Bio

Maria joined Citi Ventures in March 2023 as its Head of Portfolio Operations. She actively leverages her strong finance background to support strategic planning and fund development and administration efforts, as well as portfolio valuation and performance analytics. More importantly, she is also responsible for driving and enabling partnership and commercialization opportunities for Citi Ventures portfolio companies. Additionally, Maria is responsible for providing due diligence and analytical support to the Fintech Investing team in terms of pipeline identification, market research, competitive landscape evaluation, and financial analysis.

Prior to Citi Ventures, Maria spent time supporting the CFO of Citi’s Personal Banking & Wealth Management (PBWM) business. There, she led all financial planning, reporting, and governance activities and partnered with Investor Relations to prepare PBWM’s financial performance story for earnings disclosures. Preceding Citi, Maria held various roles at both HSBC and American Express. At HSBC she spent time supporting the Head of Private Banking for NAM/Latam with deal flow analytics, pipeline conversation strategy, and client acquisition and growth strategy. She was also the CFO of the NAM Trade & Receivable Financing business leading the financial due diligence workstream on an M&A deal targeted at expanding HSBC’s supply chain financing customer base. At American Express, Maria was part of a rotational program where she held a variety of roles—the most notable of which involved developing proprietary valuation models for new co-brand card partnerships and investments, and participating in co-brand contract negotiations.

Maria received her BA in Economics from Cornell University with a concentration in Mathematics, and is a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst®) charter holder. Born and raised in Moldova, Maria is fluent in English, Russian, and Romanian and is eager to take on Mandarin as her next linguistic challenge. Maria resides in New York City, and in her spare time she can be found learning Queen songs on piano, exploring New York’s salsa dancing scene, or attending a ballet class.