Irina Ivan – van der Kwaak

Irina Ivan – van der Kwaak leads the development of the Van Leer Foundation’s impact investing portfolio across multiple asset classes. Originally from Romania, she has a BA in mathematics and economics from Kenyon College (USA) and an EMPA from the London School of Economics (UK).

She joined the Foundation in 2018 to help manage partnerships and projects related to scaling early childhood development programmes. Before joining, she was a senior strategy and learning officer at the Porticus Foundation in the Netherlands and the UK, having started her career in 2007 in investment banking at Lehman Brothers and then Evercore Partners.