A rebrand for the world’s largest emerging market credit risk database - 29 development banks, 40 years of data, one mission.
GEMs is a consortium of 29 multilateral development banks and development finance institutions - including the European Investment Bank, the World Bank’s IFC, the African Development Bank and the EBRD - with a mandate from the G20 to make emerging market credit risk data more accessible. The database holds 40 years of default and recovery statistics that show, consistently, that the risk of investing in emerging markets is lower than most people assume.
GEMs needed a bolder, more contemporary identity that could deliver its mission: shift perceptions of risk in emerging economies and unlock private investment where it’s needed most. The audience was diverse, international and cautious - development bank officials, institutional investors, policymakers and the G20 itself. Getting 29 organisations aligned around a new brand direction required active listening, careful iteration and a result that felt like progress without losing the rigour the data demanded.
The rebrand was a balancing act. It needed to herald a new direction and a leap forward in usability, performance and data granularity - including AI-assisted analytical capabilities powered by Galytix’s CreditX platform - while staying true to GEMs’ rigorous statistical foundations. The new identity is built from the language of statistics itself. Animation and colour suggest intelligence and dynamism. The visual system communicates data with clarity, not decoration.
We delivered brand strategy and proposition, identity design and a LinkedIn marketing strategy. The brand had to work across cultures, institutions and contexts — from Washington launches to Bloomberg terminals to G20 communiqués. Every element was designed to make a database feel like a movement: from static data to dynamic insights, from obscure resource to essential tool for anyone making investment decisions in emerging markets.
The new GEMs brand launched in Washington in October 2025 was covered by Reuters. Every major development bank amplified it. What had been a relatively unknown resource became front-page news in development finance overnight, with strong buy-in from all 29 member institutions.
The timing was deliberate. GEMs’ October 2025 statistics release showed that emerging market default rates for private lending average 3.54%, comparable to non-investment grade firms in advanced economies, with recovery rates of 72.9% - exceeding global benchmarks. The data directly addresses a potential $10 trillion financing shortfall facing emerging economies by 2050. The brand made those numbers visible and legible to the people who control the capital.
The brand delivered a strong reset. From static PDFs to an AI-enabled platform. From a database that existed to a brand that campaigns. GEMs now has the identity, the visibility and the tools to fulfil its G20 mandate: get money into the places that need it by proving the risk is lower than the world assumes.
Brand strategy and proposition
Brand identity design
LinkedIn marketing strategy and design
