Skollar 2007/08
Rob Pettit’s experience in emerging market finance overlays an academic and professional background in the architectural field. Rob holds a BSc in Architecture from the University of Virginia in the USA. He has worked in the disciplines of project management and design, and was first exposed to entrepreneurship while co-establishing a local design-build company in Charlottesville, USA.
A brief experience with a micro-finance institution focused on affordable housing in the townships of Cape Town, South Africa motivated Rob to pursue a career supporting development. As Relationship Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa with a private merchant bank in the Washington DC area, he was active in trade and project finance for initiatives throughout the continent, across a wide variety of sectors including telecom, agro-processing, transportation, and energy.
Rob Pettit is working on a new initiative to support the expansion of venture capital in sub-Saharan Africa. The initiative is premised on the observation that while SMEs form the bedrock of Africa's private-sector economies, a lack of access to risk capital and strategic managerial support makes these small businesses difficult to scale. Addressing this "missing middle" of SME finance, the team's model combines the commercial drivers of private equity with developmental objectives of the traditional aid industry in order to create local wealth and opportunities.