Rani Croager

STRATEGIC DIRECTOR

Rani (She/Her) is a social entrepreneur, educator, and business advisor focused on redefining how business support is offered to entrepreneurs of color. Rani grew up in an immigrant family that leveraged entrepreneurial activities and cooperative economics as a means for financial stability. She is passionate about creating pathways that truly support entrepreneurs of color in building resilient, thriving businesses where we can make a sustainable living and be in service to our communities.

Rani is the founder of our partner Uptima Entrepreneur Cooperative, the only cooperative community for and by entrepreneurs. Rani founded Uptima to address the challenges of traditional entrepreneurship programs and accelerators in providing holistic and culturally relevant education, advising, and community to entrepreneurs of color. Rani has drawn on more than 20 years of experience advising organizations on strategic and financial planning, capital raising and mergers and acquisitions to develop the model for Uptima. Prior to founding Uptima, Rani was a member of the founding team and vice president at Altius Education where she raised over $30 million of capital to fund development of the company’s educational ecosystem. Rani began her career as a successful investment banker and has led and participated in over 30 financing, merger, acquisition, and joint venture transactions, representing over $15 billion in value, for leading technology companies.

When she’s not helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses, she’s cooking South Indian food with her husband Karl. Her favorite food is a dosa, sambar and coconut chutney. She also loves to spend time playing and cuddling with their two adorable kitties, Laddu and Leo. She enjoys listening to music from all over the world, but her favorite is Ravi Shankar’s “Shanti Mantra.”