Orli Arav is a development finance and impact investing specialist with over 20 years of experience in these fields. Orli’s specific areas of leadership have included:
- development finance; and,
- project and structured finance within funds, financial institutions, and advisory firms; and
- impact investing (with a focus on frontier and emerging markets);
Managing Cygnum Capital Asset Management Debt Funds with direct responsibility to oversee the operation of 4 debt funds with a total AUM of USD740+ million and an invested portfolio of circa USD330+ million across 70 transactions in Africa. Key LPS across the funds are KFW and AfDB.
Orli holds a number of non-executive positions; Orli serves on the Board of Factor(e) and The Microfinance Enhancement Facility (MEF).
In the past years, as the MD and founder of EMFin Advisory, Orli has been advising, a number of leading institutions (IFC, Norfund, WB, UN ECA, DFID) on private sector investments in infrastructure, mainly power, in Africa.
Previously, Orli served as the Director of Investments for Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF). At SEDF, Orli was actively involved in investments in emerging markets such as Aspada, IPDevII and the WorkingCapital Fund.
Prior to SEDF, Orli successfully led, structured, and closed numerous transactions providing capital to infrastructure projects and companies in Africa (54 Assets over USD1 Billion of principal investments, across 21 countries and 7 sectors). Orli also successfully raised capital from donor countries, as well as debt financing from commercial banks and development finance institutions (DFIs). Leadership experience focused on infrastructure in Africa has included serving as CIO for Impala Energy Holdings, LLC (Co-Founded the company), as well as nearly 10 years serving as MD of the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), a dedicated open-end commercial debt fund.
Prior to her leadership at Impala Energy and EAIF, Orli served as assistant director at TASC – Ernst & Young and a Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in the infrastructure and project finance divisions advising governments and private sector clients on infrastructure & telecom projects.
Orli has an accomplished academic background in economics and finance, and she is frequently invited to share her expertise at industry conferences and events.
