Development Partners International

The Team

Runa Alam

 

Runa is a Co-Founding Partner and CEO of DPI. She has 28 years emerging market entrepreneurship and private equity experience. For the three years before to starting DPI, Runa was Chief Executive of two African private equity funds run in parallel:  the Zephyr Management African Investment Fund (“ZMAIF”), a joint venture between Zephyr Management of New York and Prince Al-Waleed’s Kingdom Holdings, and the Pan-African Investment Partners and the Pan Commonwealth Africa Partners (“PAIP/PCAP”) funds, sponsored by the IFC and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Runa continues to serve on the Q-Venture Holdings Limited, Eaton Tower Holding LLP, ETW Africa Holdings UK Limited, Liberty Star Consumer Holdings (Proprietary) Limited and United Bank of Africa PLC board of directors, and has previously served on the Letshego Holdings Limited and Celtel board of directors.

Runa was formerly a director of the AIG Africa Infrastructure Fund, managed by Emerging Market Partnership in Washington, and has “on-the-ground” management experience in emerging markets having founded and managed both Peregrine Bangladesh and Union Capital Bangladesh in the 1990s. Runa started her career in New York working for investment banks including Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, where she worked in mergers and acquisitions and corporate and tax-exempt finance. She holds a BA in International and Developmental Economics from the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University (1981) and an MBA from the Harvard Business School (1985) and was also a Harry S. Truman Congressional Scholar.

Runa is a co-Chair of the African Venture Capital Association Board of Directors and a member of the Emerging Market Private Equity Association Africa Council. She is also a member of the Millennium Promise’s UK Board and is on the Advisory Board of the Tony Elumelu Foundation in Nigeria. Runa is a US citizen.