Deborah La Franchi

Deborah La Franchi, the founder and CEO of SDS Capital Group¬¬ (2001) is recognized as a pioneering national leader in impact investing with $1.5 billion of active assets under management. SDS’s family of innovative funds engages the private sector in the battle against poverty. SDS targets risk-adjusted-rate of return for its institutional investors, while at the same time making meaningful investments that support economic development and critically needed affordable housing in marginalized communities across the United States. Ms. La Franchi structures the investment strategy for each new fund platform, serves on the investment committee, and ensures the right team is assembled and supported by a sound and proven investment and operational platform.

Debbie’s impact-focused efforts over more than twenty years have resulted in five distinctive fund strategies. Collectively, the 108 investments made by these funds have created 6,730 units of workforce, affordable, and permanent supportive housing as well as the creation of over 28,000 jobs. The communities SDS has invested in suffer from poverty rates that are – on average – 30%. Debbie’s structuring of these funds, which are most often first-of-a-kind funds not existing in the marketplace, has led Debbie and SDS’s initiatives to be recognized as trailblazers in the impact investing arena. SDS has been named one of top 50 Impact Mangers by Impact Assets for seven consecutive years. In addition, SDS was also the recipient of Pension Real Estate Association’s (PREA) Environmental and Social Governance Award (2023).

Professionally, among her many achievements, Debbie has been recognized by a range of organizations and publications in just the past 24 months: Forbes’ 50 over 50 Women in Investment list, Pension and Investments’ Influential Women in Institutional Investing, Los Angeles Business Journal LA 500 awardee, one of the Most Influential Business Leaders in Los Angeles and a Woman of Influence in Finance by the Los Angeles Business Journal, Banking and Finance Visionary by the Los Angeles Times, and Commercial Real Estate Woman of Influence, by Globe Street.

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 nonprofit, spearheading the launch the Genesis impact funds and starting its investment activities that continue to this day.

Outside of her work with SDS, Debbie is the founder and former board chair of Sustainable Communities Fund, a not-for-profit which, as a lending intermediary, has provided capital for more than 1,500 small and micro loans to low-income, underserved and diverse entrepreneurs. She also sits on the UCLA Ziman Affordable Housing Advisory Council (AHAC). She served on Karen Bass’s Mayoral Transition Advisory Team. Formerly, she was a director for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Greater L.A. – and was a Big Sister – and the Secretary and a Director of the National New Market Tax Credit Coalition.

Debbie earned a BA in Political Science and History from UCLA, while also playing on UCLA’s tennis team. She later pursued an MBA from UCLA, and a Masters in Public Policy from Georgetown University.