Heidi Patel is a Partner at Rethink Impact. She is the former President and Head of Communities Investing for New Island Capital Management, an institutional scale investment advisory firm serving a single ultra-high net worth individual, that was 100% focused on impact investing. In this capacity, she helped grow and run the firm while also focusing on early stage private equity investing in online marketplaces, sustainable food and consumer brands, alternative financial institutions, and local living economies. She sat on New Island’s Executive Team and the Investment Committee overseeing 100+ investments across multiple asset classes in sustainability, conservation, education, economic development, sustainable agriculture and green real estate.
Previously, Patel was an Acumen Fund Global Fellow working with D.light Design India, a social enterprise operating in India, China and Tanzania to eradicate kerosene through the design, manufacturing and distribution of solar- powered LED lights. Before Acumen, Patel was a Director at Pacific Community Ventures, a double bottom-line private equity fund and non-profit organization in San Francisco, California, focused on small businesses creating high quality jobs in low-income neighborhoods. Previously, she was a founding member of AOL Time Warner Ventures and worked in Investment Banking at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and Credit Suisse First Boston.
Patel teaches (and co-created) a course on institutional impact investing at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and serves on the Investment Committee for the Stanford GSB Student Impact Fund. She is an advisor to Impact America (another women-led impact investing firm) and board member of Goodwill Industries of San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo. Her work in social enterprise and impact investing has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, NPR’s Marketplace, Fox Business News, Forbes.com, Huffington Post, Ladies Home Journal, AOL’s WalletPop, Rick Roberts Show and the Acumen Fund blog. She earned a B.A. from Princeton University and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.