Sara Razavi is CEO of Working Solutions CDFI, a role she assumed in 2017 when she succeeded the organization’s founder. Sara joined Working Solutions in 2013 and served as COO prior to becoming CEO. She brings over 20 years of experience in the social sector to the role, with expertise in operations, strategy, finance, small business, and partnership management.
Under Sara’s leadership, Working Solutions has scaled significantly in capital deployment, asset size, and impact. Between 2019 and 2024, Working Solutions more than doubled all-time deployment from $23MM to $56MM while maintaining a focus on small-dollar loans and grants, with 96% of capital deployed to low-income, BIPOC, women entrepreneurs. During that time, Sara led the organization’s expansion in both geographic footprint and loan size, with the organization now providing loans of up to $100,000 throughout California. Since joining Working Solutions, Sara has also helped build the organization’s assets from $5 million to more than $20 million, with aims to increase that in multiples by 2029.
Most recently, Sara led the development of an ambitious five-year strategic plan to again double all-time deployment to reach $100 million in small-dollar financing for businesses throughout California by FYE29.
Sara serves on the Board of Directors of the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), the national CDFI industry association; the Board of Directors of the Scale Link, a financial intermediary for CDFI microlenders; and the Advisory Board of the Center for Impact Finance at the UNH Carsey School of Public Policy. Previously she was a founding Executive Committee member of the California Coalition for Community Investment (CCCI), a statewide coalition of CDFIs.
Prior to joining Working Solutions, Sara was Executive Director of Honoring Emancipated Youth, a subsidiary of United Way of the Bay Area focused on advocacy for former foster youth. Over the years, Sara has worked at multiple social sector entities specifically focused on under-resourced communities, including immigrant and low-income children, youth, and families.
Sara has a BA in Sociology and Theatre from UC Davis and an MBA from the University of San Francisco, where she focused on the intersection of social impact and finance. She is also active in her other passion, the arts, through the San Francisco Bay Area theatre community, primarily as a past board member and current advisor to Golden Thread Productions. Sara lives in Oakland with her wife and two young children.