Bloggers
Raj Nallari is a Lead Economist and Practice Leader for the Growth and Crisis Program of the World Bank Institute. During these 15 years of service in the international financial institutions, he has worked in country operations (in Africa, Caribbean and South Asia regions) of the World Bank and the Policy Development and Review of the IMF. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas at Austin and has co-authored a book published by Oxford University Press, several monographs and articles on development policy issues.
Otaviano Canuto is Vice President and Head of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) Network, a division of more than 700 economists and other professionals working on economic policy, poverty reduction, and analytic work for the World Bank’s client countries. He took up his position on May 4, 2009, after serving as the Vice President for Countries at the Inter-American Development Bank since June 2007.
Dr. Canuto provides strategic leadership and direction to Regional PREM units as well as groups working on economic policy formulation in the area of growth and poverty, debt, trade, gender, and public sector management and governance. He is also involved in managing the Bank’s overall interactions with key partner institutions including the IMF, the OECD and regional development banks.
Dr. Canuto was Executive Director at the Board of the World Bank in 2004-2007. He also served in the Brazilian Ministry of Finance, where he was Secretary for International Affairs. He was Professor of Economics at the University of São Paulo and University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil.
Shahrokh Fardoust is currently Director, Operations and Strategy, in Development Economics Vice Presidency, at the World Bank. Prior to his current position he served as Senior Adviser to Director-General, the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank Group, and from 2001to 2006 he severed as Senior Economic Adviser to the Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. At the Bank since 1987, Mr. Fardoust has served in a number of operational assignments, including the Lead Economist for India, where he led a team of experts responsible for the economic policy dialogue with states of India. Before coming to the Bank, he held positions at the U.N. Secretariat, New York, as a visiting lecturer in Economics at Wharton School and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Iran. Mr. Fardoust has a Ph.D in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Yevgeny Kuznetsov has joined the World Bank in 1995 from Brookings Institution. A specialist in technological innovation, he focuses on political economy of reforms of innovation and higher education systems in middle income economies and India. He has acquired a unique perspective on reforms which blends insights of a practitioner (through cross-support to lending operations in Argentina, Chile, India, Mexico, Russia and other economies) and a scholar (more than 20 articles and books on innovation and knowledgebased growth). In recent years he also focuses on diasporas of highly skilled as change agents to promote institutional development in home countries.
Mauricio Leyva is a native New Yorker of Colombian and Peruvian descent. He earned the Posse Foundation full-tuition scholarship to attend Lafayette College and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs. He then received a scholarship to attend Babson College's Business Edge Program that teaches entrepreneurship. From there he started at an entry level job at Lehman Brothers. After the financial crisis he went to work at the World Bank where he is currently a Junior Professional Associate with the Growth & Crisis Group. On his free time he serves on the board of the National Society of Hispanic MBA's for the DC Chapter and also serves on the Washington, DC's Posse Foundation board. Mauricio is passionate about finance, capital markets, business, international development, and education.
Jean-Christophe Maur is a Senior Economist in the Growth and Competitiveness Program at the World Bank Institute. His current responsibilities in WBI include leading the regional integration program and contributing to the Development Debates platform. Jean-Christophe joined the World Bank in 2008 from the UK Department of International Development, where he was in charge of UK trade negotiations in several areas, and also of managing multilateral trade assistance. His research interests are regional trade integration and public goods, trade facilitation and non-tariff barriers, intellectual property rights, and trade institutions. Jean-Christophe has a Doctorate from Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, and is a graduate of Essec business school. He was also a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University.
Salomon Samen is a member of the World Bank Institute (WBI) Trade Group of the World Bank. Before joining WBI, he was Regional Trade Coordinator in the Africa region. He joined the World Bank in 1986 through the Young Professionals Program, and has had a variety of assignments in the World Bank including: Country Economist, Trade economist, Industrial economist, Regional trade Economist, and Country Manager. As a Trade Economist in the early 90s, he pioneered the formulation and conceptualization of the framework of Trade and Fiscal policy reforms in Central Africa and Western Africa. He led and/or was involved in several World Bank adjustment or investment operations in the Africa region for nearly 20 years. Since 2005 he has been teaching and organizing training for senior policy makers across the globe with a special focus on South Asia, Latin America and Africa.
Salomon holds an award winning Ph.D. in Economics (France, 1984) with specialization in Trade Policy and Industrial Development, and two Master’s degrees: a Master of Science in Finance (George Washington University, US,1998); and a MA in Economics (University of Yaoundé, Cameroon, 1982). Prior to joining the World Bank, he taught trade and growth at Universities in France and Cameroon.
Ravi Yatawara is a Senior Economist in the Growth and Competitiveness Program at the World Bank Institute. He is the manager of the World Trade Indicators 2010 project and has been working on the impact of the global recession on developing countries, and their policy responses to it. His research interest are in political economy of trade reform, competitiveness, trade and poverty, gender, the interaction between trade and macroeconomic policies and regional integration. He has held faculty positions at Columbia University and the University of Delaware, and has also worked for the government of Sri Lanka. He received a B.A (Phi Beta Kappa) from Reed College, and a Phd in Economics from Columbia University.
