Eduardo Elejalde
Founder and President, Natalia Mental Health Foundation (formerly the Myrtlewood Foundation)
Eduardo Elejalde’s career has focused on development banking, investment banking and private equity investing in different areas of the world. He is a Founding Partner of Latin America Enterprise Fund Managers, L.L.C. (LAEFM; 1994), a member of its board of directors and of its investment committees and the President of its subsidiary, LAEFM Colombia Ltda. He also is a member of the investment committee of Bancoldex Capital (which supports emerging private equity fund managers in Colombia); one of the sponsors of Corporacion Inversor, which specializes in impact investing; and a past Chairman of the Board of the Latin American Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (LAVCA). Previously, he worked as a senior investment banker in Wall Street and was a senior executive of the World Bank, where he started his career in 1972. In the course of his career, he has been involved in over 150 financial transactions in some 35 countries. He has received a number of awards and /or recognitions for the performance of LAEFM's funds and, in the case of Colombia, for his contribution to the development of the private equity industry in the country. A citizen of Peru and of the United States, Mr. Elejalde has a B.S. in chemical engineering from M.I.T. and an M.B.A. from Columbia University. He was a 2015 fellow of the Advanced Leadership Initiative of Harvard University, where he started this mental health project. Eduardo's older daughter, Natalia, had schizophrenia.
Rahul Pasarnikar
Vice President and Treasurer
Rahul Pasarnikar is Director of Business Development at Chicago CRED, an anti-gun violence organization founded by former Education Secretary Arne Duncan in 2016. As part of a team tasked with creating pathways to employment for young people at greatest risk of engaging in or being harmed by gun violence, Rahul leads CRED’s social enterprise, CREDMADE, which he launched in 2019 as a for-profit, Public Benefit Corporation to create job opportunities and spur economic development in Chicago’s south and west sides. CREDMADE’s first venture is a contract food packaging business, competing in the Chicago region’s rich food and beverage industry.
Prior to joining CRED, Rahul spent five years as a management consultant with McKinsey & Co., serving clients in their digital practice with an emphasis in marketing and sales operations. Rahul also spent over 12 years in technology consulting, implementing enterprise CRM systems for mid-size and large corporations, including for his own start-up consultancy.
Rahul holds his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his MBA from Georgetown University.
Jonathan Hettinger
Vice President and Secretary
Jonathan Hettinger is an investor and advisor to emerging and growth stage companies in Latin America and the U.S. He is also active in real estate as a broker with Sotheby's International Realty in New York City and in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. For 10 years (1995-2005), he was a Managing Director of Latin America Enterprise Fund Managers, LLC, based in Miami and Buenos Aires. He is currently an advisor to the Board of Celmedia, a regional cell phone applications provider headquartered in Santiago, Chile. Prior to his private equity activities, Jonathan worked on Wall Street for six years in corporate finance, first at Credit Suisse First Boston and then at Brown Brothers Harriman. He is a graduate of Princeton University (B.A., Economics with Honors) and is fluent in Spanish and conversant in Italian and German. Jonathan is a volunteer guide at the Honey Hollow Environmental Education Center in New Hope, PA and is active in fund-raising for the Sheffield Historical Society in Sheffield, MA.
The Natalia Mental Health Foundation Team also includes Roselyn Romberg, *Consultant. Roselyn is Founder and Managing Director of Vision Accomplished, a firm that guides organizations through startup, launch, and fast growth phases. Roselyn helps Boards and executive teams to define strategy, build operational capability, create alliances, form marketing plans, and raise funds. She has an M.B.A. from Yale University.