Align Impact Appoints Three New Members to its Investment Committee

 Industry Leaders From Traditional and Impact Investing Spheres Bring Unique Perspectives and Passions to Help Align Drive the Ecosystem Forward and Make Deep Impact

Los Angeles, CA —February 18, 2021— Align Impact, LLC, a financial advisory firm focused exclusively on the impact marketplace (“Align”), announced today that the organization has appointed three new members to its Investment Committee, Patience Marime-Ball, Founder and CEO, Women of the World Endowment (WoWE); Shu Dar Yao, ESG and Impact Investing Advisor, formerly of RSF Social Finance; and Mamadou-Abou Sarr, Founder and President – V-Square Quantitative Management. All three bring decades of experience across a wide array of sectors in financial services covering both traditional and impact investing. The new members join Align’s current Investment Committee, which includes three internal team members and an additional five external members.

“I am thrilled to welcome Patience, Shu Dar and Mamadou to our Investment Committee,” said Jenn Kenning, Co-Founder and CEO of Align. “Each brings vast experience at the nexus of finance and impact as well as an impressive level of rigor, intellectual honesty and a deep-seeded passion for moving the capital markets in directions that make systemic changes in our world. Our clients are increasingly turning to Align to help identify innovative ways to move their capital in alignment with their values. Collectively the newest members of our Investment Committee will greatly enhance Align’s capacity to help clients invest in financial solutions that address our biggest challenges like climate change, social justice, diversity and inclusion, accessibility to food, and affordable housing, just to name a few. I am inspired by their commitment to Align and our mission to realize the full potential of impact investing, and I look forward to our collaboration.”

“One of the main reasons I joined Align’s Investment Committee is because it’s an exceptional firm co-founded by a woman, and I believe it is vitally important that we foster entities run by women and invest through women’s lenses,” said Patience Marime-Ball. “Align Impact is an organization with great integrity and is really serious about driving deep impact. There is no doubt that the firm’s financial strategies generate impressive returns, but it’s their implications of impact that are even more significant. I am so pleased to be working with a group of people who all come from diverse backgrounds and bring the depth and track records to help elevate impact investing into the mainstream. Being intentional with what we are bringing to the market will help make this happen and I couldn’t be more excited for what’s to come with our collaboration.”

“Mamadou, Patience and Shu Dar are seasoned practitioners in the impact investing field,” said Fran Seegull, President of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance and Align Investment Committee member since 2017. “Each one will expand and strengthen the Investment Committee by bringing their unique and valuable professional experience and personal commitment to impact. I look forward to working with each of them.”

New Investment Committee Members

Patience Marime-Ball

Founder and CEO, Women of the World Endowment (WoWE)

Patience Marime-Ball has dedicated her career to finding new ways to use the levers of finance to create a more equal world. A seasoned banker, investor and philanthropist, she has worked alongside investment leaders across the globe to catalyze investment in undercapitalized communities in ways that recognize all people as essential drivers of our global economy. In 2018 Patience founded WoWE to harness the power of the capital markets to drive lasting change for women and girls. WoWe invests via an institutional-quality endowment structure at the intersection of gender and some of today’s most pressing social and environmental issues, and seeks to deliver market-rate financial returns while maximizing impact outcomes. Previously, Patience was Principal Investment Officer and Global Head of Banking on Women at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), where she created the multibillion dollar Banking on Women investment platform as well as the IFC’s Global Trade Liquidity Program. She co-developed the first ever gender bond issued on the Uridashi market and worked alongside Goldman Sachs to structure a $600m debt fund that has deployed more than $1.9b in loans to women entrepreneurs to-date.

Shu Dar Yao

ESG and Impact Investing Advisor

Shu Dar Yao is a recognized impact investor with expertise in leading organizations to structure and fundraise for environmental and social transactions. At RSF Social Finance, Shu Dar led investments, served as Chairwoman of the Investment Committee, rewrote the firm’s investment policy statement and impact strategy, and oversaw the restructuring and subsequent portfolio management of its $70 million impact-first portfolio. Previously, she served as the Director of Capital Formation and Investor Relations at Social Finance, an impact investing firm leading Pay for Success project financings. Shu Dar was a VP at Citigroup, Inclusive Finance and Financial Innovation, and arranged market-based poverty-alleviation transactions on behalf of clients. At the World Bank’s IFC, she was an investor on the Global Infrastructure team and developed the $4bn Global Infrastructure Crisis Facility. She was an investment banker at JPMorgan, working in Global M&A, Syndicated Leveraged Finance and Private Equity Sponsors during the subprime crisis.

Mamadou-Abou Sarr

Founder and President – V-Square Quantitative Management

Mamadou is the Founder and President of V-Square Quantitative Management, a global investment firm headquartered in Chicago. Mamadou founded V-Square 2020 after an accomplished career in asset management whilst working for global financial services companies across the U.S., Europe, Middle East and Africa. His investment firm specializes in financial engineering, development and management of quantitative portfolios and processing of sustainability big data. An industry leader in the field of sustainable investing and financial innovation, Mamadou’s previous role was global head of product development and sustainable investing at Northern Trust Asset Management in Chicago, where he was responsible for driving innovation and product development across asset classes. Mamadou spearheaded, developed and led one of the largest sustainable investing platforms in the industry.

About Align Impact, LLC

As an independent fiduciary, Align Impact works alongside financial advisors, institutions, foundations and directly advises individual clients and their family offices, all in the service of integrating impact investments into the broader wealth management strategy. Align specializes in building customized impact portfolios designed to deliver the same risk adjusted returns as best-in-class, globally diversified asset management strategies while enabling capital to flow to companies and funds working to address the world's greatest challenges. For more information, please visit us at www.alignimpact.com.

Media Contact:

Cindy Stoller

Confluence Partners

917-331-0418

cstoller@confluencepartners.com