Simba Marekera

2022 Cohort

Simba is utilising Indigenous informed investment principles as a tool for investors to influence company and business behavior toward genuine Indigenous and community empowerment.

Simba Marekera is the Head of Investment Management at Brightlight Group, an impact investing fund manager dedicated to investing with the goal of transforming lives. Based on Darug Country in Sydney, New South Wales, he specialises in innovative financing and blended finance across a variety of Private Markets asset classes including infrastructure, real estate and credit/private debt both in developed and developing markets. Among other duties, Simba is the Lead Portfolio Manager for the Te Puna Hapori Strategy, which partners with community stakeholders to finance and deliver critical community infrastructure in underserved communities across New Zealand and Asia Pacific Impact Notes, gender equity themed Fixed Income instruments aligned with the Social Bond Principles and 2X Challenge Criteria. Both strategies aim to implement the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Principles.

“I want to see more impact investments go towards genuine Indigenous empowerment and self-determination.”

Social change work

Simba’s social change project is focused on understanding and applying Indigenous ways of being, doing and knowing to create a set of principles to inform investment decision makers about the level of Indigenous empowerment their investments are achieving or promoting. The principles will be driven by Indigenous communities defining what success looks like and how it is measured. The goal of the Indigenous informed principles is to be an easy to use tool for investors to influence company and business behaviour towards genuine Indigenous empowerment.