As Figurative’s Chief Innovation Officer, Seva leads on the design and development of funds, programmes and advisory projects that help the cultural and creative sector to thrive.
Seva joins Figurative from Nesta, where he was Head of Arts & Culture Finance, the pioneering team bringing social impact investment to the cultural and creative sector. Whilst at Nesta, Seva worked with Fran Sanderson to deploy the Arts Impact Fund (2015) and raise two further impact investment funds for the arts – the Cultural Impact Development Fund (2018) and the Arts & Culture Impact Fund (2020). More recently, alongside Fran Sanderson and David Maggs, he co-authored the report Impact Investing in the Cultural and Creative Sectors: Insights from an emerging field (2023), which explores the possibilities for new, risk-tolerant funding models for creative organisations.
Seva previously worked at The Young Foundation, where he supported early-stage social ventures tackling inequality in education through the Young Academy programme (2014) and helped to develop policy recommendations promoting impact investment across the EU. Prior to this, Seva managed an impact loan portfolio at Venturesome, the former impact investment arm of the Charities Aid Foundation.
Seva began his career at professional services firm EY and has degrees in political philosophy and economics. He holds the Investment Management Certificate, the Certificate in ESG Investing and is a 2017 Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellow. He is interested in ideas and actions that can bring about positive social change, financial modelling and the arts in all their forms.
