Maria López Conde is an Associate Operations Officer with the Global Transport team, part of the Infrastructure Department at IFC. In her role, Maria covers transport sector trends for the investment team’s business, strategy, portfolio, communications and knowledge-sharing activities. Most recently, she has led her team’s knowledge creation and dissemination efforts, authoring a series of thought pieces on the impact of COVID-19 on various transport subsectors, such as airports and logistics. Her current focus is on increasing the environmental and social impact of transport projects at IFC through sustainability-linked financing and new technologies, such as electric vehicles.
Prior to joining IFC, Maria worked as a researcher for corporate, fraud and corruption investigations in Brazil and the Southern Cone. Before that, she was a correspondent at major news outlets in Brazil and the United States covering culture, economics, and politics. Maria has an M.A. in International Development and International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University – Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced Studies (SAIS) in Bologna, Italy and Washington, DC. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia with a B.A. in Political Science and a French Studies minor. She is a dual citizen of Nicaragua and Brazil. In her spare time, Maria enjoys healthy cooking, gardening and yoga.