Meet the Team: Jose Lamyin

We are proud to be part of the growing Deetken Impact team, and are excited to introduce this diverse and talented group of investment professionals. We regularly feature our colleagues in these interview-style profiles so you can get to know them better!

Meet José Lamyin, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Deetken Impact. José is a serial entrepreneur, with extensive experience as a business advisor for clients throughout Canada, Europe, and Latin America in mining, telecommunications, and finance. Prior to co-founding The Deetken Group, José worked for Teck Cominco in Peru and Canada, and Deutsche Bank in the United Kingdom. José has spearheaded much of the strategic growth of Deetken since its inception, and is currently focused on investment management.

José received his BS in Engineering from the University of British Columbia and MBA from IESE School of Business (Barcelona). Currently based in Deetken Impact’s Vancouver office, Jose is originally from Peru, and speaks Spanish and English.

What was the key opportunity that inspired you to establish an impact investing company?

I can recall two pivotal opportunities in the last decades that were instrumental in founding Deetken Impact.

The roots of Deetken Impact trace back to 2003 with the founding of The Deetken Group, a Vancouver-based management consulting firm engaged in diverse projects spanning healthcare, social services, telecommunications, and workers’ insurance. This early work established a strong foundation for understanding the spectrum of financial returns, the economic development benefits, and the social impacts on disadvantaged communities. The consulting business’ retained earnings in turn allowed us to make a couple of investments.

This positioned us well when we received an invitation to invest in Pro Mujer, a women-led microfinance institution that had begun operations in Bolivia in the 1990s and has since expanded regionally. Before making an initial investment, we travelled to Peru and Nicaragua to learn more about microloans to women in developing countries – a concept that made intuitive sense to us. Lending to women entrepreneurs addresses key social needs while consistently yielding lower default rates than loans to male counterparts.

The second investment opportunity was in rural telecommunications, at the time that cellular data costs were falling rapidly throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. This allowed rural communities to be better interconnected, expanding access to key services such as healthcare, education, and financial services at a low cost.

The experience of making these two early investments demonstrated that it was indeed possible to generate market-level returns while delivering meaningful social and environmental impact. This realization inspired us to take the next step: founding an investment club supported by our retained earnings and contributions from trusted business associates. What began as a small, values-driven initiative ultimately laid the foundation for what would become Deetken Impact.

In the 10+ years since founding, what Deetken Impact milestone are you most proud of, and why?

Given that we are still a small but fast-growing company, I would say that I’m particularly proud of two accomplishments. The first one is that the Ilu Women’s Empowerment Fund reached an important milestone of deploying over USD $50 million, and as of today, is entirely capitalized with private sector investors. While development finance institutions play a vital role in the impact investing ecosystem, we have focused on engaging more private sector investors in our funds and in the sector as a whole to expand impact capital in LAC.

The second accomplishment has to do with our human resources objective: we have assembled a foundational team that has positioned us to launch larger investment vehicles. What really stands out about the Deetken Impact staff is that they are very experienced and passionate about achieving both social and environmental impact goals, in addition to strong financial returns.

Bringing together such a diverse, international team with deep regional expertise spanning finance, engineering, environmental sustainability, impact management, and international development has been an intentional effort. Building this kind of multidisciplinary collaboration is no small task, yet it’s precisely this breadth of perspectives and skills that strengthens our work. What unites us across geographies and backgrounds is a shared dedication to advancing meaningful impact.

What do you hope Deetken Impact will accomplish in the next decade?

I foresee that our company will continue to invest in inclusive climate action that serves both the planet and the most vulnerable communities. As pioneers in clean energy investment, my hope is that over the next decade we continue to build on that track record to become regional leaders across a range of climate sectors. As a team, we believe that this is an existential global threat and that we need to find ways to advance both climate mitigation and adaptation at large. This is important to us because we have seen firsthand how the effects of climate change are felt more keenly by women, girls, and other vulnerable communities, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean.

We are at a crucial crossroads because investments in clean energy will accelerate now that on average cost parity with polluting energy sources fuels has been achieved. Although it may take time to significantly phase out fossil fuels, I think that the trend towards a cleaner electric powered economy is becoming a reality in most countries.

José Lamyin visits Fushimi-Momoyama-jo Castle in Kyoto, Japan, circa 1592. Nestled in a quiet residential neighborhood, this beautiful architectural wonder is off the beaten path, and full of local activities.

Get to know more about the Deetken Impact Team by checking out the other features in our Meet the Team series!