The US group is moving seasoned execs into impact teams in Europe and Asia as global appetite for impact investing continues to grow.

Private equity giant KKR is ramping up its global impact investing with two senior appointments in Europe and Asia. Stanislas de Joussineau will lead KKR’s Global Impact team in Europe, and Sharon Yang will join KKR Global Impact as a senior investor in Asia. The two are established figures working at the director level.

“Stan and Sharon are both long-time KKR executives and seasoned professionals with deep relationships across their respective geographies,” said Robert Antablin and Ken Mehlman, co-heads of KKR Global Impact.

The group said that it is seeing “many opportunities” for impact investments around the world; combining global reach with local market expertise have been key factors for its sector growth. New York-based KKR is a top-three global private equity house with $205 billion under management as of June this year.

With ever more capital flowing into the sector and mounting societal challenges that came into sharp relief again last week at the UN General Assembly, KKR created a dedicated global impact business in 2018.

Specifically, the team identifies investment opportunities globally where financial performance and societal impact are intrinsically aligned. To achieve this, investment focus is on companies whose business models can prove that they are providing commercial solutions that contribute measurably toward one or more of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This impact-to-values alignment has been pushing hard into may areas of investing under a mixed bag of environmental, social and governance oversight, but it is arguably at the blunt end of private equity done at scale in emerging markets where it is having the most tangible effect. A criticism of private equity has been that capital is not being put into service fast enough. (Bain Capital put PE sitting on the sidelines, the so-called dry powder, at $2 trillion for 2018).

In his new role, de Joussineau will work closely with the group’s other investment platforms in Europe to act on the most promising impact investing opportunities, the group said. He will also serve on the global impact investment committee and portfolio management committee. De Joussineau has spent 10 years as a private equity investor at KKR, most recently as part of the group's technology and retail teams in Europe and at a country level in France.

Yang joined KKR in Asia in 2009, where her responsibilities included operations, portfolio, strategy, capital-raising and capital markets activities across private equity, growth equity and real estate in Asia. In her new role, Yang will focus on regional sourcing, investment and portfolio activities, the group said. She will also become a senior member of the KKR Global Impact investment team in Asia.

“Asia-Pacific has become a compelling destination for impact investment driven by the structural policy changes and reforms across the region, combined with increased public awareness and corporate adoption of environmental, social and governance initiatives,” Ming Lu, member and head of KKR Asia Pacific, said.

Lu suggested that emerging markets are leading the way. "Homegrown champions are developing innovative products and services to meet sustainable development opportunities resulting from rapid urbanization and a growing middle class," he said.

The firm said that it wants to expand the reach of its impact investment strategy in Asia and provide funding to more businesses and entrepreneurs.