SEAF

Paul Sheehan is the Chief Executive Officer of SEAF, overseeing its global investment, advisory, and operations teams. He has more than 25 years of experience in financial institutions, beginning at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and later serving as Head of Asian Financial Institutions at Lehman Brothers and ING Barings, and as founder and CEO of Hong Kong–based fund manager Thaddeus Capital. He advises governments, sovereign wealth funds, and multilateral institutions, and holds degrees from Albany, Yale, and Harvard.

Armands Fomicevs is the Managing Director of SEAF's Economic Empowerment Fund for Uzbekistan, responsible for deploying $100m to Uzbek SMEs. He has worked at SEAF since 1998, previously managing the Georgia Regional Development Fund and Caucasus Growth Fund, which invested in nineteen companies across Georgia and Armenia, and earlier served as Principal Investment Officer for Latvia in SEAF's Baltic Small Equity Fund. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Law from the University of Latvia and studied international trade law in Sweden.

Asif Mahmood joined SEAF as Managing Director for SEAF Bangladesh Ventures in May 2017, where he manages a portfolio of funds and supports fundraising for Bangladesh Ventures. He is the founder and Chairman of ADN Group, an information and communications technology (ICT) organization in Bangladesh, and has around 30 years of experience in ICT and technology through multiple ventures started since 1990. He holds a B.Sc. in Engineering from NIT Durgapur, India.

Ezra Musoke is Managing Director for SEAF KASI Agriventures in Tanzania and a Ugandan national who has invested in SMEs across East Africa. Before SEAF, he worked with GroFin, InReturn Capital, and Grassroots Business Fund, helping launch GroFin's Tanzania office and later serving as a managing partner at InReturn Capital. He holds a BA from Makerere University, two post-graduate diplomas in Financial Management and Banking, and a Masters in Management Studies from the Uganda Management Institute.

Gary Dodge is a Managing Director at SEAF and has been with the firm since 1995. He previously served as a regional manager for SEAF's Poland fund (1995-1998), managed the Baltics Small Equity Fund from 1998 to its completion, and has managed the SEAF CEE Growth Fund since 2003. He has made and exited more than 30 equity and debt investments in Central and Eastern Europe, sits on the Supervisory Boards of several CEE portfolio companies, and serves on SEAF's Global Investment Committee. He holds an A.B. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard College and an M.B.A. in Finance and Marketing from Vanderbilt University.

George Zhang is a Managing Director of the SEAF Sichuan Small Investment Fund (SSIF), which invests in SMEs in China's Sichuan province, where he handles deal origination, negotiation, execution, monitoring, and exits, as well as portfolio technical assistance and government relations. Before joining SEAF in 2004, he was Chief Representative for the investment branch of New York Life International in Southwest China and previously held roles at Standard Chartered Bank and the Sichuan Branch of the People's Bank of China. He holds an M.A. in Economics from the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics and a B.A. in English and Japanese from Sichuan College of Foreign Languages, and studied finance and accounting as a visiting scholar at Bentley College.

Jan Cherim is SEAF's Executive Committee Vice Chair for EMEA and a Board member, managing the firm's EMEA regional hub in Amsterdam while coordinating debt fund products, advisory services, European investor relations, and business development. He has more than 30 years of experience in emerging markets finance, including 17 years at ING where he served on the Management Committee of its Wholesale International unit and led its Financial Institutions business, and earlier worked at S.G. Warburg & Co. and the World Bank. He was educated at Johns Hopkins University and the London School of Economics.

Moctar Sarr has more than two decades of experience in investment banking and private equity, including 12 years as an entrepreneur, with a background spanning banking, energy, telecommunications, financial services, IT, and agro-business. His earlier roles include positions at Orange Senegal (Sonatel), BNP Paribas Private Bank, BICIS, SOPAF, NEXT SA, and Al Kamara Investment Group, and he co-founded M&A Capital SAS and Rijaal Holding. Since July 2023 he has led SEAF's West & Central Africa operations and manages the OYASS Capital Funds, an SME-focused fund. He holds a Master in Asset Management from ESLSCA Paris and an FX/MM certification from Citibank College.

Nikola Stefanovic joined SEAF in 2006 and leads the SEAF South Balkan Fund B.V. and SEAF Serbia Impact Fund B.V., private equity funds focused on Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro. Before SEAF, he was Managing Director/Partner at Academy Funds, a US venture capital group, and since 1999 has worked on more than 40 transactions across the US and Southeast Europe. He holds a bachelor's degree from Guilford College, an MBA from Wake Forest University, and a PhD from the University of Novi Sad, and has passed Level I of the CFA program.

Piotr Kalaman joined SEAF in 1993 as an Investment Officer of CARESBAC-Polska, became Deputy Director for Investments in 1995, and later Managing Director of the fund. At SEAF he has taken a leading role in 30 investments and 15 exits. Before SEAF he was a financial analyst at Polish investment banking firm Hejka-Michna (1991–1993), served as a Polish representative on the EVCA Eastern European Advisory Committee (1994–1995), holds an M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from Warsaw Technical University, and studied at the University of Illinois.

Tom Monaco is a Board of Directors member and Executive Committee Vice Chair at SEAF, overseeing the firm's Asia and Americas businesses, and also teaches as a lecturer at the University at Albany, SUNY. Before SEAF, he managed hedge funds at Nighthawk Capital in Hong Kong and Morgan Stanley's FrontPoint in New York. His earlier career included work as a ranked sell-side analyst and Director of Research in the US and Asia, as well as a bank regulator within the Federal Reserve System. He holds degrees from Fordham University and Johns Hopkins University.

Fons Marcelis joined SEAF's Board of Directors in 2020, drawing on roughly four decades of work in organization, management, and human resources. He spent 12 years as a management consultant and manager in the primary and preventive healthcare sector and at Philips Electronics, followed by over 24 years at the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank Group in HR advisory and corporate HR roles covering compensation, labor relations, and conflict resolution. Since 2016 he has worked as an independent HR and management consultant and holds a master's degree in social sciences from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

Gerry Johnson joined SEAF in 2019 as a Senior Advisor for its Caribbean Initiatives alongside the launch of the SEAF Caribbean SME Growth Fund. His background includes serving as General Manager of the Caribbean Country Department of the Inter-American Development Bank from 2010 to 2016 and earlier as IDB Country Representative in Jamaica, Haiti, and Guatemala. He holds a BA in Economics from Georgetown University and a Master's in Economics from the University of Kent at Canterbury.

Giorgi Basilia joined SEAF's Tbilisi office as a financial analyst in 2013, where he handles financial reporting and modeling and contributes to pipeline development, investment impact evaluation, and portfolio company monitoring. Since 2018 he has served as environmental coordinator in Georgia. He holds a BA in finance from the Caucasus School of Business.

Javed Hamid joined the SEAF Board in 2013 and became Chairman in 2016. He spent much of his career at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group, where he was a member of the Management Group and Director for the East Asia and Pacific Region. He has held advisory and board roles at various companies, was a non-resident Fellow of the Brookings Institution, and holds degrees from the University of Punjab, Harvard Business School, and Cambridge University.

Jeri Jensen is Director of Strategic Partnerships at SEAF, where she develops partnerships with corporations, foundations, and international development organizations to scale SEAF and CEED's work. She previously served as Director of Partnerships for Social Justice at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University and held senior roles at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, USTR, the Department of Commerce, the National Security Council, and the US Export-Import Bank. She holds a Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a BA in Political Science from Northwestern University.

Mark Grant is the Finance and Administration Manager at SEAF Caribbean Management LLC, where he handles financial and administrative operations for the company and its related fund. He has more than 20 years of experience in accounting, finance, and fund administration, with prior roles across manufacturing/export, financial services, and inter-governmental organizations in Jamaica, the US, and Switzerland, including Wray & Nephew Group Limited, Grace Kennedy Export Trading Limited, Jamaica Money Market Brokers Limited, MassMutual Financial Group, and the International Trade Centre. He holds a B.Sc. in Accounting from the University of the West Indies, Mona, and an MBA in Finance from the American International College in Massachusetts.

Muhammad Maruf Hossain joined SEAF Bangladesh Ventures in 2010, where he serves as a Monitoring & Sourcing Manager responsible for overseeing investee companies, sourcing new deals, liaising with financial institutions, and handling legal and collection matters. Before SEAF, he worked at Venture Investment Partners Bangladesh Ltd. (VIPB) as a Market Development Officer. He holds an MBA in Finance & Banking from Southeast University and a Bachelor of Commerce with Honours from National University, Bangladesh.

Oleg Osipenko is SEAF's Chief Country Representative for Ukraine, leading the firm's initiatives in the country. A Ukraine-born British national, he began his career at PwC Kyiv and held roles in M&A and principal investments banking at Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley in London, later leading Ukrainian client coverage at VTB Capital and heading corporate banking and European client coverage at OWH SE in Frankfurt. He holds an MBA from Duke University, an EMPA from LSE, and an M.Sc. in Data Science from Imperial College London, and is an ACCA, CMA, and CFA charterholder.

Peter Righi is a co-developer and Global Director of SEAF's Center for Entrepreneurship and Executive Development (CEED) program, which he has overseen since its 2005 pilot in Bulgaria as it expanded to centers across the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Africa. He also serves as SEAF's Director of International Programs and spent over 12 years in the firm's Business Development Unit providing post-investment support to investees, including export development work. He holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Middlebury College and an M.A. in International Economics from American University's School of International Service.

Peter Zakowich is a Partner and Managing Director at PAAMCO Prisma (formerly KKR & Co.), where he holds a senior investment leadership role across the firm's global alternative investment platform and serves on multiple Investment Committees covering asset allocation, portfolio construction, and strategy for hedge fund, credit, and niche alternative investments. He has previously worked in investment roles at J.P. Morgan, Putnam Investments, and other asset management firms. He earned an MBA from NYU Stern and a BA in Economics from Harvard University.

Salome Svanadze is Vice President at SEAF, where she has worked since 2015 on global portfolio management and reporting on development impact metrics and impact-related investment products. She joined SEAF's Georgia and Caucasus Funds in 2009 focusing on portfolio monitoring, evaluation and investor reporting, and was seconded to FMO in 2017 as an Investment Officer. Before SEAF she worked on the USAID-funded Project AgVANTAGE implemented by ACDI/VOCA, holds an M.Sc. in Management and Economics from a Georgian state university, and pursued a Ph.D. in Business Administration at Ilia State University.

Tine Knott is President and CEO of DAI, a professional services and advisory firm offering project design and delivery, management consulting, and financial services to governments, companies, and investors; she became CEO in 2025. She joined DAI in 2011 and previously held roles including President, Executive Vice President for Strategy and Global Operations, and Senior Vice President of the firm's U.S. Government Business. Before DAI, she spent 15 years with USAID in Washington D.C., Jordan, Mozambique, Ghana, and Peru, and holds a Master of Science in International Development from the University of Pennsylvania.

Yasmin Saadat joined SEAF's Board of Directors in 2019 and has more than three decades of experience in development economics and emerging-market investing. She spent over 30 years at the World Bank and the IFC in roles spanning macroeconomic and agricultural sector policy and lending operations, most recently as Product Head of Commodity and Structured Trade Finance at the IFC, where she built a $1.5 billion structured trade finance business. She previously served as Principal Member and COO of Potomac River Capital and currently sits on the Green Climate Fund's Accreditation Panel as a Senior Fiduciary Expert. She holds a BA in Economics from the Université des Sciences Sociales in Grenoble and an MA and PhD in Development Economics and International Development from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and is a CFA charterholder.

Jamal Abisourour is SEAF's Vice President for Investments in Innovation and Vice President for MENA, leading pipeline development and deal structuring across North Africa and the Middle East. He has over five years of transactional experience at SEAF, where he previously served as Impact Manager. Before SEAF, he worked at a boutique private equity firm in Singapore and spent four years as a Business Development Director at a Maghreb-based payment solutions company.

Robert Vodicka is a Vice President on SEAF's global management team, where his work spans business development, impact, fund formation, finance, and operations. He leads SEAF's Environmental, Social and Governance efforts to ensure portfolio companies meet the firm's standards. Before joining SEAF, he held operational and financial roles in small business management in the Chicago area, including Director of Operations at a mid-sized construction company; he holds an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a BA in Business Administration from Illinois State University.