5 people in finance under 40 who are changing the world

Dhivya Suryadevara manages more than $80 billion in assets as the CEO of GM Asset Management at General Motors, a post she’s held since 2014.

Last summer, she was also promoted to General Motors’ vice president of finance and treasurer — taking responsibility for the company’s capital planning and worldwide banking, among other tasks.

James Song is the cofounder and managing principal at Faircap Partners, an investment firm focused on the burgeoning economy of Myanmar — the developing Southeast Asian nation of about 55 million people. The company calls the country, whose economy is growing at more than 8% annually, the "last great frontier for capitalism."

Prior to founding Faircap, Song served as a medical researcher in Uganda on a Fulbright scholarship. While in Uganda, the Harvard alum, who also holds a masters in nerouscience from University College London, "pioneered the use of empirically based, non-pharmacological HIV interventions at Makerere University Hospital." He also started the nation's first polyethylene recycling facility.

Rohit Chopra joined Lazard in 1999 as the youngest managing director for the financial advisory and asset management firm. Chopra now manages the $9.2 billion Lazard Emerging Markets Equity Porfolio — one of the firm’s largest — which is beating 93% of its competitors this year with a value-focused approach toward investments in countries like Brazil, South Africa, and Turkey.

When Shivani Siroya founded microfinance firm InVenture in 2011, she did it with the hope that small business owners around the would have a better chance at borrowing money instead of getting denied by banks for a single criteria: having a low credit score.

InVenture’s proprietary software, uploaded by a user on their phone, monitors 10,000 aspects of a person’s level of responsibility before they’re considered for a loan. The idea came to Siroya after working in emerging markets and microfinance for investment banks as well as the UN and UNICEF.

InVenture only operates in Eastern Africa, India, and South Africa, where Soriya found that 2.5 billion people don’t have a credit score.