Pan-Asian venture capital Gobi Partners has appointed Carlo Chen-Delantar as its new head of ESG, banking on the young technocrat’s experience in the Philippines startup ecosystem and as an award-winning social entrepreneur.
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Chen-Delantar, who hails from Cebu in central Philippines, will continue to be the head of circular economy for the firm’s Asean business. He succeeds Gobi’s outgoing ESG chief, Paul Ark.
“Carlo’s hands-on experience in integrating global ESG standards into the foundation and operations of early-stage startups will be fundamental for our portfolio’s sustainable growth,” said Soo Wei Shaw, partner and ESG committee chairperson at Gobi Partners. “He is well positioned to balance the scales of profit, people and the planet for Gobi Partners.”
Chen-Delantar is a founding partner of Gobi-Core Philippine Fund (Gobi-Core), a joint-venture partnership between Gobi Partners and Core Capital investing in promising Filipino startups. With his new mandate, the executive hopes to expand Gobi Partners’ stake in Asean’s burgeoning digital economy and be instrumental in its transition towards inclusion and sustainability.
“In the last three years, we saw 100 million internet users come online and going forward, the region’s digital economy is expected to grow twice as fast as the GDP through to 2030. I believe that Gobi can help digital economy players play a positive role in shifting the economy towards a sustainable, innovative, and compassionate future,” said Chen-Delantar.
Chen-Delantar was recognised by former president Rodrigo Duterte for his humanitarian work as country director of the non-profit Waves For Water, which provided clean water access to more than one million disadvantaged Filipinos by distributing rainwater storage and filtration systems. Chen-Delantar is a circular economy pioneer at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and served as the co-chair of the Global Shapers Climate Action Steering Committee at the World Economic Forum from 2018 to 2021.
Founded in 2022, Gobi Partners has invested in over 320 startups and funded ten unicorns to date, with a presence in markets such as Beijing, Jarkarta, Manila and Singapore. Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, the venture capital firm has US$1.5 billion in assets under management across Asia.
