UNCDF - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Global Technical Specialist
Job Titles:
- Director, LDC Investment Platform
- Head of Unit for Loans
Anders Berlin has previously had the post as Head of Unit for Loans and Guarantees at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency managing a portfolio consisting of approximately 50 projects/programmes around the world, mostly in Africa and Asia.
Prior to joining Sida, Mr. Berlin worked for the Embassy of Sweden in Kosovo and Tanzania. He also worked as a senior advisor to the General Director of Sida and a senior Advisor at DG RELEX at the European Commission in Brussels.
Mr Berlin has also worked for the World Bank as an economist and holds a Master's degree in Economics from Stockholm University, and a Master's degree in Economic Policy Management from Columbia University.
Anders Berlin was previously the Head of Unit for Loans and Guarantees at Sida, and managed a portfolio of about 50 projects around the world.
Job Titles:
- Policy Advisor
- in 2020 As Head of Policy
- Policy Adviser
Casper Sonesson joined UNCDF in 2020 as Head of Policy. Prior to joining UNCDF, Casper served as Global Policy Adviser on the role of extractive industries and private sector.
Casper Sonesson, a Swedish national, joined UNCDF in 2020 as Head of Policy in the Partnerships, Policy and Communications unit in New York.
Prior to joining UNCDF, Casper served as Global Policy Advisor on the role of extractive industries and private sector in development at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since 2014. In this capacity he developed global partnerships and conducted policy research on the extractive industries' role in advancing the 2030 Agenda, working closely with organizations such as WEF, WB, IFC, governments and global industry associations.
Previously, Casper served as Deputy Director and Team Leader in UNDP's Private Sector Division, where he spearheaded development and implementation of global strategies and initiatives to promote inclusive market development and engage the private sector in support of sustainable development. He has worked on the ground in more than 30 countries, advising UNDP country offices, governments and their partners.
Casper has 25 years of international development experience. He has a Master's Degree in Political Science from the University of Lund, Sweden.
Job Titles:
- Regional Coordinator, WCA
- Regional Coordinator, Western and Central Africa
Christel Alvergne, a French national, joined UNCDF in 2008, and is now the Regional coordinator for West and central Africa.
She has worked for 20 years on local development and fiscal decentralization issues. In the 1990s, she worked for the agency of the French Prime Minister (DATAR) to develop innovative approaches to decentralization such as time management offices, local sport policies and innovative rural development plans.
She worked for the Municipal Development Programme for West Africa providing advice and guidance to local governments associations during the 90's.
Christel holds a PhD in Economics (Geographical economics) and she is a Graduate in Political Science from the University of Aix-en-Provence (France). She has spent many years as a researcher and professor on Urban and Regional Planning in academic institutions throughout France, Canada, Senegal and Egypt.
Job Titles:
- Director, Local Development Finance
David Jackson, a British national, has over 30 years of experience in Local Development. In the 1980s, he worked in London local government on the plan for employment, affordable housing and open space along the River Thames, including the park that became the site of the London Eye. He spent the 1990s in Mozambique for the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), where he designed and piloted a national system of local government finance for capital investment that was taken to scale by government. Returning to the United Kingdom in 2001, he ran a consulting company supporting local development in over 10 African and Asian countries through governments, the World Bank and other clients. David rejoined the UN in 2006, serving as Decentralisation Advisor to the Government of Indonesia and UNDP, where he was instrumental in developing the UN support to the local government reforms in Aceh province following the Indian Ocean Tsunami and the Peace Agreement.
In 2009, he became Head of UNCDF Asia and Pacific office where he designed the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility, a global mechanism that enables local governments in the least developed countries to access climate finance for resilient investments. Recently, he has focused on the challenges of unlocking domestic capital markets for investments in local economic development.
In May 2013, he was appointed Director of UNCDF's Local Development Finance Practice in New York. This unit is UNCDF's centre of excellence and innovative fund for local government finance and local economic development finance in the world's 47 least developed countries. In this position he manages portfolio of local development finance programmes with a focus on fiscal decentralization, infrastructure development, climate resilience grants, municipal finance and private sector investments, private sector investments.
Job Titles:
- Director of Inclusive Finance
- Director of the Inclusive Finance Practice Area
Henri Dommel, a French national, joined UNCDF as Director of Financial Inclusion in 2007.
Henri Dommel joined UNCDF as Director of the Inclusive Finance Practice Area in 2007. He is responsible for leading the practice's strategy in digital finance and the promotion of inclusive digital economies.
Job Titles:
- Senior Investment Officer / Programme Manager - Clean Energy Portfolios
Job Titles:
- Municipal Investment Finance Program Manager
- Municipal Investment Finance Programme Manager
Job Titles:
- Head of Finance & Management Services
- Head, Office of Finance & Management Services
John Rutere has joined UNCDF as the Head of Finance & Management Services (FMS) in New York, USA in 2021.
Prior to joining UNCDF, John worked with UNDP for the last 12 years in the Office of Financial Resource Management (OFRM) where he held various roles including Chief of Financial Performance Management where his responsibilities including rolling out UNDP's implementing partner risk management policies, rolling out digitized financial monitoring tools and UNDP's annual assertion process. Prior to his last role at UNDP, John also served as the Chief of Treasury Accounting where he had responsibility for the accounting and reporting of all investment portfolio managed by UNDP and was responsible for UNDP's policies on revenues and receivables including rolling out IPSAS policies when UNDP adopted IPSAS in 2012. Prior to joining UNDP, John worked for GE Capital in the US and in Australia as a Vice President in risk management and underwriting, Bear Stearns Investment Bank in NY and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Nairobi and the United Kingdom.
John holds a Master in Business Administration (MBA) degree from Cornell University and is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). He is a Kenyan national and speaks fluent English and Swahili.
Job Titles:
- Regional Coordinator for Asia
- Regional Coordinator, Asia Pacific
Maria Perdomo became UNCDF's Regional Coordinator for Asia in 2021 and brought with her 15 years of experience working with public and private sector stakeholders to bring finance to the most excluded in least developed countries across the globe. In her previous role as UNCDF's Youth Finance Lead, Maria brought access to financial services to close to 1 million youth, of which 60 percent were young women and girls, unlocking almost US$40 million in loans for youth from domestic sources in Sub-Saharan Africa.
A national from Colombia, before joining UNCDF in 2010, Maria worked in the private sector developing client-centric financial services, building financial capabilities for migrants in New York City and providing technical assistance to financial services providers in Peru, Bolivia, India, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Uganda.
Maria has a master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University's School of Public and International Affairs (SIPA), and a bachelor's degree from Universidad Externado de Colombia and l'Institut de Sciences Politiques de Paris (Sciences-Po). She is fluent in Spanish, English and French; and has advanced conversational skills in Italian.
Maria Perdomo became UNCDF's Regional Coordinator for Asia in 2021 and brought with her 15 years of experience working with public and private sector stakeholders to bring finance to the most excluded in the LDCs..
Job Titles:
- Senior Investment Officer
Job Titles:
- Director
- Senior Adviser
- Senior Advisor
- Senior Advisor, Capital Markets
- Senior Advisor, Capital Markets for Development
Nick Kolev has joined UNCDF as Senior Advisor, Capital Markets for Development (Director) based in New York reporting to the Executive Secretary. Prior to UNCDF, Nick served as Senior Manager at FirstRand Group.
Nick Kolev has joined UNCDF as Senior Advisor, Capital Markets for Development (Director) based in New York reporting to the Executive Secretary.
Prior to UNCDF, Nick served as Senior Manager: Strategic Initiatives - Sovereigns, Supranationals, and Agencies at FirstRand Group. With reporting lines to the Group Treasurer and the London CEO, he managed FirstRand's DFI Strategy.
Nick's first experience in Development Finance was with African Development Bank. As Senior Treasury Officer in charge of private placements, swap trading, and buybacks, he originated/managed the issuance of the first supranational bonds denominated in Ghanaian Cedi, Kenyan Shilling, and Nigerian Naira, as well as the first supranational bond settled in South African Rand.
Nick left AfDB to become the founding Deputy Managing Director and a Statutory Director of TCX Investment Management Company-the manager of The Currency Exchange Fund (TCX). TCX granted him a fully-delegated responsibility for its transaction process, and he established and ran all Trading activities, managed relationships with investors and counterparties, and served as the point of contact for TCX's Pricing Committee.
In the private sector, Nick has also collaborated with DFIs as Chief Investment Officer of Karoll Finance, Vice Chairman of Karoll Capital Management, and Chief Strategy Officer of Karoll Financial Group.
Born in Bulgaria, Nick is a citizen of Belgium and South Africa and holds master's degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Carnegie Mellon University.
Job Titles:
- Programme Officer, Local Transformative Finance
Job Titles:
- Executive Secretary
- Investment and Development Banker
Ms. Sinha is a globally experienced investment and development banker with a 30-year track record associated with raising and managing institutional public and private development capital.
Job Titles:
- Digital Finance Specialist
Job Titles:
- Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Capital Development Fund
With over 2 decades of experience in the UN, brings in-depth knowledge of programme and operations at HQ and in the field.
Xavier Michon was appointed as Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) in late 2014. As part of his duties, he plays a critical role to support the Executive Secretary in providing leadership and shaping the strategic vision and direction of the organization. He provides direct oversight to the development of the programme of work and plays an active role in the implementation of UNCDF's capital development mandate and management of the organization.
French national, he has had a long career at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), previously serving in Burundi and Guatemala as Country Director, in Peru as Deputy Resident Representative, and in the New York headquarters with the Regional Bureaus for Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, as Programme Advisor. Prior to joining UNDP, he served as Project Management Officer in the Africa and Environmental Programmes Divisions, at the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). He also worked as Financial Derivatives Broker at Iberagentes / Crédit Lyonnais Securities in Spain, and as Officer-in-charge of the French-Dominican Chamber of Commerce promoting business opportunities and investment in the Dominican Republic.
Xavier Michon received a maîtrise in Business Management from the Institut Supérieur de Gestion (ISG) in Paris, France, and a master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) in New York, USA. He speaks fluently French, English, Spanish, Italian, and has basic conversational skills in Portuguese.