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 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. In 2019, Sara led the development of an ambitious five-year strategic plan to reach $50 million deployed to small businesses by the end of 2024 — a goal that was reached ahead of schedule in January 2024. Working Solutions has increased capital deployment from less than $1 million annually to over $6 million annually in the past three years, with a total deployment of over $50 million to nearly 3,000 small businesses in loans and grants since inception. The majority of funds have been deployed to entrepreneurs of color, women, and low-income individuals.

Since joining Working Solutions, Sara has also helped build the organization’s assets from $5 million to nearly $20 million. Most recently, Sara led the organization’s expansion in both geographic footprint and loan size, with the organization now providing loans of up to $100,000 in 19 counties throughout Northern California, an area encompassing more than 20,000 square miles and an estimated 2 million entrepreneurs.

Sara serves on the Board of Directors of the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), the national CDFI industry association; the Board of Directors of Scale Link, a financial intermediary for CDFIs; the Executive Committee of the California Coalition for Community Investment (CCCI), a statewide coalition of CDFIs; the Advisory Council of REDF Impact Investing Fund; and the Advisory Board of the Center for Impact Finance at the UNH Carsey School of Public Policy.

Prior to joining Working Solutions, Sara was Executive Director of Honoring Emancipated Youth, a subsidiary of United Way of the Bay Area. 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.