Durreen Shahnaz, Founder and Chairwoman
Durreen is the Founder and Chairwoman of Impact Investment Exchange and Founder and Managing Director of Impact Investment Shujog. Durreen is Adjunct Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. She has a track record as a successful banker, media executive and social entrepreneur. She founded, ran and sold the social purpose business oneNest in New York. She also headed up the Asia operations of Hearst Magazines International, Reader’s Digest Asia, and Asia City Publishing Group. Durreen began her professional career as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley (New York), followed by stints at Grameen Bank (Bangladesh), World Bank (Washington, D.C.), and Merrill Lynch (Hong Kong). She holds a BA from Smith College; an MBA from Wharton, University of Pennsylvania; and an MA from the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Durreen was a TED 2010 Fellow and Asia Society Asia 21 Fellow. She is an appointed member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Social Innovation for 2011 and on the advisory board for CASE i3 at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Durreen is also the Social Entrepreneur in Residence for INSEAD’s Social Entrepreneurship Catalyst Program.
Robert Kraybill, Managing Director
Robert is a senior finance executive with two decades of experience in the capital markets as an investment banker (with Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Wasserstein Perella, and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein) and a private equity investor. Robert came to Asia in 2004 as head of Asia-ex Japan Investment Banking for Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and most recently was head of Asian private equity for Marathon Asset Management. Robert has significant experience in emerging markets in Asia. He currently acts as Senior Advisor to Asian Tiger Capital, an innovative financial services boutique helping to facilitate investment in Bangladesh. Robert holds a BA from Princeton University, magna cum laude, and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, summa cum laude. In addition, Robert has served as an Adjunct Professor in the MBA program of Singapore Management University.
En Lee, Director of Impact Partners
En is the Director of Impact Partners, the private investment platform of the IIX. Formerly an Executive Director of Goldman Sachs, En worked with numerous Asia-focused hedge funds and advised on structuring, prime brokerage, capital introduction, financing and regulatory issues. Previously, En was a Corporate Associate with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London and Hong Kong and specialized in private equity, cross-border mergers and acquisitions and capital market transactions. En is a Chartered Alternative Investments Analyst (CAIA) and was a member of the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA). For over a decade, En has been actively involved with charity work and philanthropy and more recently, with social enterprises and impact investing. He is an avid traveller and is a travel editor for an international sustainable lifestyle magazine. En graduated with a first class LL.B (Honours) degree from the University of Leicester, United Kingdom.
Matthew Kasdin (General Counsel)
Matthew began his legal career at the international law firm Latham & Watkins, where he worked in the New York and London offices as a corporate associate advising on international capital markets and mergers and acquisitions transactions. He also advised the United Nations’ Global Compact corporate responsibility and Principles for Responsible Investment initiatives, both on a pro bono basis and as a policy and legal advisor at the United Nations Secretariat in New York. He has since worked at a Singapore-based social venture fund and as a legal consultant to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Asian capital markets division. For the 2001-2002 academic year, he was a Fulbright Scholar. He holds a Juris Doctor from Northwestern University School of Law, where he concentrated in international law and was executive editor of the Journal of International Law & Business. He is licensed to practice law in New York, and licensed to advise on securities and corporate finance in Hong Kong.
Saskia Werther, Business Development Associate
Saskia Werther joins IIX as a Business Development Associate. She has previously worked for Fortis Bank and ABN Amro in the Netherlands and the Caribbean, mainly with a focus on business improvement and the merger between the two banks. She has volunteered for NGOs in the areas of women’s rights, refugees and poverty eradication and is currently actively volunteering for a local social enterprise focused on education for migrants. She is passionate about initiatives brining social and environmental change to Asia and is looking forward to contributing to this trough IIX’ and Shujog’s work. Saskia holds a LLM in European, Dutch and Comparative Law from Maastricht University and a Msc in International Political Economy from Nanyang Technological University.
Ria Bhatnagar, Social and Financial Analyst
Ria Bhatnagar is a Social and Financial Analyst at IIX with prior experience at R.F. Chandler, a global private investment company based in Singapore. At R. F. Chandler, Ria worked as an Analyst in the Capital Markets division and was rotated to philanthropic arm of the organization to apply business acumen in the field of social development. At that position, Ria managed a large portfolio of grants and was extensively involved in doing impact assessments and sourcing for new grant opportunities. Ria has also done internships with Marine Money Asia (Ship Finance Publication) and Text100 (Technology Public Relations Company). Ria graduated from Singapore Management University with a Bachelors of Business Management, majoring in Finance & Law. She lives by motto: “Be the change you want to see in the world- Mahatma Gandhi.
Peter Ha, Social and Financial Analyst
Peter Ha is a Social & Financial Analyst for Impact Investment Exchange Asia. Peter graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Health & Societies with a Health Care Markets and Finance Concentration, and will be matriculating into the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 2012. At UPenn, he was deeply involved with the American Cancer Society, as well as with Communication Within the Curriculum, the public speaking and presentation advising center. He also has experiences interning at DFJ Athena, a venture capital firm, in their Seoul office.
Sam Lindsay, Social and Financial Analyst
Sam Lindsay joins IIX as a Social and Financial Analyst. He has previously worked for Royal Bank of Scotland in Australasian Equity Markets, and a start up NGO Sustainable Coastlines NZ. He is passionate about Social Enterprise in Asia and recently moved to Singapore to pursue a career in Impact Investment. Sam holds a joint BA/LLB from the University of Otago.