Ms. Runa Alam,
CEO and Managing Principal, Zephyr Capital Management, L.P.

CEO of the Zephyr Africa businesses and Managing Principal, and co-head of the two new Zephyr Africa private equity funds, (the “Funds”),  Ms. Alam has 20 years of investment banking, emerging market management, and private equity experience.  She has extensive experience in sourcing, negotiating and structuring transactions having closed more than 100 deals with a value of over US $3 billion.  Ms. Alam has experience in “on-the-ground” management in emerging markets having founded and managed both Peregrine Bangladesh and Union Capital Bangladesh.

Ms. Alam’s recent business experience was concentrated in Africa.  She was a director of the AIG African Infrastructure Fund, the largest private equity fund dedicated to Africa, from 1999 to July 2002.  At this fund, Ms. Alam was responsible for investment transactions and monitoring.  As one of the few private equity experts focused exclusively on regional and pan-African transactions, she has developed a network of contacts in Africa, and has been in the midst of African private equity deal flow for the life of that fund.  Under her leadership, the AIG African Infrastructure Fund committed US $40 million to a pan-African telecom operator, and US $10 million to a pan-African media company.   Ms. Alam has been an active board member of MSI Cellular Investment Holdings B.V, representing the AIG African Infrastructure Fund, and continues to work extensively with this company in her role with Zephyr.

Before joining the AIG African Infrastructure Fund, Ms. Alam was Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Union Capital Bangladesh, and its predecessor company, Peregrine Bangladesh.  As head of Peregrine Bangladesh, she founded the first office of an international investment bank in Bangladesh, hired and managed over 40 professionals, and built corporate finance, project finance, sales and trading, and research departments.  She also played a major role in attracting global oil and gas company investments to Bangladesh.   The company’s transactions included advisory assignments for Unocal Corporation, Mobil Corporation, CEPA and Hutchison Whampoa, as well as convertible and equity financings for local blue-chip companies.  She also arranged an international road show for the Bangladeshi Prime Minister resulting in several corporate investments.  As founder of Union Capital, Ms. Alam negotiated, structured and completed a buyout of the Peregrine Bangladesh assets to form Union Capital.  She cut costs thereafter by 40%, while increasing revenues.   Ms. Alam completed several innovative transactions in the Bangladeshi market including the first four-way merger, and the largest stock offering in 1998.  Union Capital remains one of the largest investment banks in Bangladesh and is profitable.

Ms. Alam started her career working for investment banks in New York including Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, where she worked in mergers and acquisitions and corporate and tax-exempt finance. 

Ms. Alam received her MBA from the Harvard Business School, and an undergraduate degree in international and developmental economics from the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University.  She was also a Harry S. Truman Congressional Scholar.