Banker Preeti Sinha appointed to top position at UN Capital Development Fund

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The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) announced the appointment of investment and development banker Preeti Sinha as its executive secretary, the highest-ranking leader in the organization.

The UNCDF, whose goal is to make finance work for the world’s 46 Least Developed Countries (LDCs), made the announcement in a press release Feb. 15.

Sinha’s mandate is to lead UNCDF in unlocking public and private finance for the LDCs. As Executive Secretary, Sinha will oversee UNCDF’s ‘last mile’ finance models that are designed to unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

Sinha will also oversee the organization’s efforts to make the international financial architecture work for the world’s frontier and pre-frontier markets.

“With the excellent team at UNCDF, my aspirations are for the ‘C’ – the Capital at UNCDF – to be highly catalytic in mobilizing manifold the public and private finance for the LDCs it serves and in developing a new era of engagement with capital markets in 2021 and onwards,” Sinha was quoted saying in the press release.

She succeeds Judith Karl, who retired in February after concluding her 30-year career in the United Nations.

Sinha has 30 years of global experience spanning investment and development finance. She served previously as CEO & President of FFD Financing for Development LLC, a specialist development finance firm in Geneva.

She has also managed the YES Global Institute, a practicing private sector think-tank for socio-economic development in New Delhi.

She was in senior resource mobilization roles at the African Development Bank.

Sinha also led multicultural teams and worked in investment banking at HSBC, Rabobank, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan in London, Hong Kong, Mumbai and New York.

A graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government Executive Education program in Public Financial Management, Sinha also holds a Master’s in Global Leadership from the World Economic Forum and a Master’s in Public and Private Management (MPPM)/MBA from the Yale School of Management (SOM). She graduated from Dartmouth College with Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Computer Science.