Miranda Kherkheulidze joined Gazelle Finance in April 2017 and serves as its Finance Director. She brings over 15 years’ of experience working in the banking and finance industries, including: SME and corporate banking, credit, risk and financial management, and corporate finance. At different times Miranda has held various leadership positions in two of the leading banks in Georgia -- Bank Republic Société Générale Group and TBC Bank.

Prior to joining Gazelle Finance Miranda worked as the Head of Corporate Underwriting Department in TBC Bank where she was responsible for overseeing the Bank’s corporate portfolio of over USD 1.0 billion managing risk assessment and the structuring of deals up to USD 50M, and served as a full voting member of the highest tier Credit Committee with individual decision-making authority of USD 4M. Prior to TBC Bank Miranda was leading the Counterparty Risk Assessment Department for corporate and SME clients at Bank Republic, Société Générale (SG) Group, Georgia. Along with being responsible for assessing the origination and creating a high-quality portfolio, she was in charge of portfolio-level risk assessment, validation and maintenance of the risk rating and provisioning processes, as well as daily communication and reporting responsibilities to Risk Supervision division at SG Headquarters. Miranda revised and implemented the Bank’s overall credit granting, portfolio classification, monitoring and rating policies, risk assessment methodology, criteria and procedures.

As a Bank Advisor at CGF (Credit Guarantee Fund) Miranda provided consulting to three leading partner banks in Georgia, mainly in SME underwriting standards, loan assessment and approval processes. CGF was an SME financing and development project funded by KFW Entwicklungsbank and Savings Banks Foundation for International Cooperation (Sparkassenstiftung) targeting the Georgian and Armenian markets. Miranda supervised optimal investment of the Fund’s resources to Georgian SMEs through partner-banks, as well as managed periodic monitoring of the Fund’s portfolio and the overall financial performance of partner-banks.

Miranda also brings corporate finance expertise to Gazelle Finance having worked as the CFO for two operating companies: Iberia Construction (residential real estate development) and Treiquest Int. Group (multi-discipline construction and engineering).

Miranda holds a B.A. in Production Management from Free University of Georgia, Diploma of Business Economist from Berufsakademie Mosbach (DHBW) of Baden-Württemberg, Germany and MBA with specialization in Finance from Grenoble Graduate School of Business (GGSB). A native Georgian speaker Miranda is fluent in English and has good command of Russian and German.

Jeffrey Liebert is the CEO of the fund manager Gazelle Finance and successfully raised $42M in capital  commitments for the Gazelle Fund, which invests in SMEs in Central Asia, Caucasus, and East Europe. Prior to this Jeffrey was a co-founder of an alternative energy and carbon offset project development company, Verdeo Group, which was sold in 2011 to Sindicatum. Prior to Verdeo Group, Jeffrey was a Vice President for Climate Change Capital’s (acquired by Bunge) $1 billion carbon fund, where he was responsible for developing and managing a portfolio of industrial energy efficiency and methane gas utilization projects throughout Eurasia.

As an Investment Officer at IFC, Jeffrey led the development of a $30M in-house clean-tech venture capital fund that is now IFC’s Cleantech Investment Group with over $200M AUM. He structured a $465M energy efficiency finance and renewable energy risk sharing facility (CHUEE) with $46M of IFC capital in first and second loss positions with Chinese banks: Industrial Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, and Bank of Beijing. The deal was the runner-up for the 2006 Financial Times Sustainable Deal of the Year Award. As of today the facility has mobilized over $6.3B in financing in over 200 projects.

Before IFC, Jeffrey consulted to multinational corporations on market entry strategies for China and established and managed textile factories throughout Central Asia and China. Jeffrey served in the Peace Corps in Mongolia immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union, holds an MBA from Wharton Business School, a BA in Russian Studies and International Relations from Tufts University, and speaks Mandarin, Mongolian, and Russian. Jeffrey serves on the board of The Taimen Fund, a conservation organization operating in Mongolia that he helped to establish in 2003.

Natia Janelidze joined Gazelle Finance in October 2015 as the Chief Investment Officer for Georgia and in October 2017 she successfully executed Gazelle Finance’s first investment in Georgia in Degusto, a fast casual restaurant chain.  Natia has over 10 years of professional banking experience in SME and Corporate financing and has held senior leadership positions at TBC Bank and Bank Republic (part of Societe Generale Group), two of the leading banks in Georgia.

Prior to joining Gazelle Finance, Natia worked for over seven years at Bank Republic/Societe Generale in Georgia, holding a diverse set of senior management positions, with a particular focus on SMEs. Natia served as Head of the SME Credit Department of the bank, coordinating and managing over 40% of the bank’s total portfolio representing more than $30 million in loans assets, overseeing the front and back office staff engaged in sales and analytics, and participating on credit committees. During her tenure at the bank, Natia also served as Head of the SME and Corporate Portfolio Management Departments, as Head of the Quality Management Department, and as Special File Coordinator, where she was responsible for restructuring the loan for one of the biggest corporate clients of the Bank. Prior to joining Bank Republic/Societe Generale, Natia worked at TBC Bank, first as an SME Loan Officer where she originated a portfolio of loans operating in the branch office in Kutaisi, one of the largest regional centers outside of Tbilisi. She rose quickly in TBC Bank, starting with a promotion to become Head of the SME Development Department in Tbilisi, where she managed a team of 15 credits officers and back office staff across eight Tbilisi and regional branch offices with a portfolio of roughly $400 million in loans assets. She then was promoted to be the Head of the Corporate Sales Department, where she was responsible for originating new clients and expanding deposit, loan and off-balance sheet portfolio of the bank, and increasing interest and commission income. Natia holds an MBA from University of Missouri-Columbia in the United States and Ph.D in Finance and Banking from Georgian Technical University. Natia is fluent in English, Russian and Georgian.

Natia has investment experience in following market segments: SME, manufacturing, agribusiness and retail.