Eelco Benink is a financial and investment expert with a background in investment banking, private equity and financial consultancy. In the last 8 years he has focused on impact investing fund strategy, design, management and evaluation. Eelco started working in the impact investing sector in 2008, as a key member of the investment team of InReturn Capital, Rebel’s own impact investment fund headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. He gained substantial experience in sourcing, closing and managing SME equity investments and performing due diligence. Often in close cooperation with leading (impact) investment funds such as IFC, Acumen Fund, Grassroots Business Fund, GroFin and BPI. Between 2013 and 2015 Eelco lived in the Philippines to set up a new office for Rebel in Manila on the back of several large advisory mandates for the ADB across Asia. Eelco is currently leading in emerging markets SME impact investing practice area. In 2014, Eelco was engaged by the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), to design and deliver impact investing capital trainings in India and Kenya. After a number of advisory mandates for FMO, The Rockefeller Foundation, The ADB, Oxfam and the Dutch Ministry of foreign affairs, Eelco led a research project for the DGGF/Triple Jump for a study on mezzanine to small cap SMEs in emerging countries. Eelco also sits on various advisory committees, including the Advisory Committee of DGGF, Fund of Fund 1, and he is a guest lecturer at Nyenrode University in The Netherlands, in the field of green finance and impact investing.
