Gema Sacristán

Gema Sacristán is the Chief Investment Officer and part of the senior management team of IDB Invest, the private sector arm of the IDB Group. She is responsible for all IDB Invest’s business areas that includes Infrastructure and Energy, Corporates, Financial Institutions, Financial Products and Services, Advisory Services and Blended Finance and Portfolio Management. She leads a team of 200 professionals who invest three billion dollars a year and supervise a portfolio of USD12 billion in assets under management.

She joined the IDB Group in 2008. From 2012 to 2015, she managed the Financial Markets Division of the Structured and Corporate Finance Department, responsible for capital markets development, trade finance and financial intermediaries, which include primarily banks and investment funds.

Previously, Sacristán was a Lead Investment Officer where she led the Division’s investments in structured trade finance and social impact funds. She also developed and managed the program “beyondBanking: banking on global sustainability” that aimed at promoting sustainable environmental, social and corporate governance principles at the financial sector. Sacristán is Spanish and has almost 25 years of experience in the international finance industry with specific expertise in emerging markets, Latin America and the Caribbean. She has received multiple industry awards and recognitions and
participates actively in conferences and seminars.

Prior to joining the IDB Group, she worked for three years at BBVA New York as Director of the Americas Export and Agency Finance Business, and eight years at Banco Santander in Madrid and New York as Vice President and Product Manager of the Structured Trade and Corporate Finance Department. She started her career in 1994 at Mitsubishi London (UK) where she spent two years in the Business
Development Department.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business Administration from the Madrid’s Autónoma University, Master’s degrees in Sustainability from Cambridge University (UK) and International Business from Complutense University (Madrid), and an Advanced Diploma in International Finance from New York University.

Sacristán is a YPO, serves in the Board of Directors of the Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade (FAST) and the Board of Advisors of the Global Banking Alliance for Women (GBA). She is also a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Expert Group on Trade Financing and the Stakeholder Council of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). In 2014, she was recognized as one of the 50 Top Businesswomen in Latin America by the Latin Trade Magazine. In 2013 she was named Lead Fellow and in 2011 First Mover Aspen Fellow (The Aspen Institute).