Lisa Finneran is Director for Innovation at the World Bank Group. In collaboration with units across the Group, she is responsible for leading innovation initiatives that help strengthen the implementation of the World Bank Group’s “Evolution Agenda” and for building a collaborative and experimental innovation ecosystem within the institution.
Since joining the World Bank in 2022, Lisa has worked across its finance, operations and knowledge functions. Previous positions include Senior Adviser in the Office of the Senior Managing Director responsible for Development Policy and Partnerships, Director of Strategy and Operations in the office of the Managing Director of Operations, Director for IDA Resource Mobilization, Director of IBRD Corporate Finance, Advisor to the CFO.
Prior to her current role, the most significant innovation she led was when she found herself out of her comfort zone upon being appointed as Director for IDA Resource Mobilization in 2014. Following two and a half intense years of extensive efforts across the Bank and with shareholders, IDA converted to a hybrid funding model that leverages donor contributions with funding from capital markets backed by a AAA credit rating. This increased its financial support to low-income countries by more than 50%, and launched multiple other innovations as part of the IDA18 replenishment, including the IDA-IFC-MIGA Private Sector Window, the IDA Scale Up window, the Refugee and Host Country window, and allowed IDA to provide transition financing to graduating countries for the first time. Lisa also played a central role in the 2018 WBG capital increase negotiations, which generated $100 billion additional financing over ten years for middle-income countries.
Prior to joining the World Bank, Lisa worked in the Washington and Jakarta offices of McKinsey and Company, and was Lecturer in Economics at the University of Oxford, at Trinity College, Dublin and at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.
An Irish citizen, she holds Masters and Doctorate degrees in Economics from the University of Oxford (St. John’s College) and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Trinity College, Dublin.