IBF Awards

Luca Tonello leads one of Asia Pacific’s most respected teams engaged in capital raising and advisory for the infrastructure and energy sectors at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC). As Managing Director for the bank’s Structured Finance Department in Asia Pacific (SFDA), Luca oversees the bank’s regional portfolio focused on sustainable energy, infrastructure and natural resources. Under his leadership, the bank has most recently received its seventh win as the Global Bank of the Year by Project Finance International and is widely acclaimed for contributions to the development of critical infrastructure and energy projects across the region. 

A trailblazer in sustainable finance, Luca has been instrumental in fulfilling SMBC’s commitment to phase out corporate and project finance exposure to coal mining by 2040. He established and continues to chair the SMBC Coal Phaseout Taskforce, which works with external stakeholders such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to accelerate the phaseout of coal-fired power plants across Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam by leveraging the bank’s expertise and resources.

Under Luca’s leadership, SMBC established a public sector inactive in 2023 to enhance dialogue on the effective allocation of blended finance to accelerate sustainable development in critical areas including water sanitation and green electrification. 

In 2024, Luca took on the positions of Chair of SMBC’s Sector Banking Asia Pacific and Board Member of Clifford Capital. He is also a board member of ASEEM Infrastructure Finance, and sits on the alliance board of Infrastructure Asia (IA), a government initiative aimed at developing Singapore as the infrastructure hub in ASEAN. He was also formerly the Chairman of the Project Finance Committee, Asia Pacific Loan Market Association (APLMA).

Throughout his career, Luca has contributed to several working groups on infrastructure development and financing promoted by the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the ADB, the Infrastructure Finance Facilitation Office (IFFO) of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Indonesia Minister of Finance, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the OECD Organization, to name a few. Luca grew up near Turin in Italy, where he graduated in Mechanical Engineering with a major in energy.

He spent the early part of his banking career in London where he also graduated from the London Business School with a Master in Finance.