Patricia Farrar-Rivas

Patricia Farrar-Rivas came to impact investing through revolutionary movements in Central America in the 1980s and early 1990s. What she witnessed there about justice, power, and who controls resources shaped everything that followed.

She co-founded Veris Wealth Partners in 2007, one of the first wealth management firms in the country to commit fully to impact investing across all asset classes, not as a niche offering but as the entire thesis of the firm. She led it as CEO for nearly 14 years, building it into a nationally recognized leader in values-aligned wealth management and helping pioneer the application of a gender lens to investment portfolios before gender-lens investing had a widely recognized name. She invested a significant portion of her own wealth in founding the firm, putting her money precisely where her values were.

Over three decades, she helped build the infrastructure of the impact investing field itself, co-leading the Mission-related Investing introductory program for Confluence Philanthropy, serving on review committees, and consistently working to move the mainstream in the wake of what she was building at the edge. She sought to serve BIPOC and female entrepreneurs, climate justice, and place-based initiatives, not as afterthoughts but as the core of her investment philosophy.

After retiring from Veris in 2022, she did not slow down. She was elected to the Sonoma City Council and now serves as Mayor of Sonoma, applying the same systems-level thinking to local government that she brought to wealth management.

She is an IFB Pathfinder and a woman who has spent her entire career proving that financial services can be a vehicle for justice. We are honored to celebrate her here.