Suprotik (Protik) Basu is a Founder, Partner and Head of Sustainability and Impact at Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital, which was launched in 2017 to mobilize and invest private – largely institutional - capital to help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The first fund is focused on supporting entrepreneurs in Latin America and the Caribbean with a private credit product targeting social infrastructure (e.g. healthcare and education), agribusiness, providing access to finance, and sustainable infrastructure more broadly.
Blue Orange aims to prove that there need be no trade-off between social impact and risk-adjusted market-rate returns. Among his responsibilities at Blue Orange, Protik oversees the sustainable and social impact of the portfolio, including its contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Previously, Mr. Basu served as Chief Executive Officer of the Office of the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Health in Agenda 2030, led by philanthropist Ray Chambers, with whom he worked for over a decade. During his tenure as CEO of the Office, and prior to that, as its Managing Director, Protik oversaw the Office’s efforts to mobilize and deploy over $3.5 billion of resources to end deaths from malaria in Africa, and to improve child and maternal health in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Protik focused substantially on creative financing solutions and engaging the private sector to enable those solutions, for instance, through the use of backstop guarantees and engineering of interest-rate buy-downs on achievement of independently verified key results.
Prior to this role, Protik was at the World Bank where he served as a Public Health Specialist, and focused on healthcare and social sector financing.
Protik currently serves on the Board, as well as the Finance and Audit committee, of Princess House Inc, a leading direct-selling company that seeks to expand economic opportunities for a largely female workforce across the United States. He is also a Board member of Big Win Philanthropy, which is a UK and US foundation focused on the creation of improved livelihood and job creation in sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, he serves as a Board member of the legal defense non-profit, Brooklyn Defender Services, and healthcare charities, Nutrition International, serving on its Finance and Audit committee, and the Global Business Coalition for Health.
Protik holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
