Lise Birikundavyi (she/her)

Lise Birikundavyi is the co-founder and managing partner for BKR Capital, the first institutional, black-led VC fund in Canada. Lise is an innovative finance specialist who has worked with several international institutions and acts as guest lecturer for prestigious organization, including Oxford University and the International Olympic Committee Accelerator managed by the Yunus Sports Hub. Lise also mentors and supports highly promising and impactful start-ups in emerging markets.

She began her career in the hedge fund industry in Montreal and her interest in mixing attractive financial returns with long term societal impact is what inspired her to transition to the impact finance sector, a space in which she worked for a decade. She has experience across the investment spectrum: from funds of funds and VCs, to being the transition CEO of a tech start-up.

Lise is a CFA charterholder; she also holds a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance/ Shanghai JiaoTong University, where she wrote her thesis on impact investing, and a trilingual BBA from HEC Montreal. Lise is fluent in French, English and Spanish, and has a conversational level of Mandarin.

She is a firm believer in using the forces of capital markets as a basis for more inclusive wealth creation and sustainable poverty alleviation.