Pier Luigi Gilibert appointed as Chief Executive of the European Investment Fund

The Board of Directors of the European Investment Fund (EIF) has appointed Mr Pier Luigi Gilibert as Chief Executive of the European Investment Fund.  He will take up his duties in mid-march and succeeds Richard Pelly.

Commenting on the appointment, Dario Scannapieco, Vice President of the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Chairman of the EIF Board of Directors said: “We are delighted that Pier Luigi Gilibert will lead the EIF going forward. His financial, institutional and operational experience and knowledge of the EIB Group will undoubtedly be of great value in driving EIF’s future growth; in addition, he will further optimise the collaboration between EIB and EIF in order to use their complementarity to further strengthen the EIB Group’s support for SMEs in Europe. I would like to thank Richard Pelly for his achievements and in particular for considerably increasing the impact of EIF over the past 6 years and for extending its product offering and its geographical reach across the European Union and beyond. In 2013, another record level of guarantees has been issued and equity commitments made which are a crucial part of EIF’s support for SMEs across Europe.”

To date, Pier Luigi Gilibert has been Director General at the EIB where he was responsible for operations in the European Union and Candidate Countries. He has been working for the EIB since 1984 in various functions, as Director General of the Risk Management Directorate, Head of Division of the Financial Research Department and as economist in the Financial Research Department. Before joining the EIB, Pier Luigi Gilibert has been working as an economist in the Research and in the International Departments of Banca Commerciale Italiana in Milan, Italy.

Pier Luigi Gilibert is an Italian national who holds economics degrees from the University of Turin (Italy) and Rochester (New York, USA).

About the EIF

The European Investment Fund's (EIF) central mission is to support Europe's micro, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) by helping them to access finance.  EIF designs and develops venture and growth capital, guarantees and microfinance instruments which specifically target this market segment. In this role, EIF fosters EU objectives in support of innovation, research and development, entrepreneurship, growth, and employment. EIF’s total net commitments to private equity funds amounted to over EUR 7.9bn at end 2013. With investments in over 435 funds, EIF is a leading player in European venture due to the scale and the scope of its investments, especially in high-tech and early-stage segments. EIF’s guarantees loan portfolio totalled over EUR 5.6bn in over 300 operations at end 2013, positioning it as a major European SME guarantees actor and a leading micro-finance guarantor.

Press contact:

Susanne Gutjahr, Head of Communications, gutjahr@eif.org, tel. +352 426 688 487