Tiger Brands has appointed Barati Mahloele as the company’s Venture Capital Fund Director. She joins the business from Zebu Investment Partners where she was vice president Investments.
In her new position at Tiger Brands, Barati will be responsible for leading the company’s Venture Capital Fund which was launched in mid-2021.
The fund’s mandate is to invest in startup businesses that align to Tiger Brands’ consumer-relevant growth platforms of health, nutrition, snackification, and economical food options, and to grow these businesses alongside the entrepreneurs running them.
“Through the Venture Capital Fund we are looking to expand our participation in new product categories and access a pipeline of opportunities to fuel future growth,” Becky Opdyke, Chief Marketing Officer at Tiger Brands says.
“As our first Venture Capital Fund Director, Mahloele brings valuable private equity and commercial finance experience along with an understanding of the consumer goods sector.”
Mahloele has more than 10 years’ experience in commercial finance and private equity beginning her finance career at Unilever where she held roles in South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, the UK and Australia. In Kenya and Ethiopia, she was involved in greenfield investment projects.
At Zebu, a pan-African private equity fund manager investing across the food value chain, Mahloele led the fund’s technology-enabled investments and was instrumental in their consumer goods investments across East & Southern Africa.
Barati holds an MBA from the University of Oxford’s Said Business School, where she was a Said Foundation African Scholar, and a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal.
