PIDG is a £30 billion investment fund that mobilises private sector investment to assist developing countries in providing infrastructure vital to boosting their economic growth, and combating poverty. The donor members are the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC)/World Bank. In 2006, PIDG membership expanded to include the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and Irish Aid, in 2009 KfW joined and in 2011 AusAid (now the Australian Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT))

PIDG has established a range of specialised financing and project development facilities designed to overcome the obstacles to generating private sector investment in infrastructure projects in emerging economies.

Rockpools has forged a strong relationship with PIDG in resourcing and searching for key personnel to lead on some of their high level roles in various forms for its international operations.

Over the last 3 years, Rockpools has worked with PIDG to recruit:

• An Executive Director (CEO), Programme Management Unit. PMU delivers key functions to the members of the PIDG, ensuring the aims and objectives of PIDG are delivered in accordance with its aims, policies and constitution. We recruited Phillipe Valahu to this role; a Partner of a start-up specialist infrastructure investment and development company who brought extensive Infrastructure experience in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, South and East Asia, and Central Europe developed at a senior level with multi-billion dollar portfolio experience.
• A Special Counsellor to facilitate better communication and decision-making within the PIDG structure, applying outstanding leadership, sound judgement, gravitas and diplomacy skills enable the PIDG Chair and the Chair’s Office to function effectively and efficiently, optimising the “light-touch” operating regime of the PIDG, whilst helping to protect its reputation and financial discipline. Lisa Scenna was successfully appointed to this role given her background in finance, strategy and business repositioning for large blue chip construction companies as well as having worked with a number of public and private clients as a strategic advisor.
• The Chair and a Non-executive Director of GuarantCo Ltd, a Mauritian company owned indirectly by the PIDG members through the PIDG Trust. It finances major infrastructure projects in the emerging markets in Asia and Africa. We recruited two international candidates; Yukiko Okawa, a senior executive with over 30 years international experience in multilateral development agencies and leading investment banks and   Dianne Rudo, also with 30 years of project finance advisory and lending experience, investing private sector funding across the EMEA region.

Our research-led search needed to identify candidates with the commercial, economic and political expertise to ensure the international opportunities could be fully exploited. As such, a key challenge was balancing the requirement for candidates with proven reputations, which would bring credibility at the highest levels across the Asian and African regions, with the demonstrable ability to operate in highly sensitive diplomatic settings.