| Yasmina Zaidman is the Director of Knowledge & Communications at Acumen Fund, a global non-profit venture fund serving the four billion people who earn less than $4 a day by investing in enterprises that deliver critical goods and services such as water, energy, health and housing. She leads Acumen Fund's work to capture and share knowledge from Acumen Fund's investment portfolio through research, publications, communications and media that can change how the world tackles poverty. She is also working to build a movement of students, young professionals and social entrepreneurs who are committed to bringing their skills and talents to the field of social enterprise.
Prior to her current role at Acumen Fund, Ms. Zaidman initiated and managed the Water Portfolio, where she oversaw $3 million in investments in water enterprises in India and East Africa, including investments in drip irrigation in India and Pakistan. She has been a regular speaker at conferences on the topics of water, social enterprise and philanthropy, and has authored several articles, including a chapter in The Role of the Environment in Poverty Alleviation published recently by Fordham University Press. Ms. Zaidman has worked in the arenas of international development, corporate sustainability and social entrepreneurship for fourteen years. She led the Environmental Innovations Initiative at Ashoka where, as Acting Director, she worked to capture and disseminate the best practices of leading environmental innovators. She has organized conferences on business and the environment and worked as an environmental consultant at Geomatrix, where she implemented environmental management systems for Fortune 100 companies.
She received a BA from Vassar College where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and cum laude and her MBA from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business with a certificate in Public Management.
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