When you meet Setareh Heshmat, you immediately sense a calm confidence—measured, focused, and quietly visionary. She begins her days with a run along Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands and ends many of them with pitch decks, founder calls, or late-night journaling about purpose and profit. But in between those hours is a daily rhythm of something far more ambitious: building the future of sustainable finance in Southeast Asia.
Setareh Heshmat is not just another investment professional with ESG credentials. As the Director of ESG Investments at a leading Singapore-based venture capital firm, she is part of a new vanguard reshaping how capital moves in the region. Her portfolio includes clean energy innovators in Indonesia, urban agriculture startups in Vietnam, and ethical fintech disruptors in the Philippines. Yet, her approach is never formulaic. Every deal she makes is grounded in a vision that’s both regional and deeply personal: to make Southeast Asia a global model for sustainability-led innovation.
Born and raised in Singapore to a Persian-Singaporean family, Setareh grew up surrounded by a unique mix of academic curiosity and entrepreneurial spirit. Her mother was a cultural studies professor who often spoke about systemic change, while her father, a real estate developer, gradually transitioned into green building projects before it became fashionable. Setareh’s early exposure to topics like social equity, urbanization, and environmental degradation helped her see finance not as an abstract world of numbers—but as a tool for real-world transformation.
Her academic path reflected this clarity. She studied International Business and Finance at the National University of Singapore before pursuing a Master’s in Finance & Sustainability at INSEAD. Her thesis on sustainable finance in Southeast Asia received notable recognition, but more importantly, it gave her a roadmap for the impact she wanted to create. After gaining hands-on experience as a financial analyst focusing on impact investing, she moved through the ranks as a sustainability consultant and later as an advisor to startups integrating blockchain into ethical supply chains. Along the way, she earned her CFA and sharpened her edge with advanced data analytics courses from MIT.
Today, her vantage point is strategic, but her work remains deeply human. “Southeast Asia is a mosaic of possibility,” she says. “It’s not just an emerging market—it’s an emergent mindset. You see youth leading climate protests in Jakarta, local communities pioneering zero-waste lifestyles in Bali, and founders in Manila building circular economies with almost no external funding. That spirit needs capital that’s patient, contextual, and aligned with impact.”
For Setareh, it’s not enough to assess startups based on traditional financial metrics. Her ESG due diligence framework goes deeper. She evaluates carbon impact, labor practices, board diversity, community engagement, and even the psychological resilience of the founding team. She’s known for asking unconventional but piercing questions during pitch meetings: “How does your product help future generations thrive?” or “If your startup didn’t exist, what unintended harm might continue in your industry?”
Her view of sustainability is as much about justice and inclusion as it is about carbon offsets and compliance. She’s vocal about the need to empower women and indigenous leaders in climate finance. She mentors female founders across the region and frequently collaborates with NGOs to bridge the gap between grassroots innovation and institutional funding. “We can’t scale sustainability without equity,” she often emphasizes. “It’s not just about who gets funded—it’s about who gets heard.”
Setareh’s strategic vision also extends to leveraging new technologies to build transparency in ESG investing. She’s a proponent of using blockchain for impact verification and sees immense promise in climate data platforms that integrate AI, satellite monitoring, and real-time reporting. But she remains grounded. “Technology is the enabler—not the savior. It’s only as ethical as the humans behind it.”
Her long-term ambition is bold but crystal clear: to launch a regional impact fund exclusively backing female-led ventures working on sustainability challenges unique to Southeast Asia. “We need funds that are deeply embedded in local ecosystems but backed by global standards of impact measurement. And we need to bet on leaders who reflect the communities they’re trying to serve.”
Despite her high-profile work and growing recognition on global platforms, Setareh maintains a minimalist lifestyle. Her apartment is lined with rare books on behavioral economics, Zen philosophy, and systems thinking. On weekends, she disappears into the rainforest trails of Ulu Pandan or retreats to Bali for yoga, journaling, and silence. “Stillness helps me stay anchored,” she says. “In this line of work, you need to hear yourself think—otherwise you risk becoming reactive, and reactive money is dangerous money.”
As global capital eyes Southeast Asia with renewed interest, the region stands at a critical juncture. Will it follow the well-worn path of extractive development, or can it chart a new course rooted in resilience and regeneration? Setareh Heshmat is betting on the latter—and she’s making sure the right people have the capital to lead the way.
For her, the journey from Marina Bay to the boardroom isn’t just about influence. It’s about stewardship. And in her hands, the future of Southeast Asia’s sustainable economy looks not only possible—but profoundly purposeful.
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