
Nick O’Donohoe
Director
Nick O’Donohoe CMG is a Director on the BlueMark Governing Board. Nick was Chief Executive Officer of British International Investment (BII) from April 2017 until November 2024. BII is the UK’s Development Finance Institution formerly known as CDC. During his tenure, the organisation grew from 250 to over 700 people. It deployed over $10B in private sector investments across Africa and Asia in support of development and climate transition and was the UK Governments leading provider of climate finance to Emerging Economies. It also innovated across a broad range of key areas such as gender lens investment, blended finance, impact measurement and funding to lower income countries, particularly in Africa.
Immediately prior to joining BII, Nick was the Senior Advisor on blended finance to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from January 2016 to March 2017.
In 2011 Nick co-founded, together with Sir Ronald Cohen, Big Society Capital (BSC). BSC was supported by the UK Government, funded by dormant bank accounts, and is considered the world’s first social investment wholesaler. Nick served as CEO for five years, developed the organisation and led several important policy initiatives that have attracted over £10B to the UK social sector since the creation of the institution.
Between 1996 and 2011 Nick was a senior executive at JP Morgan. Among other roles he was Head of European Equity and then Global Head of Research where he led the creation of the World’s number one ranked research department. He served on the Management Committee of the Global Investment Bank and the Executive Committee of JP Morgan Chase.
While at JP Morgan he helped lead the creation of the Banks Social Sector Finance unit and was the senior author of JP Morgan’s groundbreaking 2010 research report on “Impact Investments – An Emerging Asset Class?”
Between 1981 and 1996 Nick worked at Goldman Sachs in London and Zurich in a variety of roles including Head of the Swiss office. He has served as a board or advisory board member at several leadership organisations in Impact and Development Finance including GIIN, EDFI, GSG and GEAPP. He also chaired the UK Dormant Asset Commission which reported in 2017.
Nick has an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Trinity College Dublin where he was a Foundation Scholar. He was awarded the title of Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) by Her Majesty the Queen in the 2022 Jubilee Birthday Honours List.