Olympia De Castro

Olympia is an investor and impact investment leader focused on shifting capital toward environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) and impact investing. She serves as Advisor to Gratitude Railroad. Olympia has two decades of experience in investment banking, investment management and impact investing, and is passionate about advancing sustainable finance in the U.S. and globally.

Olympia is a Partner at Social Venture Philanthropy, where she supports venture philanthropy seeking to strengthen and scale local social ventures. In this capacity she is engaged in innovative finance structures to catalyze impact investment dollars to advance philanthropic efforts. She is also a Council Member at GLG, specifically on the social impact front, where she advises GLG corporate clients looking to build initiatives in the ESG and impact sector.

Formerly Olympia was Co-founder and Partner of Community Investment Management (CIM), an institutional impact investment firm that provides strategic debt funding to demonstrate and scale responsible innovation in lending to underserved communities in order to advance financial inclusion and promote economic development.

Olympia began her career at Goldman Sachs in the Investment Banking and Investment Management Divisions. She worked for Louis Berger Group where she advised multilateral organizations and governments in the financial analysis of infrastructure projects and public and private partnerships. Her career in economic development and impact investing began at the International Financial Corporation (IFC), the private arm of the World Bank, under the Global SME Banking group. In this capacity Olympia supported efforts to expand global access to finance for micro- small- and medium-sized enterprises, through policy initiatives, research and active engagement with banks.

Olympia has engaged in a number of global efforts to advance sustainable finance solutions. In Chennai, India, she worked at IFMR Capital, a spin-off of ICICI Bank, on securitization of microfinance loans. In Nairobi, Kenya, she provided advisory on valuation and strategic exit alternatives to Aureos Capital’s investments in East African microfinance institutions. In Fortaleza, Brazil, Olympia constructed a Monitoring and Evaluation tool to measure outcomes for Instituto Palmas, a community-led social development bank with a proprietary social currency.

Olympia holds a Master’s degree in Economic and Political Development from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and a Bachelor’s in Finance from the University of Miami. Originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Olympia now lives in New York with her three wonderful children.