Who we are

With nearly 20 years' experience working in impact and philanthropy, Tom leads the UBS Social Impact team of over 150 professionals across the globe to help clients and UBS employees to maximize their impact locally and globally. Tom has personally advised over 2,500 clients and their families during his time at UBS and is passionate about finding ways to catalyze scalable solutions to the pressing social and environmental problems the world is facing. A regular speaker at conferences globally, Tom believes that through partnerships we can build an Impact Economy that values people and planet in all investment decisions and builds a world that is profitable for all.

Prior to joining UBS in 2013, Tom spent his career in the non-profit sector. As Director of Philanthropy and Social Investment at the Disability Charity Scope, he pioneered the use of social investment structures, including the Scope Bond which was the first listed bond issued by an operational charity in the UK. Tom also worked with the cabinet office on the development of the new Social Investment Tax Relief.

Earlier in his career, Tom was the first UK employee of the Microloan Foundation securing the investment for the charity to expand into sustainable microfinance, with over 50,000 customers in Malawi.

Tom, is a father of four children, a keen runner and has a Politics degree from Exeter University as well as professional qualifications in marketing (CIM), fundraising management, financial planning and is a Green and Sustainable Finance professional. Tom is also proud to be #madebydyslexia and to be an advocate for personalized education to help every child achieve their full potential.

Dhun Davar joined UBS in 2017 as Program Director, Education and Early Childhood Development. Since 2020, she leads the Optimus Foundation’s work in social finance across the thematic areas of education, health, climate and environment and a range of innovative finance products and field-building initiatives. She also leads Social Impact and Philanthropy in the Middle East, Africa and India for UBS.

During her time at UBS, Dhun has made significant contributions in social finance, collective philanthropy, and growing the Optimus foundation network. She has spearheaded the world’s largest development impact bonds in education and health, led on investment pipeline for the first global blended finance fund for outcomes contracts, been instrumental in building the social investments portfolio and investment team at Optimus and UBS’ first philanthropic collectives. She has also driven a first-of-its’ kind collaborative model at UBS bringing together strategic grant-making, client services and corporate philanthropy in India, a model that has been replicated globally across the firm.

Prior to joining UBS, Dhun was CEO at Apnalaya, COO at Hand in Hand Switzerland and also worked for GuideStar India, Voluntary Services Overseas and GiveIndia on strategy & planning, program management and impact measurement.

Nalini joined the UBS Optimus Foundation in January 2019 and is the Head of Programs and Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning. She primarily oversees the strategies, philanthropic grant making and impact measurement of the Foundation’s programs in Child Protection, Climate and Environment, Education and Health. Nalini started her career as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University and has since gained almost 20 years of experience in international development. She briefly worked for the Global Health Institute at Duke University and for the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, where she established the Evidence, Measurement and Evaluation team. In addition, Nalini worked for Big Win Philanthropy, where she developed their strategy and established their programs team.

Cedrine serves as Program Director managing health investments across the UBS Optimus Foundation ‘capital stack’ including grantmaking, debt and equity, and outcomes-based financing instruments. In this role Cédrine sets the Foundation’s health investment stratgy and cultivates a portfolio to contribute towards scalable quality primary healthcare that improves the health of the world’s most vulnerable children. She also co-leads the Emergency Response work of the Foundation supporting children and their families to recover more quickly from disasters and build resilience to cope with future shocks.

Prior to UBS, Cedrine spent over two years in the life science industry. At Novartis, she most recently worked in Corporate Responsibility Strategy contributing to a new company-wide social impact reporting approach. She graduated from the University of St.Gallen with a Master's degree in Business Innovation. During her studies she conducted research on scaling mobile health innovations in low and middle income countries. 

Marissa leads health investments across the UBS Optimus Foundation ‘capital stack’ including grantmaking, debt and equity, and outcomes-based financing instruments. In this role Marissa sets the Foundation’s investment strategy and cultivates a portfolio to contribute towards measurable impact on children’s health. Marissa also co-leads the Foundation’s Emergency Response efforts with the aim of providing immediate relief and supporting longer-term recovery for children affected by humanitarian crises.

Prior to UBS, Marissa spent over 10 years at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she most recently served as the Innovation Team Leader in the Global Health Center for Innovation and Impact, a center of excellence established to accelerate the development, introduction, and scale up of priority global health interventions.
Marissa also has a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Hannah has been with UBS Optimus Foundation since June 2020 and holds the position of Climate & Environment Program Director. Hannah developed and launched the first UBS Optimus Climate and Environment strategy and now oversees a global portfolio of climate and conservation programs with a strong emphasis on nature-based solutions and upscaling sustainable nature-based enterprise.

Prior to joining the UBS Optimus Foundation Hannah travelled extensively and then spent twenty years living and working in East Africa. Based in Tanzania and working across 12 countries, she focused on climate resilience, policy and mitigation program management, alongside social impact and wildlife conservation. She worked with a diverse group of organizations including the UK Foreign Office, the British Council and a large hospitality group as well as supporting her husband in their own sustainable tourism enterprise.

Hannah holds the Certificate in Sustainable Finance from the Chartered Banking Institute, Certificate in Business Sustainability Management from Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and is a Practitioner with the Institute of Environmental Managers & Assessment (IEMA).

Now returned to the UK, she lives just in Cambridgeshire with her husband and two children. She enjoys diving, hiking, camping and being in the hills, and frequently returns to Tanzania to keep up her Swahili and brush up on her chapati-making techniques.

Rohit is a climate and environmental expert with over 15 years international experience of working in climate adaptation, environment and water resources management in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Rohit has worked for a variety of public and private sector organisations and is passionate about nature-based solutions that deliver resilience, carbon mitigation and biodiversity outcomes. Most recently, Rohit has worked in developing and implementing financial mechanisms that bridge investment gaps in climate and environmental sectors by bringing together a host of investors, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders. In the past, Rohit has advised several development financial institutions on identification, preparation and implementation of climate and environmental projects.

Rohit holds an MSc in Water Resources Management and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering.

Oriana leads the Education Program at the UBS Optimus Foundation and is a lecturer in International Development at the ZHAW School of Management and Law. She has been active in International Development and Education for over ten years in both research and program implementation settings. One of her goals has been to better understand what are effective approaches to Education and Capacity building in crisis settings and especially for refugees, and how to bring these approaches to scale. A broader focus of her work has been on supporting data-driven decision making in development and humanitarian organizations.

She has previously worked for Caritas Switzerland, Innovations for Poverty Action, ETH Zurich, the World Bank and the German Cancer Research Center. Her field research has been in Bangladesh, West Bank, Mexico and Syria. She holds a Master in Mathematics and Philosophy from the University of Heidelberg, Germany and a PhD in Economics from ETH Zurich. She speaks Italian, English, German and Spanish.

Sarah joined UBS Optimus Foundation in 2021 as Child Protection Program Director. Previously she’d worked as a lawyer for 17 years, 13 of which were spent in-house at UBS. Sarah has experience as a volunteer trustee on the Board of a UK headquartered global health charity; and has an early career in HIV/AIDS policy and health education for women.

Sarah’s MSc studies focused on the intersection of human rights, the social determinants of health, adverse childhood experiences, and violence against children. These studies consolidated her commitment to supporting vulnerable children so they can thrive, advancing themselves and their communities.

Since joining UBS Sarah has been able to put this commitment into play, managing a portfolio of grantees that benefit children and families. This portfolio prioritizes the innovative philanthropic solution of collective action – by bringing philanthropists together to co-fund solutions to complex social issues, and baskets of grantees together to identify and deliver solutions.
Sarah has been instrumental in managing UBS Optimus Foundation’s care reform collective, known as the Transform Collective, with grantees in Maharashtra, India, and played a key role in developing the strategy for the expansion of this collective to East and Southern Africa.

Andre joined UBS Optimus Foundation in 2020 and was responsible for building up and managing the foundation's grants and providing programmatic support to donors in Southeast Asia covering health, education, child protection, and climate and environment. She is currently co-leading the global education portfolio based out of London with a focus on Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
 
She has a background in sociology and program management and applies her experience to work with grantees on achieving broad social impact through systemic solutions. Andre was previously the Regional Program Manager for Microsoft Philanthropies covering 18 markets in Asia and helping drive the creation of education, employment, and entrepreneurial opportunities for underserved youth.
Prior to Microsoft she was deeply involved in the implementation and management of projects on reconstruction, education, gender, and agrarian reform that contributed to Philippine development in partnership with agencies such as USAID, KfW, and GIZ. Andre holds a degree from the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.

Anita joined UBS Optimus Foundation in 2018 as a Social Finance Program Director. Anita’s role at the foundation has a focus on social finance investments, including both impact bonds and investments in social enterprises. Anita brings extensive experience in structuring impact finance funds from initial concept through investment thesis, governance, financial modeling and full launch.

Previously Anita dedicated five years of her career to microfinance, working as a microfinance investment consultant in Luxembourg as well as in microfinance program implementation in Burkina Faso, Togo and Ghana.

Anita started her career at BNP Paribas in France and holds a double Master’s degree in Management and Corporate Finance from the EDHEC Business School in France as well as a Master’s degree in International Relations from the Corvinus University of Budapest.

Sietse is program director for Social Finance at the UBS Optimus Foundation. Sietse has worked closely on the design, structuring and contracting of the Quality Education India, Utkrisht Maternal and Newborn Health Development Impact Bonds. Outside of impact bonds Sietse has worked on direct investments of UBS Optimus Foundation in social enterprises and programmes – from investment origination through to management of the investments of the social finance portfolio.

Prior to his current role, he worked within UBS & Society, an umbrella platform within UBS Group, to grow the Bank into a leader in sustainable banking as well as within strategy development at UBS Asset Management.  Before joining UBS he worked in M&A and strategy for ABN AMRO Bank in Singapore and the Netherlands and at Arthur D. Little as a strategy consultant. He has a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering and Management Science specializing in Process Technology from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. and grew up in the Netherlands, Botswana and Kenya.

Svetle is the Social Finance Transactions Manager at the Optimus Foundation, based in Zurich. In her role Svetle is driving the optimization of the social investment approval and execution process, supports the rest of the team on direct  and fund investment opportunities, and contributes to the structuring and set-up of new blended finance initiatives/funds, as well as to the ongoing management of the existing blended finance fund, the SDG Outcomes Fund.
 
Svetle is an experienced impact investment professional coming from one of the key international development finance institutions active in Europe. Previously based in London, she was responsible for corporate loans, acquisition finance and direct investments in the TMT (telecom) sector in emerging markets for the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) with her projects spanning from North Africa, Central and Eastern Europe to Central Asia. She brings extensive experience in structuring and executing transactions as well as identifying and measuring project impact. Prior to the EBRD, Svetle has been part of the Italian Unicredit Group where she specialized in Project Finance in Turkey, Corporate Risk in Bulgaria and Wealth Management in Italy.

Gayatri Suri is an experienced investment professional with more than 11 years of work experience across impact investing, innovative finance, venture philanthropy and investment banking.
Gayatri joined the Social Finance team at the UBS Optimus Foundation in 2022. Her expertise include impact investments into social businesses, blended finance and outcomes-based financing initiatives across India and Southeast Asia in the areas of Health, Education and Environment/Climate. Gayatri is based out of the Mumbai office in India.

Prior to joining UBS Optimus Foundation, Gayatri worked for LGT Venture Philanthropy Foundation, wherein she helped develop and expand the Foundation’s education and health activities in India. Before this, she worked with Goldman Sachs and Ernst & Young in M&A roles.

Gayatri serves on the board of Kido Enterprises (Kreedo) and Karma Healthcare in India. Gayatri has a Bachelor’s degree in economics and holds a Master's degree in economics and finance from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

At a personal level, Gayatri is passionate about mentoring early-stage social businesses and supporting gender focused initiatives in the impact investing ecosystem. She is a member of the 100 Women in Finance network that is supported by UBS.

Michael joined the Social Finance team at the UBS Optimus Foundation in 2020. He focuses on social investments into businesses and development impact bonds in the area of environment, education, and health. Michael has a special focus on equity investments into impactful businesses.

Prior to joining UBS Optimus Foundation, Michael worked for the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (CGEP), an initiative of the Clinton Foundation in Côte d’Ivoire, Southeast Asia, and New York. During the three years at CGEP, he we was building social businesses from scratch and developed business cases for new social investment opportunities. Before joining CGEP, Michael worked in academics as a research assistant in the field of political economics.

Michael has a Bachelors degree in economics from the University of Basel and a Master's degree in economics from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics.

Gabriele is part of the Social Finance team of UBS Optimus foundation, focusing on investments for impact, blended finance, and outcomes-based finance. Gabriele is a result-oriented finance professional with international academic and work experience in 5 different countries.

His professional career started in the impact finance space at Roots of Impact, Frankfurt, where he was an analyst supporting the team in blended finance, innovative finance and impact-linked finance projects. There, among others, he created an innovative financing toolkit for impact enterprises in Bangladesh. He then moved on to work for Inyova Impact Investing, Zurich, supporting the development of the investment office team as an Investment Manager across Switzerland and Germany. At Inyova, Gabriele was responsible for the daily investment management operations and the support of strategic projects.

Gabriele holds degrees from Bocconi University and Frankfurt School of Finance in finance and corporate finance. He is proficient in English, Italian, and Spanish, and has a conversational level in German and French.

Laetitia has worked in the field of social impact/philanthropy for 20+ years in Africa, Asia and Europe, leading challenging projects and teams in multi-cultural contexts. She joined UBS Social Impact & Philanthropy team in late 2023 to support the UBS Optimus Foundation, with a focus on Impact Transparency.

Prior to UBS, she worked at Credit Suisse for seven years where she led the Corporate Citizenship and Foundations APAC team and acted as Executive Director of the Credit Suisse APAC Foundation, supporting a wide range of social purpose organizations through multi-year partnerships involving both financial support, capacity building and employee engagement across APAC. Before Credit Suisse, she worked as permanent staff and freelance consultant for various UN agencies, non-profit organizations, social enterprises, private foundations and other impact ecosystem stakeholders. 

Based in Singapore, she has two daughters, loves nature and outdoor activities, cooking, reading, crafting and interacting with people.

Cody joined UBS Optimus Foundation in July 2021 and is currently in the Impact Transparency team. Cody’s role at the Foundation focuses on the Impact of the Foundation’s grantees and investees, reporting, product owner for the Grantmaking System and process improvements in the grantmaking process. 

Prior to joining UBS Optimus Foundation, he worked for UBS within the Compliance team as a Process Improvement Lead where he managed a compliance program focusing on digitalization and process improvements.
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Cody has a bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Tennessee Technological University where he also received his Master’s degree in Business Administration. ​

Martina manages a team of strategists who deal with institutional partners and clients. In order to scale effective solutions for impact, UBSOF aims to work across the public and private sectors in multi-stakeholder partnerships, using all available instruments of funding impact, and collaborating across all divisions at UBS to achieve system-level change for good.

Her own career reflects the interdisciplinary approach of the team, with her former roles on the programmatic team (Head of Director for Strategy & Performance/MEL), on the philanthropy advisory team (Head of the UBS Philanthropy Services Switzerland) and in foundation management (Head of UBS Philanthropy Foundation Switzerland).

Before joining our team, she worked for a decade as a strategy consultant for UBS Wealth Management, Strategy& (former Booz & Company), and Executive Insight.
Martina holds a doctoral degree in Economics and Sociology and a Master in Business Administration from the University of St. Gallen HSG, complemented by a CAS from the Center for Development and Cooperation NADEL at ETH Zurich.

Clarissa Mayer is part of the Strategic Partnerships team at UBS Optimus Foundation. In her previous role, she worked as a Philanthropy Advisor in the European markets. She joined UBS in 2022 to fully dedicate her efforts towards Social Impact and Philanthropy. Her focus is collective action and initiatives in Environment and Social Finance.

Clarissa is a trained psychologist and completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Psychology at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg. After completing her studies, she started her professional career in strategy consulting at KPMG. She managed and supported projects from ESG strategy and business model development to large-scale deal and value creation projects in the private sector. In 2021, she joined Impacc gGmbH leading the Due Diligence of their first green and impact investment cohort in East Africa.

As a psychologist, she deeply cares about global equality and creating impact through investment in effective & scalable projects to reshape the economy. After 5 years of strategy consulting, she is bringing together clients & partners to shape their non-profit investment strategies and execute on their purpose.