Vinay Nair

2014

Dignity not dependence, choice not charity

Once a poster boy investment banker, Vinay Nair tells the story of his involvement in ‘patient capital’, and how it can be a vehicle for reducing poverty and improving social justice.

Vinay Nair works in London for Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. He is a former Executive Director at J.P. Morgan London, where he was head of a fixed-income marketing team. He took a sabbatical to work on microfinance and social enterprise, primarily in India. He subsequently worked for the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in Mozambique, and on secondment to the Ministry of Health, co-led the successful $175 million application for 5-years of funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He has launched two social enterprises, one in rural Mozambique, working with HIV-positive women to make and sell jam, and one in the UK, focusing on out-of-hours primary health care, for which he received an award from UnLtd.

Vinay received his BA (Hons) in Economics and Political Science from Trinity College Dublin and an MPA (Public Policy and Management) from the London School of Economics. At LSE, he conducted a group capstone project on Indian rural electrification with Acumen Fund and its investee, Husk Power Systems. Vinay sits on the Board of Acumen investee, Durable Activated Residual Textiles (DART). He is on the Advisory Board of Social & Sustainable Capital, the Centre for Talented Youth of Ireland and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts.

Biography published 2014

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Vinay Nair