Michael Chu

Michael Chu "was appointed a Senior Lecturer in the Initiative on Social Enterprise of the General Management Group of the Harvard Business School in July 2003. He is also Managing Director of the IGNIA Fund, an investment firm based in Monterrey, Mexico, dedicated to investing in commercial enterprises serving low-income populations in developing countries, which he co-founded in 2007. He continues to serve as Senior Advisor and a founding partner of Pegasus Capital, a firm in Buenos Aires dedicated to deploying equity capital in Latin America, with a portfolio which includes major companies in Argentina.

"Chu teaches the second year elective course Business and the Base of the Pyramid, developed and taught together with Professor V. Kasturi Rangan. He is Faculty Co-Chair of the Executive Education program Strategic Leadership for Microfinance. In the past, he has taught the course Investing and Managing in Emerging Markets. and Effective Leadership of Social Enterprises. Chu is co-head of Project Antares, a collaboration between HBS and the Harvard School of Public Health focusing on commercial approaches to delivering high-impact primary health care to low-income populations in developing nations. Project Antares is part of the Social Enterprise program on Global Health and Low Income Populations.

"Before Pegasus, as President & CEO of ACCION International, a nonprofit corporation dedicated to microfinance, Chu worked to develop financial services for the working poor as a new segment of banking capable of outstanding returns. He participated in the founding of several microcredit financial institutions and regulated banks throughout Latin America, including Banco Solidario which under his chairmanship has been the most profitable bank in Bolivia, Mibanco in Peru and Banco Compartamos, which following its IPO in the Mexican Stock Exchange in April 2007 has been incorporated as part of the exchange's index.

From 1989 to 1993, as an executive and limited partner in the New York office of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, Chu was one of sixteen professionals deploying KKR’s $5.7 billion private equity fund and managing an investment portfolio with aggregate annual revenues in excess of $60 billion. He joined the private equity firm from PACE Industries, a KKR-sponsored leveraged buyout, where he served as Senior Vice President & CFO. Previously, he held senior management positions in U.S. corporations and was a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. Chu currently serves on the boards of Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE), ACCION International (Emeritus) and is a Trustee of Dartmouth College."


 * Advisory Council, Trickle Up