David Bennett steps down from his role as Sefa's Chairman

The Board of Social Enterprise Finance Australia Limited (Sefa) wishes to announce the Sefa Chairman, David Bennett’s decision to step down as Chairman and retire from the board.

Belinda Drew, a current director of the board, will replace David as Chair.

David has been on the Sefa journey from the very beginning (2011) as a shareholder and an inaugural member of the Credit Committee. David joined the Sefa board in October 2013 after retiring from Macquarie Bank where he held the position of Executive Director and Group Treasurer. He became Chairman of Sefa in February 2014.

David said “Given my interest in impact investing and my knowledge and experience in the debt markets, becoming involved with Sefa and the SEDIF program to try and create a lending business to social and impact organisations was something I was compelled and excited to do.

It’s been a long road to this point but I am very proud of what Sefa and its team have achieved over the past eight years. I believe Sefa has been able to tick off on many of the goals the SEDIF program set out to achieve.

I have greatly enjoyed my involvement with Sefa particularly working with the Sefa team (the staff, credit committee and board) and with our many clients and investors who are helping to make a real impact.

I look forward to watching the continued development of Sefa and wish it and the team every success for the future.”

Belinda Drew joined the Sefa credit committee in 2015 and is the committee’s current chair, and joined the Sefa Board in January 2017. She has over 20 years’ experience in the community services industry having worked across the fields of disability, homelessness, child protection and housing. During the most recent decade of her career, Belinda was focused on building the social investment market in Australia in her role as the CEO of Foresters Community Finance. Belinda is the inaugural CEO of the Community Services Industry Alliance, a company focused on representing the value of the community services industry to government and the business sectors.

Ms Drew said: “David has been an integral part of Sefa’s development with his strong experience steering growth in the organisation. On behalf of the Sefa Board, I thank David for his contribution, commitment and leadership.”

“I look forward to continuing the good work of David, the Board and the Sefa team in fostering the development of impact investing in this country,” Ms Drew said.

David will continue his involvement in the impact investment sector. He is a member of the Australian Advisory Board on Impact Investing and a director of the Centre for Social Impact. David remains a shareholder of Sefa.