Robert van Zwieten’s experience of 40 years spans global finance, emerging markets, development finance, sustainable development, and governance. He is a Senior Fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and a Fellow of the Transition Investment Lab at New York University Abu Dhabi. He serves as a director on various company boards and is an investment committee or advisory board member of several private equity funds. In the recent past, he has served as Senior Advisor to the Blended Finance Lab at the London School of Economics and Political Science, a Fellow of the Climate Policy Initiative, Senior Advisor to the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance, and Ambassador of the World Benchmarking Alliance.
Robert was the President and CEO of EMPEA (renamed GPCA), the global industry association for private capital in emerging markets, representing an aggregate $5 trillion in AUM. Before this, he served as the Director of the Private Sector Capital Markets and Financial Sectors Division at Asian Development Bank (ADB), responsible for financial market development in ADB’s 42 developing member countries. This followed more than two decades in senior executive positions in global financial markets in Europe, the United States, and Asia, successively with firms such as ABN AMRO Bank (Head Global Clients Asia, Global Clients & Investment Banking), GE Capital (Treasurer Asia-Pacific) and GE Energy (Global Treasurer), Lehman Brothers (CAO), and Singapore Exchange (CFO).
Education: Robert holds an MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an LL.M. from Columbia University School of Law, and JD and MA degrees from Leiden University.