Sarah Smit is a legal consultant at Trinity International LLP and a banking and finance lawyer with more than 25 years of experience across developed and emerging markets. Her practice spans development and sustainable finance, trade finance, and leveraged and acquisition finance.

Most recently, Sarah served as Deputy Chief Legal Officer at British International Investment plc (formerly CDC Group plc), the UK’s development finance institution. In this role, she advised on a broad range of secured and unsecured emerging markets financings for corporates, banks and microfinance institutions, acting on both bilateral and syndicated transactions alongside other development finance institutions and commercial lenders. She has extensive experience in sustainable finance, climate finance and gender-lens investing, particularly across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, covering early-stage deal structuring, transaction execution and portfolio management. Her trade finance experience includes trade loans and risk-sharing and de-risking transactions, including funded and unfunded participations.

Prior to joining British International Investment, Sarah was Counsel in Linklaters’ Banking and Finance team in Amsterdam, where she focused on European leveraged acquisition finance and syndicated lending. She advised European banks, public and private corporations, and private equity sponsors on a wide range of financing transactions. Sarah is a fluent Dutch speaker.

Sarah began her legal career with Allen & Overy, training in London and Hong Kong before qualifying in 2003 into the firm’s Global Loans & Restructuring team, where she advised on a variety of international financing and restructuring matters.