We are pleased to announce two changes within Sarona, both a valuable addition and a promotion.
Ralitsa Rizvanolli joined Sarona in September 2020 as Director of Investments, responsible for investments in the Emerging Markets Impact Investment Fund (EMIIF) trust. Funded by the Australian Government, EMIIF will provide capital through local partners to SMEs in South East Asia and the Pacific Islands. Rizvanolli brings 12 years of experience in SME impact investing and microfinance. As an investment manager at Triple Jump, a Dutch impact investing asset manager, Rizvanolli built a portfolio of private equity and fixed income investments for a government fund of funds focused on SMEs in Emerging Markets (Dutch Good Growth Fund). Prior to that, Rizvanolli was a portfolio manager at Triple Jump, responsible for credit risk analysis and top down allocation for microfinance funds. She started her career in microfinance, having held various positions at MIX (The Microfinance Information Exchange). Rizvanolli holds a B.A. in International Relations from Pomona College in California and an M.A. in International Development from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She is fluent in English, Bulgarian, Albanian, Spanish and Dutch.
Patrick Hergt has been with Sarona since 2012, starting as an international intern from Brock University’s Goodman School of Business. He has worked on our investment team, supporting and leading investment and monitoring processes for the Sarona Global Growth Funds, MEDA’s Risk Capital Fund and Sarona’s Trade Finance Fund. Patrick has represented Sarona at both a community and global level, from speaking and mentoring at local universities to meeting with heads of state at the United Nations. Moving forward he will be advising MEDA as Director of Investments, while continuing to support the Sarona investment team. Patrick holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Management from EBS University in Germany and a Bachelor of Business Administration (Honours) from Brock University. He speaks fluent German.
We are excited for these changes and more in the coming months.
“I am extremely excited to join Sarona and to work on such an innovative mandate as EMIIF which focuses on underserved SMEs and aims to do so from a gender lens approach. It combines my professional passion for impact investing with my personal aspirations to bring greater gender equity in any aspect of my life. From my prior work in investing for government mandates, I hope to bring lessons learned as well as continue to showcase that investing in SMEs in emerging markets can be attractive for private investors looking for double bottom-line returns.”
