Donald Peck is an emerging markets economist, spending much of his career in South Asia and South America as a business adviser and investor, including 12 years building venture capital businesses in India.

Until 2008 Donald managed a South Asian venture capital portfolio of over $1 billion for the UK government-owned Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC). He was a director of CDC and a founding partner of Actis. In 2006 he founded (and is now mentor of) Lok Capital, a social venture capital fund investing in for-profit micro-finance businesses in India providing financial and other services to the poor and underserved. He is an adviser to the India Programme of Paul Hamlyn Foundation, working with tribal people and marginal groups in mainstream Indian society. He is also engaged in work on South American conservation and environmental problems as chair of Foundation Rachel and Pamela Schiele.

Before joining CDC, from 1978–88 Donald advised companies investing in Latin America, followed by three years investing equity in smaller companies in the emerging markets of South America and Eastern Europe at the World Bank Group in Washington, DC. Donald holds a DPhil in History from the University of Oxford.

Donald Peck has been treasurer of IPPR since 2008.