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The Harvard Innovation Labs today announced the endowment of the Mary Kathryn and Alexander (MBA 1991) Navab Social Impact Fellowship Fund (SIFF), ensuring long-term support for student founders building ventures in social impact sectors.

The Alexander and Mary Kathryn Navab Social Impact fellowship at the Harvard Innovation Lab was established in 2019 in honor of the Harvard Business School Campaign. In 2025, to provide ongoing support, the fund was further endowed through the generosity of his family, wife Mary Kathryn, son Julian, and daughters Arabella and Neva Navab. This gift is the fulfillment of a 35-year relationship between Mr. Navab and HBS.

Alexander Navab believed and put into action the principle that philanthropy informs one’s humanity. “My mother, sisters and I are proud to fulfill my father’s commitment to education and its social impact,” shared Julian Navab. “We witnessed him devote significant time and resources to his alma maters—Andover, Columbia, and HBS. In turn, our schools Buckley, Spence, and Deerfield Academy are recipients of our family’s ongoing care and support. Our father lived his values, and we hope to carry them forward.”

Over the last seven years, more than 100 ventures have received more than $1.2 million in non-dilutive grants through SIFF. Numerous grant recipients have gone on to have significant impact in their respective fields, ranging from Nostos Homes providing shelter for the forcibly displaced, to Chaku Foods creating wealth for smallholder farmers in Africa.

Honoring Alexander Navab’s Legacy

To his family and his community, Alexander Navab was a role model who set the highest standards for kindness, hard work, and doing his best. Beyond his considerable professional accomplishments, his legacy will be the dual values of humanity and humility that guided his life from the moment he arrived in the U.S. at age 16, through his rise to the pinnacle of business as an investor, and his tireless efforts to give back to the country he felt had given him so much.

Navab was born in Isfahan, Iran, on November 24, 1965, to an Iranian father, Dr. Ali Navab, and a Greek-American mother, Mrs. Katina Armenakis Navab. Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, his family took refuge in Greece. Two years later, they emigrated to the United States and began the process of remaking their lives, with education and family as cornerstones. Navab attended Phillips Academy at Andover and Columbia College where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He attended Harvard Business School where he graduated with High Distinction as a Baker Scholar and won the Wolfe Award, the school's top academic honor. Supporting the institutions that gave him so many opportunities, and creating those opportunities for others, would be central to Navab's life.

Navab's integrity and strong moral core drove his personal and business decisions alike. He believed strategic philanthropy was an integral part of business where people and resources could be leveraged to address poverty and homelessness, and to support education, entrepreneurship, and economic renewal. At both the community and national level, he galvanized others to join him in this work. In 2019, Navab realized a lifelong dream of creating his own company, Navab Capital Partners, which from its inception was designed to build great businesses and to leave a lasting impact on the social causes that mattered most to him.

Prior to forming his own company, Navab was Head of Americas Private Equity at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), the preeminent global investment firm, where he was a respected industry leader and held a number of significant roles over several decades, including as a member of the Firm's Management Committee, Chair of the Americas Private Equity Investment Committee, and Chair of the Americas Portfolio Management Committee. Prior to KKR, he was with James D. Wolfensohn, Inc., and Goldman Sachs. Navab served as a member of the Board of Directors of Fidelity National Information Systems, Inc. and was a member of the Board of Directors at Cornerstone Capital Group.

Navab embraced life with optimism and enthusiasm. He was a vital part of the communities he called home, including New York, Southampton, Palm Beach, and Greece, a place of respite and spirituality, where he passed from this world on July 7, 2019.

2025 Navab Social Impact Fellowship Fund Recipients

In conjunction with the endowment announcement, the Harvard Innovation Labs is recognizing the 2025 SIFF grant recipients, whose ventures reflect the values of innovation, service, and global impact that defined Alexander Navab’s life.