Tiger Brands appoints Barati Mahloele as venture capital fund director

South African packaged goods company Tiger Brands has appointed Barati Mahloele as the company’s venture capital fund director.

She joins the business from Zebu Investment Partners where she was VP of investments.

In her new position at Tiger Brands, Mahloele will be responsible for leading the company’s venture capital fund, which was launched in mid-2021.

The fund’s mandate is to invest in startup businesses that align to Tiger Brands’ consumer-relevant growth platforms of health and nutrition, ‘snackification’ and economical food options and to grow these businesses alongside the entrepreneurs running them.

“Through the venture capital fund, we are looking to expand our participation in new product categories and access a pipeline of opportunities to fuel future growth. As our first venture capital fund director, Barati brings valuable private equity and commercial finance experience along with an understanding of the consumer goods sector,” says Tiger Brands chief marketing officer Becky Opdyke.

Mahloele has more than ten years’ experience in commercial finance and private equity, beginning her finance career at Unilever where she held roles in South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, the UK and Australia.

In Kenya and Ethiopia, she was involved in greenfield investment projects.

At Zebu, a pan-African private equity fund manager investing across the food value chain, Mahloele led the fund’s technology-enabled investments and was noted to have been instrumental in their consumer goods investments across East and Southern Africa.

She holds an MBA from the University of Oxford’s Said Business School, where she was a Said Foundation African Scholar, and a BComm in Accounting from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.