Selim Basak 

Co-Founder and Head of Origination

Selim Basak is a Co-Founder and Head of Origination at Gemcorp Capital, where he is responsible for sourcing, developing and structuring investment opportunities.

Selim’s career in emerging markets is rooted in lived experience. Born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, he grew up during a period of high inflation, capital controls and economic volatility, conditions that shaped his early understanding of macro risk, currency dynamics and the realities faced by emerging economies. These formative experiences would later underpin a career dedicated to navigating complexity and identifying opportunity across emerging markets.

After moving to the United States for university, Selim began his finance career in New York on the Merrill Lynch trading floor. He went on to spend more than two decades at leading global investment banks, including Deutsche Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs, working in both New York and London and focusing on Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It was during this period that he met his future co-founders at Gemcorp.

Selim brings more than 30 years of experience across emerging markets to his role, combining deep regional knowledge with long-established institutional relationships.

He holds a BSc in Economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.