For nearly three decades, Dana Bezerra has worked with asset owners, philanthropists and NGOs to unite purpose, investment and wealth to help unleash shared value.
Having begun her career in agriculture in California, she bore witness to a series of experiences that left her with a lasting impression of the importance of social cohesion within a community – and the complicated relationship between communities and capital markets. Eventually finding her way to Merrill Lynch, Dana spent nearly a decade managing client money, where she learned an appreciation for the nuances of intergenerational wealth and learned to navigate complex financial transactions and markets.
Prior to joining Greater Share, Dana served as President of the Heron Foundation spending nearly 18 years in the organization. She played a key role in rotating the foundation’s entire portfolio (across all asset classes and grants) to better reflect Heron’s mission. She became responsible for sourcing deals, identifying and developing relationships across a spectrum of investors, syndicating capital when possible, and cultivating opportunities to deploy the full range of Heron’s philanthropic and market-rate toolkit.
Always committed to systems change, Dana has been active in the leadership of several organisations, including two privately held investment firms: CapShift and TILT, as well as the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets, Duke University’s Fuqua CASE i3 Advisors and as a frequent guest lecturer at the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia University and as part of Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative designed to unleash the potential of experienced leaders to help solve society’s most pressing challenges.
Areas of Expertise:
- Impact/mission investing
- Investing across tools and asset classes
- Philanthropic equity
