The Program Team
The Program team for the Accelerator Program 2022/2023 is made up of Sofia Altafi and Linn Ney from the Ester Foundation and Pontus Engström and Nedim Efendic from MTI Investment.
Sofia is one of the founders and the Chairperson of the Ester Foundation. In 2015, she defended her thesis at the Stockholm School of Economics on credit assessments of Indian microfinance institutions. She currently works as a warranty officer
at Sida and previously worked for, among others, Diakonia and Hand in Hand and run companies in the wallpaper industry.
Linn has been involved in the Ester Foundation since 2016 and is the Program Director of the Accelerator Program. Linn has held a range of senior positions in multinational companies including for The Swedish Academy of Sciences, Microsoft and for fast growing start-ups. She now works as a consultant with a focus on start-ups and socially sustainable projects. Having worked in countries around the world for the past 20 years, Linn has extensive experience in intercultural communications and a strong commitment to foreign-born entrepreneurship in Sweden.
Pontus is the CEO and founder of the publicly listed investment company MTI Investments Sweden. He has more than 25 years of experience in finance and business management as well as a background in portfolio and property management. Pontus is the Chairman of several of MTIs portfolio companies and was previously the CFO of the Swedish Mission Church. Pontus has an academic background and has conducted research into microfinance both in Africa and South America. He previously worked for BCG and Credit Suisse. Pontus holds a PhD in business administration from the University of Agder. (Pontus Engström’s LinkedIn)
Nedim is the CFO and Investment Manager of the publicly listed investment company MTI Investments Sweden. He was previously the CFO at TransferGalaxy and Program Manager for their accelerator program Founder Institute in Stockholm. Nedim has previously worked for UBS Investment Bank, Raiffeisen Investment and KPMG. He has a PhD from the Stockholm School of Economics, where he researched and taught in entrepreneurship. (Nedim Efendic’s LinkedIn)