Frances Reid
President & COO
As Chief Operating Officer of Root Capital, Frances oversees the day-to-day management of the organization and ensures that all staff and systems are operating effectively in support of our mission. Her objective is to help support all of the staff who are taking Root Capital to the next level of success and impact.
Frances joined Root Capital from British International Investments (formerly the CDC Group) in London where she served as the Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director for Investment Risk and Analytics from 2014 to 2019. In that role she chaired the Investment Committee, managed the investment decision-making process, and conducted “deep dives” into risk identification and management. She also headed the Analytics and Development Impact Teams to design and apply analytics tools across the organization and assess the impact investment program.
Before that, she spent 40 years working in finance at nearly all levels of management in both the private and public sectors, including as a program director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, CIO at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Senior Adviser to the Undersecretary of the U.S. Treasury for International Affairs, and Managing Director at Lehman Brothers and COO of Lehman/American Express Global Asset Management. She has also worked as an international lawyer, focusing on cross-border investment and debt restructuring for the Bank of Boston, and as a professor of political economy at the University of Michigan. During her career, she has worked in Russia and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.