Martha Martinez Licetti is the Practice Manager of the Global Markets, Competition, and Technology Unit of the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation Global Practice at the World Bank Group. In this role, she focuses on delivering global solutions tailored to country circumstances combining advisory, analytical, and lending support in the areas of markets, competition and state-owned enterprises, innovation & technology, and sustainable sectors.
With over 20 years of experience in competition policy, economic regulation, and reforms to enable private sector-led growth, she has successfully promoted economy-wide and sectoral reforms in more than 60 client countries around the world. She previously served as Lead Economist at the World Bank’s Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice and Economic Advisor on trade and competitiveness. She has held leading positions in the private and public sector, including at the competition authority and the telecommunications regulator in her native Peru.
Since 2020, she leads the World Bank programmatic engagement on the Businesses of the State to understand the role of the state footprint in markets aiming to redefine the instruments and tools to engage in reforms. She has published journal articles, books, and World Bank reports and flagships on issues related to competition policy, the role of the state in markets, trade, investment and market regulation, telecommunications, and digital platforms.
Martha also served as Global Lead for Markets and Competition, where she created the competition policy practice from scratch and led the WBG’s work in the areas of product market regulation, antitrust enforcement, competitive neutrality, and state aid policies. In this position, she developed global knowledge and external partnerships with OECD, UNCTAD, the International Competition Network and the Africa Competition Forum including joint flagships such as A Step Ahead: Competition Policy for Shared Prosperity and Inclusive Growth, the ACF-WBG Breaking Down Barriers to Competition, the World Bank Group-ICN Competition Advocacy Initiative and the WBG Markets and Competition Policy Assessment Toolkit that promoted reforms in over 50 countries.