Blended finance needs to scale 10x: can it? will it?
Join us to mark the formal launch of the LSE Blended Finance Lab, funded by the Global School of Sustainability. We will start with a brief update on the work of the Lab. Then, with the help of an esteemed group of panellists, we will ask what needs to happen for blended finance to make a material contribution to meeting our sustainability challenges. The event will be followed by a networking reception.
Chair: Tom Gosling (Financial Markets Group and LSE Law School)
Opening Remarks: Lord Stern (Grantham Research Institute and LSE Economics)
Introduction: Harald Walkate (Senior Advisor, LSE Blended Finance Lab)
Panellists:
- Hans Peter Lankes, Deputy Chief Executive and Managing Director, ODI Global
- Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, LSE Visiting Professor in Practice; former Deputy General Manager, Bank for International Settlements
- Odile Renaud-Basso, President, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
- José Viñals, Special Strategic Advisor and former Chairman, Standard Chartered; Member of the LSE Council
Meet our speakers and chair
Hans Peter Lankes is the Managing Director and Deputy Chief Executive at ODI, and is a visiting professor in practice at the LSE Grantham Research Institute and a senior fellow at the LSE/Oxford International Growth Centre. He previously held senior roles at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and as Chief of the Trade Policy Division at the International Monetary Fund.
Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva is a visiting professor in practice in the Grantham Research Institute at LSE. He previously served as Deputy General Manager of the BIS -overseeing risk, diversity and inclusion, and sustainable finance - after five years as Deputy Governor of Brazil’s central bank.
Odile Renaud-Basso is President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Prior to joining the Bank, as Director General at the French Treasury, Ms Renaud-Basso oversaw the development of France’s economic policy, leading on European and international financial affairs, trade policy, financial regulation and debt management. She was previously Deputy Director-General of Caisse des Dépôts, a large French public financial institution.
Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Chair of Economics and Government and the inaugural Chair of the Global School of Sustainability at LSE. His forthcoming book A Growth Story for the 21st Century: building sustainable, resilient and equitable development will be published by LSE Press this autumn.
José Viñals is an international banker, economist, former central banker and international official. José retired in May 2025 as Group Chairman of Standard Chartered PLC and Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank, after having been appointed in 2016. Prior to his role at Standard Chartered, José served as the Financial Counsellor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department at the International Monetary Fund between 2009 and 2016, having previously spent 25 years at the Central Bank of Spain, ultimately as the Deputy-Governor.
Harald Walkate is Senior Advisor at the LSE Blended Finance Lab. He is a founding partner and advisor of Route17, an independent blended finance advisory firm. He is also a senior fellow at the University of Zurich Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth and a member of the ESG Advisory Committee of the Financial Conduct Authority, UK.
Tom Gosling is Professor in Practice at the Financial Markets Group and Director of the Initiative in Sustainable Finance at LSE. He is a board advisor and academic with over two decades of experience in corporate governance and responsible business.
More about this event
It is widely recognised that there is an enormous gap between transition finance requirements and what is being delivered globally, with a particularly stark gap in emerging and developing markets. Blended finance has long been identified as an important tool for crowding in private capital but overall remains very subscale compared with what is required. While some of the reasons for this are well understood, there remains a need to work on practical solutions.
LSE has decided to devote resources to this effort through the launch of a Blended Finance Lab funded by the new LSE Global School of Sustainability. The Lab will provide a format for LSE to bring its breadth of capability to bear in working with market participants to address specific practical problems within the market for blended finance. The Lab will work cooperatively with other initiatives to provide problem-solving capability in an agile way in response to market needs
The Financial Markets Group (@FMG_LSE) is a leading centre for research into financial markets. Research at the FMG examines how stable and efficient the financial system is, how it supports the real economy, and what policy measures can generate improvements in these dimensions.
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