Who We Are
Shu Dar Yao
(Soo-Dar Yow)
Founder & Managing Partner
Shu Dar Yao is a responsible investing advisor who teaches financiers about social and climate inequality. She supports venture capital, private equity, and wealth managers that seek market-rate returns, and her scope of work has included designing responsible investing policies and reports, fund structuring, supporting investor relations teams to respond to LP inquiries, and preparing companies for public listing.
At RSF Social Finance, she served as Chairwoman of the Investment Committee and rewrote the firm’s investment policy statement, impact reporting strategy, and restructured the firm’s fund of fund and direct equity portfolios. At Social Finance, she led Capital Formation and Investor Relations. At Citigroup, she structured fixed-income green bonds, microfinance fund investments, and social and cleantech enterprise investments. At the World Bank’s IFC, she developed the $4bn Global Infrastructure Crisis Facility. She started her career as an investment banker at JPMorgan where she worked in M&A, Syndicated Leveraged Finance and Private Equity Sponsors.
Shu Dar received her MBA from MIT Sloan, BS from NYU Stern and has been recognized by the Sorenson Impact Center as a Global Impact Leader. She lives with her husband and two children in Bernal Heights, San Francisco California.
Cecilia Young
(Seh-see-lee-uh Yung)
Manager, Engagement & Investment
Cecilia Young is a responsible investing advisor who specializes in strategy design, implementation, and market intelligence. She has drafted responsible investing policies for top US-based VC funds with over $50bn combined AUM, and writes a monthly client newsletter on relevant market developments.
Prior to Lucid Capitalism, Cecilia supported the design of a fixed income impact investing instrument and a green bank lending platform at Sustainable Capital Advisors, a financial advisory serving the sustainable infrastructure ecosystem. Her previous experience spans the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, including work for startup social enterprises, the U.S. Department of State, and The American Red Cross.
Cecilia received her MS in Global Business & Finance from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and her BA in International Politics with a minor in Human Rights from the University of California, San Diego. She lives in San Diego, California with her partner and their two rescue pitbulls.
Dagmawit Mengestu
(Dag-ma-weet Men-gis-too)
Fellow
Dagmawit Mengestu is a responsible investing fellow and advisor committed to shaping policies and strategies that drive impactful investment decisions. She brings a human-centered design perspective, bolstered by extensive experience across academia, government, and both the public and private sectors.
At IDEO.org, a nonprofit focused on addressing social and environmental challenges through human-centered design, Dagmawit worked on initiatives ranging from digital financial services to gender equality in diverse contexts across Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. As a program manager, she supported donor and financial institutions in reimagining their funding strategies within global development systems. Continuing her work in cross-cultural contexts, she further honed her policy analysis and research skills by developing a playbook on participatory governance methodologies for Ekitia, a public interest group focused on ethical data management in France.
Dagmawit holds an MPP from the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and a BA in International Studies from the University of California, Irvine. Based in Washington, D.C., she enjoys exploring the city’s museums and urban hiking in her free time.
Oomi Pammit
(OH-mee Pam-it)
Fellow
Oomi Pammit is a responsible investing advisor with experience in software, startup companies, and social impact. She has studied the responsible design of software and computer systems. She has also contributed to research for the MIT Center for Real Estate and the department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.
She shows her commitment to social justice through her work with multiple MIT diversity programs, including the Office of Minority of Education, the Women's Technology Program: EECS track, and the FLI Coalition. She coordinated the establishment of a financial assistance program for undergraduate students during her term on the MIT Outing Club Board of Directors as treasurer.
Oomi received her SB degree in Computer Science & Engineering from MIT. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and she enjoys playing engine-building board games.