Deborah La Franchi

Deborah La Franchi

Founder & CEO

Deborah La Franchi is the founder and CEO of SDS Capital Group — a national leader in impact investing with over $1 billion in assets under management. Each impact fund on SDS’s platform serves a different geography and employs a unique investment strategy, but they all generate positive impacts for low-income communities and people. Each fund either targets a risk-adjusted rate-of-return or provides capital at a below-market cost. The foundation supporting each fund is an expert team and proven strategies and systems that maximize SDS’s ability to protect and enhance the performance of investors’ capital. Ms. La Franchi leads the structuring of each fund’s investment strategy, spearheads fundraising, oversees the senior managers of each fund and division, and participates on each fund’s investment committee. For three consecutive years, SDS has earned a spot on the ImpactAssets 50 (IA 50) list, which recognizes the leading impact fund managers in the world.

Outside of her work with SDS, Ms. La Franchi is the founder and board chair of Sustainable Communities Fund, which provides capital for small and micro loans to low-income and diverse entrepreneurs. She co-authored the DBL (Double Bottom Line) Handbook sponsored by the Ford Foundation and speaks regularly at investment and impact conferences. Before founding SDS, she served as Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan’s Assistant Deputy Mayor for Economic Development; she then went on to serve as the first CEO of Genesis LA, which launched the Genesis Family of Funds. She is a former director for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Greater L.A. and Secretary and Director of the National New Market Tax Credit Coalition.

Ms. La Franchi earned a BA in Political Science and History from UCLA, an MBA from UCLA, and an MPP from Georgetown University. She also holds a Series 65 license.