Mr Filipp is an international lawyer, businessman and former UN official. In 2011, he founded Innovative Finance, a Swiss foundation that specializes in products and partnerships that generate revenues for social infrastructure.  His interest in financial innovation for good was sparked when he served as Head of Innovative Financing at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, where he pioneered Debt2Health and negotiated US$300 million in debt swaps for health. Prior to the Global Fund, he was a private businessman with interests in the emerging markets and venture capital. Mr Filipp also worked at the United Nations Development Program in New York and the World Bank in the area of environment finance and at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

He hold degrees in Economics and Law from Bonn University (Germany) and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He was awarded fellowships from the German Bundestag, the DAAD, the Marie Baier Foundation and Harvard University.