Speakers

Zina is an Innovative Finance Advisor at the International Committee of the Red Cross, where she develops blended financing solutions to support the ICRC’s health interventions, while seeking to ensure sustainable transitions to development partners.

She specialises in development finance, impacting investing, private equity, and project management, with a particular emphasis on Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. Over the past 20+ years, Zina has worked with the World Bank Group, UBS, Bamboo Capital Partners, the World Economic Forum, and Banque Audi SAL.

She has led the development, structuring and execution of a wide-ranging investment portfolio in the financial inclusion space across emerging markets. She served on the Board of Directors of multiple banking institutions in East Africa and Central Asia, working to support their strategic development. She has also advised private wealth management clients on building private equity, debt and real estate investment portfolios. She started her career in corporate banking in Lebanon.

Zina is an MBA graduate from IMD in Lausanne Switzerland, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), and speaks Arabic, English, French and Portuguese.

Serena is an expert in innovative finance, impact investing and inclusive business models. She brings 20 years of experience advising clients on the design, structuring and evaluation of impact investment strategies and vehicles.

She has designed and launched a number of pioneering impact bonds and other result-based finance instruments, including but not limited to the Quality Education India Development Impact Bond, the ICRC’s Humanitarian Impact Bond, and the Refugee Impact Bond. She also designed and supported the launch of Convergence, a blended finance platform focused on emerging and frontier markets. Her past work also included strategy consulting with McKinsey and humanitarian assistance with Mercy Corps in Darfur. Serena holds a PhD from Caltech in Social Sciences with a specialization in Behavioral Finance.

Catherine Savoy is the current ICRC health coordinator for the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo since August 2020.

Catherine joined the ICRC in 2002, and until 2008 she was on fixed-term contract and alternate mission with hospital work in Switzerland or with other organizations. She served many years as health delegate and other functions within the health unit before pursuing her career in coordination positions (2007), mainly in Africa – CAR, Senegal with regional coverage and DRC.

At the ICRC Headquarters, she worked in the health unit as head of health sector for Africa region between 2016 to June 2020 before going back to the field.

Catherine was born in Switzerland and graduated in nursing care from Lausanne, with Tropical medicine specialization (Antwerpen), holding a MAS on humanitarian action and lately completed a diploma (DAS) on quality and security of care from Geneva University

Mara is an Economist and Decision Analyst and holds degrees from Bocconi University in Milan and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research is motivated by a desire to improve decision making in government, with a special interest and extensive expertise in the field of healthcare. Mara is one of the lead developers of the STAR toolkit, a socio-technical approach sponsored by the Health Foundation to improve resource allocation in healthcare organisations.

Mara has worked extensively with managers of the English and the Italian National Health Systems. She has also consulted for the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in Ontario (Canada), the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence and the (then) Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in England, NATO and the Global Fund to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.