Courtney Ashley Vaughan is the Acting Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Ag Tec Australasia, Inc. She is the visionary leader behind the Team Interns Jamaica Summer 2019 Program. For almost two decades, Ms. Vaughan served as the principal consultant of Washington-DC based, boutique strategy-consulting firm, Courtney Vaughan, LLC. She also served for seven of those years as the Chief Economist and Managing Director of a full-service economic consulting firm, leveraging her Wall Street and international development banking experience to lead teams and bring multiple resources to support major investments in developing countries’ financial sector and infrastructures (agriculture, education, energy, health, transportation “ports, rail, air”, telecommunications, water, and housing).
Ms. Vaughan is a multi-sectoral and multi-skilled technocrat and an out-of-the-box thinker who advises leaders in the financial, private, and government sectors about financing strategies to support growth and transformation. She is an effective coordinator, due diligence expert, and negotiator who understands how organizations, money and markets work. Over the last two decades, Ms. Vaughan led several missions to Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East on behalf of the World Bank and private sector stakeholders, serving in various capacities on high-level and complex business initiatives across 40 countries, worldwide. She has served as Special Economic Advisor, Chief Strategist, Transaction Advisor, Chief Financial Officer, and Lead Financial Advisor to take projects from concept to market. She is a leading advisor in the West African sub-regional electricity infrastructure advisory space. She single-handily developed the five-year strategic plan (2006-2011) and accompanying three-year business plan (2006-2009) to institutionalize the West African Power Pool (WAPP), under the Public and Private Infrastructure Facility (PPIF) at the World Bank. (WAPP is the largest power pool in the world, operating as an independent chartered subsidiary under the Economic Community of West African State; serving around 370 million persons). WAPP business plan serves as the building block that supports all subsequent WAPP business plans since the inception of the WAPP institution in 2006 in the Republic of Benin (ecowapp.org).) Ms. Vaughan also served four Wall Street-based financial institutions, including Chase Manhattan Bank and Bank of New York where she provided operational-level support for billions of dollars in syndicated loans and contributed to the restructuring of sovereign debt for Latin American countries under the Brady Bonds Guidelines. She also served the World Bank as a consultant in the Private and Financial Sector Development Units and the Energy Department in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Europe and Central Asia (ECA) regions. In those capacities, she developed the baseline reports assessing the macroeconomic and financial sector vulnerability for eight ECA countries after Russia defaulted on its domestic debt in 1998. She drafted the baseline for the first comprehensive private and financial sector development reports for seven countries in MENA. She co-anchored MENA Private and Financial Sector Unit during the formation of the Global Development Gateway and participated in the preliminary digital readiness assessment of several MENA countries.
Ms. Vaughan speaks on and moderates panels about strategy, investment, capital markets, international trade, energy sector development, economic transformation, institutional building and transformation, and innovative finance to scale projects and businesses. She has led high-level discussions, offering perspectives and solutions to complex economic issues facing Africa’s development to heads of state, including a former President of Nigeria. She has hosted, led, and facilitated discussions between African governments and Capitol Hill (Washington, DC, USA), including a discussion with Senator Biden’s office and the Justice Minister of Equatorial Guinea on human rights issues; developed and presented a housing sector development plan to the President of Equatorial Guinea on behalf of a US developer; hosted and led a round-table discussion on innovative technologies to strengthen central bank infrastructure with five director-level personnel from the Central Bank of Nigeria, on behalf of United States Trade and Development Agency, developed a housing sector development program for a rural state in Nigeria, and coordinated and facilitated discussions with the Government of Nigeria and key personnel in the U.S. Department of Transportation, as well as key personnel at the World Bank and other Washington catalytic institutions on behalf of both public and private sector stakeholders. Ms. Vaughan has also led strategic discussions with the commissioners for Nigeria’s pension and insurance industries as well as director level personnel at the CBN during a due diligence mission to Nigeria to support the acquisition of a Nigeria-based bank. She has represented private sector stakeholders to key catalytic institutions in Washington, including but not limited to World Bank, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), and United States Export Import Bank (EXIM) to support multimillion-dollar investments in African economies. She was the US-based financial adviser that spear headed discussions between Washington-based institutions (USEXIM, World Bank ”IFC”; USAID) to support the proposed USD$4 billion oil-pipeline project that was earmarked to be constructed between Southern Sudan and Kenya.
Ms. Vaughan is a member of The Bretton Woods Committee, a board member of National Math Foundation (serving as Chief Financial Officer/Treasurer), chairs the Board of Directors of Welcome To Africa International, Ltd (a London-based firm in the agriculture investment and advisory space), a member of the Board of Advisors of Emerald Planet International Foundation as well as a member of the Advisory Board of Power Corp Holdings Limited (a fintech company in the asset-backed crypto, data mining and solar energy space). Ms. Vaughan served --as a three-term -- board member of Women in Housing and Finance (WHF) -- the oldest women led membership organization in Washington, DC --specializing in the financial sector regulatory space for over 40 years. During her board tenor, she served as Secretary of WHF Executive Board (July 2017 to June 2018). She also served on WHF Strategic Planning Committee, as Chief Communications Strategist (July 2017-June 2018), and chaired WHF Membership Committee and Partnership Committee (July 2015 through June 2017) as well as established WHF Mentorship Sub-Committee and Young Professional Sub-Committee during her tenor as a Board member. She previously served as a member of the Advisory Council for Natural Partners and is a past board member of the University of the West Indies, Washington DC Alumni Chapter. During her academic career, Ms. Vaughan taught Mathematics at State University of New York, Maritime College, and Finance at George Washington University. She holds a BA degree in Economics from Fordham University and MPA degree in Advanced Policy Analysis Techniques from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. She also studied graduate level economics at Fordham University, New York University and Columbia University and holds a certificate in Managing Fiscal Risks from World Bank Institute.
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