Jay L. Koh

Jay Koh is co-founder & Managing Director of The Lightsmith Group. Mr. Koh has over 20 years of experience in investing and public policy in the public and private sectors.

Prior to co-founding Lightsmith in 2016, Mr. Koh was a Managing Director and Partner of Siguler Guff, a global alternative investment firm with over $10 billion under management. Prior to joining Siguler Guff in 2012, Mr. Koh was the Head of Investment Funds and Chief Investment Strategist at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). In this role, Mr. Koh led the agency’s $2.6 billion active emerging markets private equity program. From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Koh led private equity and illiquid investing for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) at R3 Capital, formerly the Global Principal Strategies Division of Lehman Brothers. Previously, Mr. Koh focused on direct growth equity investing as a Principal at The Carlyle Group, where he worked from 2000 to 2007 and also from 1993 to 1995. From 1998 to 2000, he served as a law clerk to Justice David H. Souter, United States Supreme Court, and to Judge Michael Boudin, United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Mr. Koh serves on the Board of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), and the advisory committee to the NY Green Bank. He is also the Founder & Chair of the Global Adaptation & Resilience Investment Working Group (GARI), a private investor-led initiative that was launched at Paris COP21, and is an official partner of the UN Secretary General’s A2R Climate Resilience Initiative.

Mr. Koh serves as an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds an A.B. magna cum laude in Economics from Harvard College, a master’s degree in Management from Oxford University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School.