As IMPACTO’s founder and CEO, Belissa provides leadership in the growth, outreach, and partnerships of Impacto. She focuses primarily on strategic planning, general management, sustainability, and impact measurement and management. She has over 15 years of experience in the international development sector, advising private-sector companies, impact investors, development banks, and foundations on how to professionalize their management and measurement practices.
Belissa currently works as an advisor to several investors on how to measure and manage their impact. She is working with IDB Lab on the design of an ESG & impact measurement and management (IMM) platform for early-stage ventures with the potential to generate impact on a large scale. She is an advisor to the Impact Management Project’s Impact Frontiers, co-leading an initiative to support venture capital funds in the adoption and continuous improvement of their IMM practices. She is also leading an initiative with On Think Tanks (OTT) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to bring cross-sector knowledge, policy, and economic expertise from local think tanks to the impact investing industry in Latin America and Africa.
Previously, Belissa was a Strategy & Monitoring Senior Specialist at IDB Invest, where she led the design and implementation of IDB Invest’s Impact Management Framework post due diligence and was responsible for the impact oversight of its operations—investments and loans. She was responsible for overseeing and leading the reporting of a portfolio of +250 operations valued at approx. US$11 billion. While at IDB Invest, she also led the design and launch of the Impact Lessons Learned site, which included an evaluation of IDB Invest’s entire portfolio, independent verification of all final evaluations, and identification of best practices. She won two corporate awards for her contributions in strengthening IDB Invest’s Impact Management Framework.
Prior to this work, Belissa was the Counselor for Peru and Chile at the Board of Executive Directors of the IDB Group. As a former consultant for Emerging Markets Group (formerly Deloitte Emerging Markets) and the World Bank, Belissa also acquired extensive experience in evaluating public sector operations and corporate projects. Belissa started her career working in the Ministry of Finance of Peru and the Peruvian Regulatory Agency for Banks, Insurance and Pensions.
Belissa holds an MSc in Development Management from the London School of Economics, an MSc in Finance, and a BA in Economics, both from Universidad del Pacifico. She is fluent in English, Spanish, and French.