Chief Investment Officer at Acumen
Otho Kerr is the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Community Impact Investing of the Community and Outreach Unit of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Otho is charged with catalyzing capital providers to invest in creating more opportunities for those facing poverty and/or structural disparities related to race or ethnicity by leveraging the Unit’s work. The Unit’s current three areas of focus are: 1) economic drivers of health and wellbeing; 2) mitigation of climate-related risk in low- and moderate-income communities; and 3) household financial stability and economic resiliency. Otho was previously the Chief Investment Officer at Acumen and Partner at Encourage Capital (EKO Asset Management Partners prior to merging with Wolfensohn Fund Management). He has worked in the investment banking and asset management industries for over twenty years, having begun with Goldman Sachs & Co., where he worked in the Investment Banking Division. Otho has a wealth of experience in impact investing and the public and private markets. He began his professional career as an attorney with the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.
Otho received a BA from Dartmouth College and a JD from The Harvard Law School. He was the first member of his class to receive the Dartmouth Alumni Award. Throughout his career, Otho has sought to merge his professional career with his interest in social justice and equity. Otho was a co-founder of the Institute for Youth Entrepreneurship in Harlem. He was a fellow in the Rockefeller Foundation’s Next Generation Leadership Program. He is currently on the National Academy of Medicine’s Culture of Health Advisory Committee. He has served and serves on numerous not-for-profit boards.
Specialties: Impact investing, climate change, environmental markets, health equity and capital markets.
