Chris Walker serves as the Deputy Vice President of the Office of Development Policy at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), which works to ensure that DFC’s portfolio and projects produce positive developmental impacts, are environmentally and socially responsible, and respect human rights.
Mr. Walker is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where he teaches a graduate course on impact investing and innovative finance.
Prior to joining DFC, Mr. Walker was the Social Innovations Director at Mercy Corps, where he worked to scale up entrepreneurial solutions to development challenges. He advised Mercy Corps Ventures, the organization’s impact investment fund, and managed a funding and learning partnership that financed the scale-up of social enterprises. Previously, Mr. Walker was the head of the Innovative Finance Program at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), where he designed and built initiatives that attracted investment capital to address malnutrition. These included partnerships with impact investors and a ranking of the world’s largest food and beverage companies on their nutrition practices, which serves as an assessment tool for the sustainable investment community.
Prior to GAIN, Mr. Walker was a Fellow with Acumen, a non-profit social venture capital fund, and worked for one of Acumen’s investments in Mumbai, India. Earlier in his career, Mr. Walker worked on international economic and financial policy issues at the Treasury Department and the State Department and on development assistance policy at the Millennium Challenge Corporation.
Mr. Walker earned a master's in Public Affairs from Princeton University and a B.A. from Williams College.