Thomas Walenta

Head of Global Strategies and Climate at Swiss Investment Fund for Emerging Markets (SIFEM)

Speaker

Thomas is Head of Global Strategies and Climate, Fund Investments at responsAbility Investments AG, a leading impact asset manager specializing in private market investments.

At responsAbility, Thomas is co-heading a team that originates, structures, negotiates, executes and manages innovative, developmental and profitable private equity fund investments across emerging market and developing economies with the intention to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. This includes the portfolio management of the Swiss Investment Fund for Emerging Markets (SIFEM), the development finance institution of the Swiss Confederation. SIFEM is specialised in providing long-term financing to small- and medium-sized enterprises and other fast-growing companies in developing and emerging countries, which helps create and secure more and better jobs and reduce poverty while also contributing towards the integration of these countries into the global economic system.

Before joining responsAbility, Thomas worked at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), where he helped establishing AIIB’s private equity practice. Prior to AIIB, Thomas was an advisor at Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance, where he supported the Chief Negotiator for Germany in the founding of AIIB. Earlier in his career, Thomas worked at KfW Development Bank, where he was responsible for executing and managing debt and equity transactions in emerging market and developing economies across Asia.

Thomas earned a BBA and MSc in International Business Administration from European University Viadrina, Germany and an MBA from Catholic University of Cordoba, Argentina. He holds both the CFA charter and the CAIA charter. Furthermore, Thomas is a graduate from the High Potentials Leadership Program at Harvard Business School and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.