Chu, Michael
Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School
Co-founder and Managing Director, Ignia Fund
Former President and CEO, ACCION International
Senior Advisor and Founding Partner, Pegasus Capital
Michael Chu
Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School
Co-founder and Managing Director, Ignia Fund
Former President and CEO of ACCION International
Senior Advisor and Founding Partner, Pegasus Capital
Michael Chu is Managing Director and co‐founder of the Ignia Fund, an equity firm based in Monterrey, Mexico dedicated to investing in and developing commercial enterprises focused on low socio‐economic sectors. By meeting the vastly underserved needs of the low income population in areas such as healthcare, housing, education and basic services, Ignia seeks to empower entrepreneurship and generate social impact while creating attractive financial returns for its investors. Chu also holds an appointment as Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Business School (HBS). He remains a Senior Advisor of Pegasus Capital, a firm in Buenos Aires dedicated to investing equity capital in Latin America, which he co‐founded. Pegasus Capital portfolio companies are active in consumer retail, consumer finance and real estate.
At HBS, Chu’ s research focuses on business and low‐income sectors and the use of market mechanisms to create economic return and social value. Chu teaches the course Business and the Base of the Pyramid, the latter a new offering developed and taught together with Professor V. Kasturi Rangan. He is Faculty Co‐Chair of the Executive Education program Strategic Leadership for Microfinance, designed for senior management of the leading microfinance institutions around the world. In the past, he has taught the course Investing and Managing in Emerging Markets and Effective Leadership of Social Enterprise. Together with Professor David Bloom of the Harvard School of Public Health, Chu is co‐head of Project Antares, a collaboration between the two schools focusing on commercial approaches to delivering high‐impact primary health care to low‐income populations in developing countries.
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 BancoSol which under his chairmanship has been the most profitable bank in Bolivia; Mibanco of Peru; and Banco Compartamos, which following its IPO in 2007 was incorporated into the index of the Mexican Stock Exchange.
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, ranked by Forbes at the time as one of the 20 largest private companies in the U.S., where he served as Senior Vice President & CFO. Previously, he held senior management positions in a diversified U.S. multinational corporations and was a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Chu currently serves on the boards of Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE:SEE), ACCION International (Emeritus), BoardSource and is a Trustee of Dartmouth College.
Chu graduated with an A.B.(Honors) from Dartmouth College and received a M.B.A. with highest distinction (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School.
Chu was born in Kunming, China and grew up in Montevideo, Uruguay. He is married to Victoria Cowling Chu and has one son, Nicolas.