Our team

Potencia Ventures is an impact investment group focused on business models that improve the lives of lower income people. In 2002, Kelly Michel founded Potencia Ventures to support initiatives that promote and build strong entrepreneurial ecosystems in emerging markets. In 2009, Potencia Ventures launched an impact investment portfolio focused on education and employability sectors. 
​Potencia Ventures works with Occam Advisors, an investment advisory firm, to identify, execute, and manage investments in funds and individual businesses.

Kelly Michel
CEO

Kelly Michel is the Founder and CEO of Potencia Ventures, formerly known as Artemisia International.  Kelly has been supporting and investing in early stage businesses with impact for over 15 years in Europe, Africa, the United States, and Latin America.  In the mid-2000s, she founded and co-developed Artemisia, a Brazilian support organization for impact business, and in 2009 she co-founded Vox Capital, a Brazilian venture capital firm that invests in companies with a double bottom line. 

​Patrick Maloney
Principal

Patrick is the founder of Occam Advisors, an impact investing advisory firm that works in long term partnership with Potencia.  Patrick has spent his career working at the intersection of capital and impact across sectors and asset classes.  Prior to forming Occam Advisors, he was a Principal with Imprint Capital, a leading impact investment advisor to foundations and high net worth families, where he was Head of Strategy. He has worked with a number of mission-driven organizations including The Lemelson Foundation, Omidyar Network, and Google.org.  He started in finance at Barclays Global Investors, where he co-developed the world’s first exchange traded fund risk-optimized to social, environmental and governance factors. He began his career with Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.  

Yesenia Gallardo Avila
Principal

As a Principal at Occam Advisors, Yesenia works with clients to identify, build, and support relationships with socially-minded startups in strategic regions around the world. She leads diligence on early stage venture investments for clients from developing a business case, to financial and risk analysis, to investment execution and management. Yesenia’s expertise also includes cultivating relationships with partners and co-investors in key regions to build pipeline opportunities for clients. As a serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple companies in the food and beverage sector, she is passionate about supporting underserved and underrepresented entrepreneurs with environmental and social missions.  Yesenia received her masters in environmental management from Yale University's School of the Environment and BA from Willamette University. You can often find her on the porch reading a good book. 
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Itali Pedroni Collini
​Principal

Itali leads Potencia's work in Brazil for Potencia Ventures investing in early stage education and employability start ups. Before joining Potencia, Itali spent 3 years as Director of Operations at 500 Global in Brazil, designing and managing acceleration programs and expanding her knowledge about investing in early stage startups. In addition, Itali has experience in ESG consulting and social impact lending at SITAWI, as well as experience in trading at HSBC, credit analysis at Standard & Poor's and M&A at Landmark - Alantra Group. In parallel, she has co-founded 3 social initiatives involving research, activism and the labor market with a focus on women, Afro-Brazilians, LGBTQ people and people with disabilities. In 2018, Itali told her story at TEDx Campinas, in 2020 she was listed among the Emerging Women Investors in Latin America, by LAVCA, and in 2021, she was recognized as one of the 10 most outstanding women in open innovation in Brazil by Future Dojo and B2mamy.