Sonja Giese

Biography

Sonja Giese is founding Executive Director of Innovation Edge (IE), an investment platform with a social impact agenda. IE acts as a catalytic connector and provides financial, strategic and programmatic support to entrepreneurs and innovators from diverse sectors, to positively transform early life experiences for young children living in poverty. Since its establishment in mid 2014, Sonja has led IE in building an exciting portfolio of investments, demonstrating its ability to take ideas from source to scale.

Sonja has a degree in Science, a background in public policy, a passion for systems change and 25 years of experience in the development sector. She has engaged extensively with all levels of government and has been instrumental in national policy reform and systems enhancements which have effectively leveraged massive gains for children.

Prior to IE, Sonja held senior leadership positions within the University of Cape Town, international NGO Absolute Return for Kids, the community-based Bulungula Incubator, and a national ECD donor consortium, Ilifa Labantwana. She has also consulted extensively to local and international donors and Government on strategy, policy and programme design and evaluation. Her motto, ‘Be the change’.