Anja Koenig

Anja Koenig

Former Lead for System Change, Investing for Development, DACH
EVPA

Anja-N. Koenig is an impact investing, entrepreneurship and sustainable development expert as well as a trained facilitator in collaborative innovation and system change processes. She has more than 20 years of professional experience in the DACH region, (Central and Eastern) Europe, MENA, Africa, Asia and Latin America working with public and private sector clients on impact strategies, innovative finance and public private partnerships as well as incubating innovative projects for impact.

Until 2018 she supported entrepreneurship development in emerging countries at Swisscontact Foundation in Zurich. In 2015, she co-initiated and led Finance for Change at the Impact Hub Berlin to promote and encourage the use of finance for impact amongst philanthropic funders, business angels, VC funds and financial institutions. Between 2010 and 2014 she researched ways to strengthen the social investment market in Turkey, supported by Rockefeller Foundation and Mercator Foundation, before designing and leading the JP Morgan Chase Foundation Social Investment Programme at the Entrepreneurship Centre of Sabanci University in Istanbul. She also worked with Financial Advisory Services of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Frankfurt, including in the impact evaluation of German Development Bank KfW and with PwC Transaction Services of PwC in Nairobi. She came to Kenya in 2004 as a long-term government advisor appointed by German Development Agency GIZ. She spent several years with economic consulting companies in London, advising public and private sector clients on public-private partnerships, regulation and policies in (renewable) energy, water and telecommunications sectors.

Since 2015 she has been co-host of the Impact Investing Roundtable Berlin (now Impact for Breakfast Berlin), a member of Women in Social Finance and a mentor with impact career organization On Purpose Berlin and German women career platform MentorMe. She holds an MBA from University Mannheim/Germany, a diploma in Political Science and Economics (IEP Science Po Paris/France) and a Post Master's Certification in Development Studies (GDI, Germany). She obtained additional leadership and facilitation qualifications inter alea from the Presencing Institute at MIT (Theory U), the Generative Facilitation Institute and the LEAD Academy, both in Berlin.