Doug Miller

Doug is an American but lived in the UK from 1979 to 2010. He spent his career in financial services, mostly in private equity. His business work took him into over 40 countries in Europe, Asia.

The idea of a global venture philanthropy network incorporating different actors from the private equity, foundation, corporate, family office world started on a charity trip he led to Vietnam in 2002. The trip was very successful in raising substantial  money but the participants were dissatisfied with the lack of transparency, lack of information about specific social impact. 

Doug and the other 4 founders decided to promote the rollout of venture philanthropy principles to increase effectiveness, information sharing and collaboration, so more capital would come into the sector and be used more effectively. This resulted in EVPA being created in 2004 and launched in 2005. It was incubated at Doug’s home in a London suburb. After retiring as EVPA Chair in 2009 he went on to establish and Chair a sister organization, Asian Venture Philanthropy Network in 2011. The International Venture Philanthropy Center was then formed in 2015 and this unit has catalyzed a new effort in Latin America – Latimpacto – which will be launched pandemic-permitting in late 2021 and also AVPA Africa which is still in its developmental phase.

In addition to this network creation, Doug is active as a catalyst, facilitator and anchor investor in VP funds established in UK, Japan, Hong Kong, Estonia, Poland. 

While significant success has been achieved thanks to the very committed teams spread around the world Doug feels we’re only scratching the surface with so much more potential to create significant impact. He is Gratified to see the ambitious plans for new programs and services and the commitment of those who have followed the Founders efforts.