The Global Innovation Fund, which has been operating with interim leadership since its launch in September, has found its first CEO.
In an announcement made Friday, Alix Zwane has been named to lead the young and ambitious initiative forward. Zwane most recently served as chief executive of Evidence Action and has previously worked on strategic philanthropy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and as an academic researcher conducting randomized control trials.
The $200 million instrument was launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.K. Department for International Development, Swedish aid agency SIDA, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Omidyar Network with the goal of providing early stage capital to innovative ideas that tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges and have the potential to scale.
About the author
Adva Saldinger@AdvaSal
Adva Saldinger is a Senior Reporter at Devex where she covers development finance, as well as U.S. foreign aid policy. Adva explores the role the private sector and private capital play in development and authors the weekly Devex Invested newsletter bringing the latest news on the role of business and finance in addressing global challenges. A journalist with more than 10 years of experience, she has worked at several newspapers in the U.S. and lived in both Ghana and South Africa.
