Robert W. van Zwieten

Philippines

Robert van Zwieten first met Jennifer in 2018, with whom he shared a deep commitment to private equity in emerging markets and gender-lens impact investing in Southeast Asia, making a difference in the lives and livelihoods of women and communities in Southeast Asia.

Robert has three and a half decades of prolific experience spanning both global finance and sustainable development. He is a Founding Partner of Route17, an independent advisory firm focused on SDG funding and blended finance. Over the years he has provided expert advice to many multilateral development organizations and think tanks, specifically on climate finance, blended finance, and private sector capital mobilization.

He also has a global portfolio of board and advisory roles, including as a Fellow with the Climate Policy Initiative, Ambassador of the World Benchmarking Alliance, board member of several companies, and advisor to several investment funds and an Asian family office.

Robert is academically engaged as a Research Fellow at New York University Abu Dhabi’s Transition Investment Lab, and as a Research Affiliate at SovereigNet at the Fletcher School of Tufts University. He is a former Adjunct Professor in Finance at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila. He has done research in and co-authored several articles on sovereign wealth funds and their sustainable investment track record.

Robert was the President and CEO of EMPEA (now: GPCA), the global industry association for private capital in emerging markets. Prior to this, he served as Director of the Private Sector Capital Markets Division at Asian Development Bank, following a global career of more than two decades in senior executive leadership positions at firms such as ABN AMRO Bank, GE Capital and GE Energy, Lehman Brothers and Singapore Exchange. Robert holds his JD and MA degrees from Leiden University in the Netherlands, his LL.M. degree from Columbia University Law School and his MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  He is a citizen of the United States and the Netherlands, and a long-term resident of the Philippines, where he and his family reside in Makati and Subic Bay.