CAF Venturesome has announced the departure of Paul Cheng from the organisation where he was acting head following the resignation of chief executive John Kingston last year.

Cheng was a senior investment manager at CAF Venturesome, the investment arm of the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), since 2006. The announcement by CAF this morning advised that Stephanie Sturrock was employed to head up the department as director of social investment in January this year. However, Cheng was named as head of CAF Venturesome in a press release just last week.  

CAF confirmed that Cheng has resigned from the organisation but would not provide any details on the circumstances around his departure, or of his plans for the future. The organisation is also silent over a possible replacement for Cheng.

John Kingston handed the reins to Cheng in July last year, when he left the organisation after ten years to pursue a portfolio career. Announcing Sturrock's appointment in early December last year, CAF said that Sturrock would "oversee the work of CAF Venturesome" but made no mention of Cheng's role in the organisation going forward.

Sturrock came to CAF from social investment organisation Shared Interest where she was managing director. The organisation has over 8,500 investors pooling £30m to fund social finance for fair trade enterprises in developing countries.

On 16 January Cheng registered a new charity, SharedImpact, of which he is co-founder and trustee. According to its Facebook page the charity is "an online marketplace that enables individuals to invest directly in impact investment funds (IIFs), which in turn lend money to charities and social enterprises around the world. The aim is to increase the total amount of capital in the impact investment space. SharedImpact aspires to be the Kiva of impact investment."

Cheng has previously been a lawyer for an international law firm and a business strategist with Microsoft.

On the announcement of Cheng's departure, CAF chief executive John Low said: "We are grateful for the positive contributions that Paul made to the development of CAF Venturesome and to the social investment market more widely."

Cheng was not available to comment at time of publication.