Tanya Khotin is a finance executive and management consultant, with deep experience in ESG and Impact investing and Emerging Markets in the context of traditional finance.
Tanya founded Khotin Impact Strategies to guide institutions toward greater impact through investment strategies and philanthropy.
As a child, Tanya immigrated from Russia with her parents in 1975, as political refugees, and started a new life in California. After earning a bachelor’s degree in French from University of California – Berkeley, her first job was as a Russian English interpreter at a nonprofit organization whose mission was to improve Soviet American relations. As Russia began opening up its economy, Tanya pursued an MBA at Columbia Business School to develop the skills required to participate in developments in Russia.
Her professional journey began at Bain & Company in Moscow, where her client was the Russian State Privatization Agency. She worked with local government officials throughout Russia’s 11 time zones to help oversee all phases of the enterprise privatization process. Privatization of Russia’s industry was the first step toward the formation of a capital market in Russia, and Tanya was recruited to help advance the market by a Russian equities boutique called Brunswick Brokerage in 1996 (later acquired by UBS Investment Bank).
Tanya played a substantial role in the introduction of the new Russian equity market to U.S. institutional investors and attained top ranking with her clients before she was promoted by UBS to Managing Director and Head of Equity Sales for Emerging Markets ex Asia. In 2006, she was asked to run UBS’ highly profitable Russian equities business in Moscow. Tanya had the distinction of being the only woman leading a substantial revenue business at UBS, serving on several executive management committees in Moscow and London.
Returning to New York in 2009, Tanya decided to combine her personal interests in social and environmental advocacy with her finance, investment, and management consulting expertise. Over the past 10+ years in this field, she has earned a reputation as a respected advisor regarding social, environmental and governance (ESG) matters, impact investing, and philanthropic advisory. Tanya’s clients include the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Inevitable Policy Response / Vivid Economics, a project commissioned by the UN Principles of responsible Investing.
Throughout her career, Tanya has worked in a wide range of diverse settings, including boutique firms and start-ups, blue-chip institutions, family offices, as well as operating nonprofits and private foundations, leading these through transformation and growth. Tanya enjoys the intensity of dramatically changing economic, political, and organizational systems. Her specific passion is for identifying and advancing opportunities which have the potential to emerge from “niche” to scale.
Tanya serves as Treasurer and Chair of the Finance and Investment Committee of the Norcross Wildlife Foundation and is a member of the Advisory Council of the Urban School Food Alliance.
Beyond her work, Tanya is actively involved in her community, especially environmental programs, such as renewable energy and sustainable agriculture, and she is an impact investing practitioner as an individual investor. She splits her time between New York City and the Catskill region of New York, with her husband, an environmental lawyer and advocate, and their two college-age sons.