Featuring Expert Insights from Omer Imtiazuddin, Managing Director of Social Impact Funds at the American Heart Association and Yigal Kerszenbaum, Managing Director at JFFVentures.
Join us on Thursday, June 26th, from 2:00PM – 3:00 PM EST for a dynamic panel on how mission-driven organizations are launching and sustaining venture funds to amplify impact, shape strategy, and drive long-term success.
Join CDVCA for a panel discussion moderated by CDVCA’s President, Kerwin Tesdell, featuring Omer Imtiazuddin, Managing Director of Social Impact Funds at the American Heart Association and Yigal Kerszenbaum, Managing Director at JFFVentures. Together, they will explore how mission-driven organizations have successfully launched and sustained venture funds to amplify their impact. The conversation will examine how mission driven organizations can facilitate fund formation, shape investment strategies, and support long-term performance.
Our speakers will share real-world insights on how aligning mission and fund design from the outset can lead to stronger outcomes and avoid future tensions.
Featured Funds & Speakers:
JFFVentures
JFFVentures is the nation’s leading impact venture fund focused exclusively on the future of work. Backed by Jobs for the Future, the fund invests in early-stage startups driving economic mobility for low- and middle-wage workers. To learn more, visit: https://www.jff.org/work/jff-ventures/
- Yigal Kerszenbaum, Managing Director at JFFVentures, brings global experience in impact investing, with over $175M deployed across sectors such as inclusive finance, education, and climate tech.
American Heart Association (AHA) – Social Impact Funds
The AHA’s Social Impact Funds invest in evidence-based solutions that address social determinants of health and drive measurable community impact. The fund leverages AHA’s credibility, data, and reach to back ventures improving access, equity, and well-being. To learn more, visit: https://www.heart.org/en/aha-ventures/social-impact-funds
- Omer Imtiazuddin, Managing Director of Social Impact Funds at AHA, is a global leader in impact investing and innovative finance. His past roles include leadership at FINCA Ventures, USAID, and Acumen, with a career spanning health, financial inclusion, and entrepreneurship.
CDVCA
The Community Development Venture Capital Alliance (CDVCA) is the network of the community development venture capital (CDVC) industry. CDVCA builds the capacity of the community development venture capital impact investment industry by providing education and networking opportunities, developing best practices, and supporting positive public policy. CDVCA also manages over $350 million, including the $45 million Puerto Rico Fund for Growth, the $46 million Innovate NY Fund, smaller funds focused on Arkansas, Kentucky, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Nevada, and Mississippi, as well as national pools of capital. To learn more, visit: www.cdvca.org
- Kerwin Tesdell, Panel Moderator and President of the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance (CDVCA), which promotes the availability of startup and growth risk capital for businesses that create good jobs, productive wealth, and entrepreneurial capacity to advance the livelihoods of low-income people and the economies of distressed communities.
Meet the Speakers
Yigal Kerszenbaum is an experienced investor and operator in the impact investing space. As one of the most active VCs in the education to workforce continuum, Yigal has invested in over 40 early-stage education to work tech startups and enjoys working closely with founders to accelerate their growth. Yigal has executed more than $175 million worth of transactions in impact investments in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.
He has a commitment to driving measurable impact through his work and has dedicated his career to investing in products and tools that provide underserved individuals access and opportunity.
Prior to launching JFFVentures, Yigal worked at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he managed a global portfolio of impact and program-related investments. Yigal’s work at Rockefeller Foundation has pioneered the way for billions of impact investment dollars to flow into inclusive finance, access to energy, climate technology and future of work sectors.
Earlier in his career, Yigal was an investment professional on the private equity team at Developing World Markets, an impact investment fund manager focused on inclusive finance. Before that, he worked at 57 Stars, a $2 billion private asset manager focused on private equity partnerships in emerging markets. He started his career as an entrepreneur, founding a language school in Córdoba, Argentina.
Yigal holds an MBA from Georgetown University and graduated Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa from UCSD with a degree in Economics. He is a founding advisor to The MIINT, and a mentor for TechStars.
Yigal is passionate about building the highest impact future of work and workforce that centers both entrepreneurs and underserved workers and learners.
Omer Imtiazuddin is a seasoned expert in impact investing, social entrepreneurship and global health, Omer has spent over 25 years in both private and public sectors in the U.S. and around the world. Over 100 million people have been impacted through the work of his portfolio companies. Passionate about improving health and lives, Omer oversees all grant and investment opportunities as Managing Director of the Social Impact Funds.
Prior to joining the American Heart Association, Omer served as Managing Director of Finca Ventures, an early-stage global impact investing fund focusing on Agriculture, Global Health and Financial Inclusion that reached over 15 million people. Omer also led Innovative Finance for the Global Health Bureau at USaid. Specific initiatives included developing the Development Finance Corporation’s $2 billion Health and Prosperity Initiative, structuring a $50 million investment facility for companies focused on maternal health, and a $30 million guarantee facility for Small and Medium Enterprise healthcare providers in Africa affected by Covid-19.
Previous positions included Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Yunus Social Business and chair of the investment committee at Grand Challenges Canada. At Acumen, Omer was jointly responsible for $100 million of committed capital, and also served as one of five investment professionals managing a $2 billion venture capital fund at Barnard.
Frequently cited in mainstream media, Omer has lectured at Wharton, Duke and MIT Business Schools and advised on global initiatives including the USaid Covid-19 Task Force and the World Bank’s High Level Task Force on Innovative Financing. Omer holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Yale University.
Kerwin Tesdell is president of the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance (CDVCA), which promotes the availability of startup and growth risk capital for businesses that create good jobs, productive wealth, and entrepreneurial capacity to advance the livelihoods of low-income people and the economies of distressed communities. CDVCA builds the capacity of the community development venture capital impact investment industry by providing education and networking opportunities, developing best practices, and supporting positive public policy. CDVCA manages $320 million, including the $45 million Puerto Rico Fund for Growth, the $46 million Innovate NY Fund, smaller funds focused on Arkansas, Kentucky, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Nevada, and Mississippi, as well as national pools of capital. Kerwin has been an adjunct professor at New York University for more than 25 years, teaching Social Venture Capital at the Stern School of Business and Community Development Law at the School of Law.
Prior to joining CDVCA, Kerwin was a program officer at the Ford Foundation, where he had primary responsibility for the Foundation’s investments and grantmaking for small business finance and job creation. Before that, he was the Director of the Community Development Legal Assistance Center, an associate with the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, and a law clerk to federal judge Constance Baker Motley, Chief Judge of the Southern District of New York. Kerwin is a board member and past board chair for seven years, of the Coalition of Community Development Financials Institutions (CDFIs). He serves on the boards or advisory boards of eleven impact investment funds around the nation, as well as the Financial Innovations Roundtable at the Carsey Institute and Impact Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS) of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). Kerwin graduated from Harvard College with a degree in economics and holds JD and MBA degrees from New York University, as well as a certificate from the Venture Capital Institute.
