Tarun Arora is a Partner at Encourage Capital focused on clean energy finance and financial inclusion investment strategies. Tarun has been with the firm since 2011, when he started with Wolfensohn Fund Management. Tarun has been actively involved in the firm’s managed investments in Electronica Finance, Annapurna Finance, DCB Bank, Fabindia, National Stock Exchange of India, Repco Home Finance, and Ujjivan Financial Services. Prior to joining the firm, he worked as a Senior Associate in the investment banking team of PricewaterhouseCoopers India where he worked on transactions across financial services, consumer branded goods, energy, chemicals and telecom sectors. Tarun graduated with a B.E. from Delhi College of Engineering and an M.B.A. from the University of Delhi. He also holds the CFA charter.
Ricardo Bayon is a Partner and a member of the Board of Directors of Encourage Capital. Ricardo leads the water team and new business and innovation at Encourage and works across several other investment sectors. Ricardo is a member of the Investment Committee of the EKO Green Carbon Fund. Prior to co-founding EKO in 2007, Ricardo helped found and served as the Managing Director of the Ecosystem Marketplace, a web site and information/analysis service covering the emerging environmental markets. In that capacity he co-authored a number of publications on voluntary carbon markets, mitigation banking, and ecosystem services, including The State of Voluntary Carbon Markets 2007: Picking up Steam and Voluntary Carbon Markets: An International Business Guide to What They Are and How They Work, and Conservation and Biodiversity Banking: A Guide to Setting Up and Running Biodiversity Credit Trading System. For nearly two decades he has specialized on issues related to finance, banking, and the environment. He has done work for a number of organizations, including Insight Investments, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank, IUCN, The Nature Conservancy, Domini Social Investment, among others. His articles have appeared in publications such as The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, and the International Herald Tribune. He has also written numerous publications and chapters on mitigation banking, biodiversity markets, markets for water quality, and other environmental markets. He was born in Bogota, Colombia, and is currently based in San Francisco. Ricardo graduated with a B.A. degree from Brown University.
Ketki Bhagwati is Senior Advisor at Encourage Capital and an independent investment committee member for the Encourage Solar Finance fund. She has over twenty five years of experience in private equity, M&A, debt & structured finance and financial services in several regions including Asia, the Middle East & Africa. Ketki is a former Chief Investment Officer in the Financial Institutions Group at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector financing arm of the World Bank Group. Prior to IFC, Ketki worked at the Credit Rating Information Services of India (CRISIL) in Mumbai. Ketki has a Bachelors of Arts from Wellesley College and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She is currently a member of the Wellesley College Business Leadership Council and Golden Seeds, an early stage investment firm with a focus on women leaders, and is on the board of Axis Bank in India.
Ameya Bijoor is a Partner with Encourage Capital and has over 20 years of experience across private equity, corporate finance and development. Ameya co-leads the clean energy finance and financial inclusion team. Since joining Encourage Capital’s predecessor firm, Wolfensohn Fund Management, in 2008, Ameya has been actively involved in investments in Electronica Finance, Annapurna Finance, Development Credit Bank, National Stock Exchange of India, Repco Home Finance, Ujjivan Financial Services and Fabindia. Prior to joining WFM, Ameya was a Manager in Standard & Poor’s Transaction Advisory Services practice, where he led financial due diligence investigations for private equity and strategic clients. Ameya began his career at Arthur Andersen. His experience at Standard & Poor’s and Arthur Andersen included approximately 50 transactions across a range of industries with an aggregate value of approximately US$10 billion. He also served as the Head of Operations for the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in India where he helped to launch the local office by developing strategic objectives, negotiating partnership agreements and recruiting staff to support the Government of India. Ameya has a CPA (inactive) and received a B.B.A. in Accountancy, magna cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Cesare Calari is a Partner with Encourage Capital. Cesare leads the clean energy finance and financial inclusion team with Ameya Bijoor. Before joining Wolfensohn Fund Management in 2006, Cesare worked at the World Bank Group, holding senior positions, including the IFC’s Director of the Africa Department and the Director of the Global Financial Markets Group. From 2001-06, he was the World Bank’s Vice President, and member of the Operations and Policy Committees. In this capacity, Cesare had responsibility for the Bank’s financial sector operations, and was the spokesman in international fora, such as the Financial Stability Board. Cesare also served as Chairman of CGAP, and of FIRST, an international initiative in support of financial sector reform. As such, Cesare championed an agenda for financial inclusion, promoting the theme as a global priority. Cesare has served as Adjunct Professor of Finance at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS. He is a Director of Enel SpA (Italy) and a member of the Bretton Woods Committee. He has also been Director of Terna SpA (Italy), Global Ports Holding (Turkey), Assicurazioni Generali (Italy), Moneda Asset Management (Chile), Meritum Bank (Poland), Nomura Hungary, Zivnostenska Banka (Czech Republic) and International Bank in Poland. Cesare holds degrees from the University of Bologna Law School and from Johns Hopkins University SAIS. He enjoys reading, gardening, canoeing and fly-fishing.
Daniel Firger is a Senior Advisor at Encourage Capital, and Managing Director of Great Circle Capital Advisors, a consultancy focused on the transition of capital markets to a net zero emissions, climate resilient future. From 2014-2019, Daniel managed global sustainable finance and climate programs for Bloomberg Philanthropies, where he was responsible for a portfolio of more than $100 million in philanthropic investments in these areas. He also advised Michael Bloomberg in his roles as Chairman of the Financial Stability Board Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and as United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Action. In 2018, he was named one of Grist Magazine’s Top 50 “Fixers” in recognition of his work designing and leading the We Are Still In and America’s Pledge initiative in response to the Trump administration’s proposed withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Earlier in his career, he was a lawyer at Baker & McKenzie LLP, advising international clients – including EKO – on environmental markets and clean energy investments, project finance transactions and other corporate finance matters. Daniel holds a JD from New York University School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest Scholar, and received an MPA in International Affairs from Princeton University.
Maria Fowler is the Bookkeeper at Encourage Capital.
Gautam Ivatury is a Senior Advisor at Encourage Capital and an an independent investment committee member for the Encourage Solar Finance fund. Gautam has been at the forefront of expanding financial services in emerging markets. He has founded or led pioneering ventures in India and East Africa, overseen global innovation programs with combined budgets of over $30 million, advised VC and private equity funds, consulted to Fortune 500 players including Microsoft and Visa, and developed projects in 9 countries. Gautam’s work on the impact, design and regulation of mobile and branchless banking has also included advice to regulators in multiple countries. In 2002-2003, Gautam was the first CFO at SKS Microfinance, one of India’s largest micro-lenders and the first to IPO. After SKS, Gautam established and ran the $26 million Gates Foundation-funded CGAP Technology Program for digital finance at the World Bank. As co-founder of Signal Point Partners, a mobile services advisory and incubation firm, Gautam helped launch JipangeKusave — the first credit/savings product on M-Pesa and the precursor to M-Shwari. Today Gautam is co-founder and Head of Product at ArthImpact (one of india’s leading digital lenders) and is a Director and investor in multiple fintech startups. Gautam has been a senior advisor to Accion Venture Lab, the MIX, and chairperson of the GSM Association’s Mobile Money for the Unbanked Fund.
David Levine is the Controller at Encourage Capital where he manages the Finance and Accounting Team. David graduated with a BA in Finance from the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University. While at Penn State, David served as Philanthropic Chair for the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity where he led fundraising initiatives for THON, the largest student-run philanthropy in the world. After graduation, David joined Wolfensohn Fund Management as a Fund Accountant. Prior to Wolfensohn, David interned at the law firm of Guttman, Mintz, Baker and Sonnenfeld, in the Risk Assessment division.
Jonathan Morris is a Partner and a member of the Board of Directors of Encourage Capital and leads the company’s Ag.-related water investment strategy. He is a member of the Investment Committee of Wolfensohn Capital Partners, L.P. and Chairman of the Valuation Committee of Wolfensohn Fund Management (WFM) and Chief Legal Officer of Encourage Capital. Prior to co-founding WFM in 2006, Jon had over ten years of private equity and venture capital experience, both as an entrepreneur and as an attorney. From 2005 to 2006, Jon was CEO of JBM Consultants, an independent consulting firm. From 1998 to 2004, Jon was a Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of Bluefly, Inc. (NasdaqSmallCap: BFLY), a publicly traded Internet retailer with over 500,000 customers and an enterprise value in excess of $250 million at the time he resigned his position. Prior to starting Bluefly, Jon spent five years as a corporate, securities, and private equity attorney in New York City. Jon has an A.B. in Political Science from Amherst College and a J.D. from the New York University School of Law.
Ellie Moss is a Senior Advisor at Encourage Capital.
Brad Schwartz is the Chief Financial Officer at Encourage Capital. He is also a New York State licensed CPA. Brad holds an MBA with distinction from NYU’s Stern School of Business and a BS in accounting from SUNY Albany. He is a faculty member of Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies Sustainability Management program where he teaches accounting, finance, and modeling of sustainable investments. Prior to joining Encourage, he worked at Lincolnshire Management, Inc. on their finance and accounting team. He has also worked for JP Morgan Chase in their Private Equity Fund Services business. Brad began his career as an auditor at Ernst and Young. He was also at one point a professional comedian and actor but now provides humor on a pro bono basis.
Jason Scott is on the Board of Directors of Encourage Capital. He was a co-founder of EKO. Jason is a member of the Investment Committee of the EKO Green Carbon Fund. Prior to EKO, Jason was a founding Director and investment analyst at Generation Investment Management, co-founded by David Blood and former Vice President Al Gore, Jr. As its first employee, Jason helped build the firm and its first and second products, investing in global listed equities and climate change solutions respectively. From 1999 to 2004, Jason worked with Acumen Fund, Flatiron Future Fund/Foundation and New Philanthropy Capital. From 1996-1999, Jason was President of a NYC-based software company. Previously, Jason helped found and build Public Allies, a youth and community development organization. In 1998, the Rockefeller Foundation selected Jason as a fellow in its Next Generation Leadership Program. He co-founded Cleantech for Obama and served on several transition advisory boards for the Obama Administration and is currently on the boards of Oil Change International, the Frankfurt Zoological Society and Public Allies. Jason also co-founded and jointly leads a network of family offices investing in Cleantech, Renewables and other Environmental Opportunities (called the CREO Syndicate). Jason graduated from Duke University cum laude and has an M.B.A. with honors jointly from Columbia and London Business Schools.
Aditya Telang works with Encourage Capital and is in based in Mumbai. He brings 4 years of experience across private equity and management consulting. Prior to joining the firm, Aditya worked as an Associate in the investment team at Lok Capital where he was involved in private equity investments in financial services, food & agriculture. He started his career at Alvarez and Marsal working on strategy, commercial due diligence and performance improvement engagements across logistics, consumer goods and financial services. Aditya graduated with an MBA and CEMS MIM from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He also holds a B.Tech and M.Tech degree in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.
Elisa Speranza is a Senior Advisor at Encourage Capital.
Adam Wolfensohn is the Managing Partner of Encourage Capital.
Previously, Adam was managing director at Wolfensohn Fund Management and also managed the Wolfensohn family office cleantech and environmental markets strategies.
He produced the climate change documentary Everything’s Cool that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007. From 2002 to 2003, he worked with Conservation International to create a market for carbon credits from avoided deforestation projects.
Prior to 2002, Adam composed music for numerous films, television commercials, and theater productions, as founder and CEO of “Red Ramona,” an award winning music and sound design studio in New York City. He is a trustee of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Yad Hanadiv, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and Bang on a Can. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Adam earned a B.A. from Princeton University and a Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
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