Mariana Graca

Area of Expertise:

• Agriculture, Livelihoods, Microfinance, Rural
• Environment, Climate, Energy, Water, Sanitation
• Infrastructure, Technology, Engineering, Science
• Private Sector, Social Enterprise, Corporate Social Responsibility
• Trade, Finance, Economics, Cooperation, Global

Professional Experience:

Mariana is currently part of the deal team as the Impact Investing and Sustainability lead, to an active loan portfolio of $1.5 billion from Emerging Africa and Asia Infrastructure Fund (EAAIF) supporting investment deployment, DD, investor relations/capital raising as well as leading its sustainability approaches.

EAAIF is a successful blended capital impact fund rated A2 stable by Moody’s managed by South African asset manager Ninety-One (formerly Investec Asset Management) investing in infrastructure projects across Africa (including energy generation, digital communications, transport and logistics, water treatment and supply, affordable housing amongst other sectors).

Prior to joining Ninety One, Mariana spend 7 years as Investment Manager at AgDevCo where she helped to build the company into a leading pan-African agri-impact investor with USD 200m AUM operating in 9 African countries deploying both debt and equity. There she led origination of deals, DD and deployment of capital into a range of value chains across different jurisdictions from cocoa in Ghana to maize in Mozambique amongst others. Mariana also assisted the company in key capital raising for growth.

Mariana graduated with a Master of Science degree (MSc) in International Relations from the London School of Economics, has gained advanced qualifications in investment appraisal and corporate finance from the London School of Business and Finance and holds the CFA Climate and Investing Certificate and the CFA Certificate in ESG Investing.