Yolanda is a Practice Manager in the Solutions and Innovations in Procurement (SIP) Department of the World Bank’s Governance Global Practice (GGP-SIP) where she leads the Bank’s public procurement reform efforts in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries and oversees the delivery of the procurement function in the entire regional portfolio.
Yolanda was a recipient of the 2017 World Bank Group Staff Association Excellence in Leadership Award, a distinction granted to about a dozen managers on a yearly basis. She led the coordination of the implementation of the new Procurement Framework Bank-wide on behalf of SIP. Yolanda has worked in all six World Bank regions supporting Bank operations in health, education, power, roads and water sectors, among others. She has led the development of a number of World Bank Group procurement policy publications, such as standard bidding documents and technical guidance notes, and directed the dissemination strategy and capacity building efforts of those publications. Her World Bank publication, Battling HIV/AIDS: a Decision Maker’s Guide to the Procurement of Medicines and Related Supplies, was a groundbreaking compendium that unblocked Bank financing to increase access to life-saving antiretroviral drugs in the developing world.
Yolanda is from Panama and she holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Boston College and an Industrial and Systems Engineering degree from the Technological Institute of Monterrey, Mexico.