Davit Karapetyan is Managing Director of Valoris: Stewardship Catalysts, a firm that helps investors and portfolio companies improve their corporate governance, investor stewardship and sustainability performance.
Davit has spent the previous 21 years at International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, advancing from a specialist to senior expert. Most recently, Davit has been the Regional Lead for IFC’s Corporate Governance (CG) operations in Latin America and the Caribbean from 2007 to 2020. In that capacity, Davit has conducted CG due diligence as part of the investment team in more than 100 debt, equity and private equity fund investments throughout the region (as well as in other regions such as Eastern Europe, Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia). In addition to the full due diligence, Davit also supported the investment teams in numerous other transactions guiding and advising investment analysts and decision-makers. Altogether, the direct and supported transactions had a total investment value exceeding USD$ 5 billion. A significant number of clients that Davit advised includes financial institutions – banks, microfinance institutions, insurance companies, pension fund managers and private equity funds.
Davit’s involvement in investment operations extended beyond the original investment due diligence and included many activities of engagement with portfolio companies spanning from the development of investment conditionalities and value-adding recommendations, engaging with clients on relevant CG matters, advising on the selection, appointment of and providing guidance to the board members nominated by IFC to the boards of directors of its investee companies, advising investment teams on voting its shares, advising portfolio company management and board members on various CG and sustainability issues.
In addition to investment due diligence and engagement activities, Davit has been instrumental in developing IFC’s internal policies and procedures in the space of Governance, Stewardship and Sustainability (GSS). Specifically, Davit has developed IFC’s internal policies and procedures on Nominee Directorships, designed innovative tools and frameworks for investment analysts to integrate GSS considerations in their investment and portfolio decision-making and guidance notes used by IFC’s staff and external partners. He developed specific elements of the IFC Corporate Governance Methodology (specifically for financial institutions), a framework still used by IFC and other Development Finance Institutions to assess the quality of governance of potential clients and to identify opportunities to add value by improving their boards, control environment, transparency and disclosure, and treatment of financial stakeholders. Moreover, Davit has coordinated the development of IFC’s Advanced Corporate Governance Methodology for Financial Institutions.
In addition to investment work, Davit has been leading IFC’s advisory operations on GSS matters in Latin America where he designed, fund-raised, obtained approval, hired the relevant team, guided the overall operations and implemented the most complex and high-profile advisory engagements. In this capacity, Davit provided GSS-related advise to various stakeholders such as the capital markets regulators, stock exchanges, relevant ministries, industry and business associations, institutes of directors, Universities, NGOs, associations of institutional investors and other relevant stakeholders on GSS-related policies and practices. The specific activities included formal and informal advice to the regulators on GSS-related policy documents such as codes of good governance, stewardship codes, listing requirements, and reporting questionnaires; speaking at national, regional and international events on relevant GSS matters for various audiences of policy-makers and practitioners, GSS professionals and corporate leaders; negotiating policy improvements and engaging with business leadership in the region on behalf of IFC.
Davit has a long history of developing and providing training on GSS themes. His training experience spans from Eastern Europe to Africa, Asia and Latin America. Trainings include programs taught for students at law and business schools; business professionals and corporate leaders; GSS professionals and IFC investment analysts, IFC nominee directors and board members of leading private and public companies. Davit is a recognized speaker on relevant professional themes as well as he has prepared and published papers and thought pieces on GSS topics, including IFC’s Corporate Governance Manual, the Handbook for IFC Nominee Directors, the Manual of the Latin American Companies Circle and the Practical Study of Corporate Governance and Portfolio Performance.
Davit earned his Diploma with Honors in Law from the leading Yerevan State University in Armenia in 1995 and defended his Ph.D. in Law from the same University in 1999. In addition to his native language of Armenian, Davit is fluent in English and Russian.
