CDC, the UK’s development finance institution, has appointed Yasemin Saltuk Lamy as its Deputy Chief Investment Officer (CIO) for higher risk strategies.

She will be responsible for the investment processes, financial performance and development impact assessment of CDC’s higher-risk investment portfolio across its target geographies of Africa and South Asia. 

She will report to CDC’s Chief Investment Officer, Chris Coles.

Lamy has over 14 years of investment industry experience, with the last eight years focused on impact investment. 

She joins CDC from the Omidyar Network, where she led strategy and research within the philanthropic investment firm of the founder of eBay. 

Prior to working at the Omidyar Network, she spent 11 years at J.P. Morgan, where she held a number of roles including Director of its award-winning Social Finance Unit, which invested in and encouraged the nascent impact investment industry.

CDC is pioneering a new, higher-risk investment approach designed to unlock markets that can bring significant development impact. 

The approach will see a series of catalysing investments that bear more risk than CDC’s main commercial portfolio, including in markets as diverse as medical supply access, electrical transmission & distribution, and impact funds. 

Lamy will coordinate this new approach and support CDC’s investment teams as they develop new ways of creating high-impact businesses and sectors.

Nick O’Donohoe, CDC’s CEO, said: “I’m delighted to welcome Yasemin to CDC. She has experience of both financial and development organisations and her understanding of the impact investment world will bring enormous benefit to CDC and to businesses in which we invest.” 

“Yasemin will play an important role in helping CDC meet our commitment to help transform whole industries in Africa and South Asia and takes risks that other investors are often unable to take,” he added.