
Firm
DWM’s long and successful history in impact investing reflects the values and priorities that define our mission and underlie our organizational structure, the way we’ve built our team, and how we interact with our investors, investees, partners, and other stakeholders.
History
Founders Peter Johnson and Judy Kirst-Kolkman recognized the promise and value in emerging and frontier markets nearly 30 years ago and founded Developing World Markets in 1994. By the end of that decade, they had fully committed to impact investing in these markets. Since then, DWM has been a leader in proving that institutional-quality investing and sustained impact can go hand in hand.
History
Founders Peter Johnson and Judy Kirst-Kolkman recognized the promise and value in emerging and frontier markets nearly 30 years ago and founded Developing World Markets in 1994. By the end of that decade, they had fully committed to impact investing in these markets. Since then, DWM has been a leader in proving that institutional-quality investing and sustained impact can go hand in hand.
People
Peter Johnson, Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner
Peter’s history of institutional-quality impact investing in emerging and frontier markets began with DWM’s first impact investment in 1999. Since then, Peter’s innovations and drive for higher standards have been influential across the industry. Today, Peter leads DWM along with Co-Managing Partner Edward Marshall and the firm’s four other owner-partners.
Peter Johnson
Co-Founder, Co-Managing Partner
United States
As co-founder & co-managing partner, Peter helped create the model for making sustained, institutional-quality, market-return impact investments in emerging and frontier markets starting with DWM’s first impact investment in 1999. In the more than two decades since, Peter’s innovations and drive for higher standards in investing and impact have been influential across the industry.
At DWM today, Peter oversees fund management and key investor relationships, all within DWM’s investment focus of inclusive finance, agriculture and rural communities, off-grid solar and climate action, water and sanitation, education, housing and, a special focus of Peter’s, women’s economic opportunity.
Before co-founding DWM, Peter specialized in emerging and frontier markets as an investment banker at Bankers Trust (now Deutsche Bank), working out of London, New York and Cairo. From London, he structured direct investments in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. From New York, he created multiple bond issues to restructure $14 billion of debt to the U.S. government by sovereigns in Asia and Africa. In Cairo, Peter opened and managed the firm’s Egypt office and negotiated the company’s first debt-for-equity swap (Sudan) and first financing backed by workers’ remittances (Saudi Arabia to Egypt).
Peter has served on numerous impact investing-related boards, including as chairman of the pioneering women-focused microfinance & health institution Pro Mujer International.
Peter received a BS from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is a native English speaker, competent in French and conversant in Spanish.
Edward Marshall
Co-Managing Partner, General Counsel, CCO
United States
As co-managing partner, Edward shares responsibility for leading DWM’s strategy, operations and business development, working closely with DWM’s senior team. As general counsel, Edward oversees legal and regulatory matters pertaining to DWM, its investment vehicles and overseas investments. Edward also serves as the chief compliance officer for DWM’s registered investment adviser and is a member of the DWM Equity Investment Committee.
Before joining DWM in 2009, Edward represented development finance institutions in project and structured finance transactions in emerging markets at the New York law firm Becker, Glynn, Melamed & Muffly. Before that, he was an associate at Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw in New York, where he represented underwriters in debt capital markets transactions in Latin America.
Edward graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a BA in political science, earned a JD from the University of North Carolina School of Law, and earned a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University. He is a native English speaker and speaks Spanish. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1996 to 1998.
Edward is a member of the New York Bar Association.
Recognition
DWM promotes an impact investing industry with high standards of measurability and transparency. We believe that the term “impact investing” should be used only when accountability is present. We proactively disclose our impact methodology and welcome outside review.
ImpactAssets Global 50 Impact Investing Firm
Eight-time designee
A+ for Strategy
and Governance
A+ for Strategy and Governance
UNPRI Assessment Report 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017
A+ for Direct
Inclusive Finance
A+ for Direct Inclusive Finance
UNPRI Inclusive Finance Assessment 2020, 2019
Careers
DWM is growing in both scale and breadth and offers early-career and later-career financial professionals work that is inherently intended to better the world.

