Sahana Bhagat

About Sahana

Sahana is a researcher and practitioner who leverages entrepreneurship and financial markets to promote equitable and sustainable economic development. Specializing in impact investing, she advises investors – from development banks to asset managers – to maximize positive social and environmental outcomes.

At BlueMark, an impact investing consultancy, Sahana’s projects have included assessing an income-sharing program that finances college tuition in Sub-Saharan Africa and evaluating a fund that delivers medical technologies for women’s health in underserved regions of Asia. She is now developing an impact rating certification for Japanese banks.

Previously, Sahana worked at Quona Capital, a venture capital firm focused on financial inclusion, where she improved transparency efforts for Quona’s investments in the Global South. She graduated from the University of Virginia, earning degrees in Global Security & Justice and Media Studies, as well as a minor in Social Entrepreneurship.

In South Africa, Sahana studied the effects of women’s entrepreneurship on public health outcomes in townships outside Cape Town. Stateside, she directed research on drone pilots experiencing PTSD for the National Security Innovation Network. For her undergraduate thesis, she investigated the forced sterilizations of detainees in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers between 2018 and 2020 and evaluated the political and social discourse surrounding these actions.

Sahana is often found cooking, weightlifting, and traveling. Most recently, she returned to Hawaii, where she formerly worked in biodynamic agriculture, to take up surfing. Raised in an Indian-American family, she is passionate about Hindi cinema and Bollywood dance, on which she grew up.