Mark Cheng – Ashoka

Mark Cheng is the founder and Managing Partner of Social Innovation Circle, a network of investors funding social innovation. He is an experienced impact investor who has invested in and advised over 100 social impact organizations over the past 20 years, helping them raise over $400 million in capital. Since 2012, he has been Senior Advisor on Social Finance at Ashoka, the global network of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs.

 Mark has been a Guest Instructor at HL BaSE since its inception, and is a regular writer and speaker on social enterprise and finance. He is the author of the Social Investment Toolkit, a guide for raising social investment, which has been used by social entrepreneurs in over 40 countries. He is a Guest Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he co-founded the Social Impact Academy, an incubator for university-led social start-ups. In 2022, he led the launch of the African Healthcare Funders Forum, Africa’s first forum bringing together leading healthcare founders and funders. Mark started his career as an investment banker in London, and has lived and worked in the UK, Japan, China and Hong Kong, where he currently lives.