Shaiza Rizavi

“If you’re open and don’t construct borders and boundaries between different parts of your life, you can discover learning everywhere,” Shaiza Rizavi recently told the glasshammer. Rizavi is a partner and portfolio manager at Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co., a growth equity brokerage firm where she seeks out companies with “disruptive, innovative approaches.” While a student at Vanderbilt University, Rizavi worked in Mexico to raise awareness of best sanitation practices. After graduating, she toured Southeast Asia analyzing opportunities for global replication of successful youth development programs. She earned her MBA from Columbia Business School and remains active there serving on the advisory board of the Social Enterprise Program and on the Columbia Alumni Arts League. She also sits on the board of trustees of the Calhoun School, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the American Museum of Natural History. She is a member of the board of directors of Acumen, which invests in strategies to end world poverty. Updated 2018