Gaelle Allet – senior product specialist for private markets at Allianz Global Investors – was chosen by the independent panel of judges as one of the two recipients of the Rising Star trophy at IJInvestor Awards 2022.

One of the judges said: “Gaelle impressed the judges with her key role in all areas of the development of the Allianz GI infra debt platform and in particular her energy and enthusiasm for supporting sustainability development goals.”

Another judge added: “This is normally a category that is headscratcher for judges – being mostly alpha types who can dissect deal metrics till the cows come home but get flummoxed when asked ‘softer’ questions – but Gaelle made it easy for us with her unique combination of a distinguished infrastructure career, leadership roles at the cutting edge of ESG innovation and her personal philanthropic endeavours.

“This is a good example of an ESG practitioner actually practicing what they preach. Congratulations to our rising star – Gaelle.”

Gaelle joined AllianzGI in 2015 in the global graduate programme (GGP) that identifies 10-15 individuals out of more than 10,000 applicants to provide a deep insight into AllianzGI’s value chain, business and clients. During these 2 years, Gaelle completed 9 job rotations in Frankfurt, Paris, London and Hong Kong, and worked on cross-regional and cross-functional projects.

After successful completion of the GGP, Gaelle joined AllianzGI’s alternatives platform as a product specialist, initially working on the infrastructure debt platform, where she helped to fundraise more than €6 billion from institutional investors in Europe, North America, and Asia to be invested across the entire range of infrastructure assets globally.

Over the past 5 years, she has actively contributed to the build out of the platform and was involved throughout the full value chain: from idea generation and product launch phase, where she helped design strategies and products to address specific market needs or investor’s demands; to the fundraising and client servicing phases where she acts as the main interface with clients.

According to the submission: “Throughout the years, Gaelle has been increasingly involved in the buildout of the private markets’ platform, beyond infrastructure debt. She has been a core part of our efforts to develop and manage innovative blended finance solutions aiming at mobilising private sector capital to support sustainability development goals.

“Gaelle has worked with the development finance team and fundraised more than $2 billion of commitments from institutional investors as well as donors and philanthropic entities.

“The capital raised will finance mainly the climate transition of emerging markets but also transactions with positive social outcomes.”

In her own words, Gaelle “likes to find innovative investment solutions for clients”, especially when they have a sustainability angle, enjoying deploying her time to make them happen.

The submission continues: “More importantly, Gaelle is a team player with boundless energy and enthusiasm, and she’s not just focused on building her resume, she’ll take on any task to help the team to be successful.

“Also – outside of work – she lives her passion and has launched a charity to help young women in Ivory Coast to get access to education in decent conditions.”

Since setting up the dedicated private markets platform in 2012, AllianzGI has grown this business to more than €90 billion of assets under management from institutional clients globally.

Gaelle was promoted to vice president in March 2021, having been fast-tracked given her outstanding and tireless contribution to the business and the firm.