Rachel Crawford is Manager, Emerging Markets at Village Capital. She joined Village Capital 2.5 years ago based out of Village Capital’s Africa headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. Rachel began her career in London for real estate driven private equity firm Patron Capital Advisors LLP (Patron) on their hospitality and leisure investment team. Her primary role entailed the development of their largest portfolio, a youth accommodation concept, Generator Hostels Ltd. (Generator). Following her tenure in Patron, she joined Generator as Group Project Manager and later as Head of Projects for three years. Generator sold to another private equity firm Queensgate Investments LLP for €450m in 2017.
Following Generator, Rachel joined the founding team of travel tech startup Tripr App Ltd. (Tripr) connecting people based on future travel plans. Tripr won numerous awards including Youth Technology Startup 2016 at the Global Youth Travel Awards. This experience provided first-hand exposure to the challenges when launching and scaling a startup. An extremely valuable experience and the main driver for her joining the world of early-stage investment with Village Capital (VilCap). Since joining VilCap Rachel has led the development of their Human Capital practice, improving access to talent for ventures in emerging markets. As well as VilCap Communities Africa, a programme to catalyze ecosystem development and early-stage deal flow across sub-Saharan Africa.
Rachel’s work in emerging markets has included China, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia. She is a graduate of École hôtelière de Lausanne and holds a BSc in International Hospitality Management with a specialization in entrepreneurship. She speaks French and English.
