2009 Private Equity International peer survey. He also founded Pangaea Capital Management Pte. Ltd. and has chaired Asia Cleantech Capital Pte. Ltd. He completed his undergraduate studies at Central Connecticut State University.

In the mid-2010s Zulkoski pivoted decisively toward impact investing. He founded and chairs Vermont Works Management Co., which raised a roughly $50 million fund — Vermont Works Impact Partners I — as, in its telling, the only professionally managed fund investing solely in Vermont on a measured double-bottom-line basis. Vermont Works received a USDA Rural Business Investment Company (RBIC) designation and drew 85–90% of its capital from outside the state, with progressive foundations as anchor LPs. Zulkoski framed the effort around reversing Vermont's demographic decline and retaining university graduates, and he has sat on the board of the University of Vermont's Sustainable Innovation MBA program.

From 2017 to 2023 Zulkoski built the London-based impact platform The Conduit: Founding Shareholder and Director of The Conduit (2017–2019), Founder and CEO of Conduit Capital Partners (2019–2023), and Founder/Non-Executive Director of Conduit Connect (2020–2023), an angel-investment and enterprise-support network channeling capital into impact-driven startups. Today he is a Founding Partner and Investment Committee member of RuralWorks Partners, a joint venture between Conduit Capital and the Minneapolis-based CDFI Community Reinvestment Fund created to address the wealth and opportunity gap in rural America.

More recently, Zulkoski has extended into climate-transition finance and public markets, serving as CEO/Director of a climate-transition special-purpose acquisition vehicle (Climate/Energy Transition Special Opportunities Acquisition Corp.), as CEO of Sustainable Credit Partners (a private-credit platform for decarbonizing commercial real estate), and, as of March 2024, as CEO of publicly traded Vermont solar firm iSun, Inc.

• Double bottom line: "The ability to do well, while doing good. Making investments where there is an equal balance between generating appropriate risk-adjusted financial returns, along with some element of social wellness." (upside.fm interview)
• Fills capital + mentorship gaps in overlooked geographies: "Vermont does not show up on the radar of a lot of venture capital practitioners. Not only do our entrepreneurs lack access to capital, but they lack access to mentorship." Acts as an anchor/early investor rather than a passive check-writer.
• Stage: Early-stage through Series A; seed-round anchor positions.
• Sectors (RuralWorks): Agribusiness and food — sustainable agriculture, waste upcycling / circular economy, and local/regional food-system development.
• Sectors (Vermont Works): Broader Vermont-based startups spanning clean energy, ag-tech, food & beverage, and technology.
• Impact measurement: Reports annual impact metrics tied to job creation, job location, salary levels, and gender equity; holds a USDA RBIC designation.
• Says yes to: Companies that can employ people and build enterprise value in rural/underserved communities while producing traceable environmental or social benefit — and, occasionally, breakout potential (he publicly called one portfolio company a possible Vermont "unicorn").