Our Board

Cecilia Akintomide is a seasoned expert in Development Finance, Corporate Governance, and Law. She was Vice President Secretary General of the African Development Bank, and served as Head of Public and Private Sector Projects and Policy in the General Counsel and Legal Services Department of the Bank.  She is an Independent Director on the Boards of (i) CcHUB Growth Capital, Nigeria’s first social innovation fund, supporting high potential early-stage businesses; (ii) SWAgCo, an agricultural sector investment company; and (iii) Ondo State Development and Investment Promotion Agency (ONDIPA), a state government agency, focused on promoting development and investments. Cecilia is a member of the Board of Regents of Covenant University, one of Nigeria’s leading universities, and the Board of Trustees of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library. She was also an Independent Non-Executive Director on the Board of FBN Holdings Plc., one of Africa’s leading financial services holding companies, headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, and operating in various African countries and the United Kingdom. Cecilia is also a member of the Institute of Directors, Nigeria.  

Cecilia practiced law in Lagos, Washington D.C., and New York, at the law firms of O. Thomas & Co.; Thompson & Co.; and Weil, Gotshal & Manges, with a focus on Business Reorganizations, Corporate Law and Commercial Law.  She holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Ife (now OAU); Master of Laws from the University of Miami Law School; Master of Laws from the University of Pennsylvania Law School; and an Executive MBA from TRIUM (a combined program by LSE, NYU and HEC). She was also admitted to the Nigerian Bar and the New York State Bar.

Cecilia is an ardent champion of girls and women’s economic empowerment, and is passionate about corporate governance, sustainable development, as well as innovation and entrepreneurship.  She is a member of WIMBIZ (Women in Management and Business and Public Service), and serves on the WimBoard Committee and the WimBiz Endowment Fund Committee. She mentors, is a deacon, and a member of the church choir. She received gold and bronze medals in swimming, and was accorded the National Award of the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) by the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in recognition of her contribution to sustainable development.  In addition, in 2019, Cecilia received the African Business Law Icon of the year award. 

Former Assistant Secretary-General and UN Women’s Deputy Executive Director for Resource Management, UN System Coordination, Sustainability and Partnerships. 
Ms. Anita Bhatia served as the Assistant Secretary-General and UN Women’s Deputy Executive  Director. 
Before joining UN Women, Ms. Bhatia has had a distinguished career at the World Bank Group,  serving in various senior leadership and management positions, both at Headquarters and in the field. She brings extensive experience in international development, strategy,  resource mobilization, strategic partnerships and organizational change management. In various positions, she led teams to deliver significant resources for scaled-up impact, including at the country level, and to craft innovative partnerships to advance development agendas and has made significant contributions to the evolving discourse on development finance. She has led diverse teams, including as Global Head of Knowledge Management, Head of Business Process  Improvement and Head of Change Management. In addition to Latin America, she has worked in  Africa, Europe, Central Asia and South and East Asia. 
Ms. Bhatia holds a BA in History from Calcutta University, an MA in Political Science from Yale  University and a Juris Doctor in Law from Georgetown University.

Jennifer Blanke is an expert on economic development and development finance who serves as a non-executive board member in not-for-profit and development-focused entities. She is former Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development of the African Development Bank Group, based in Cote d’Ivoire, where she was responsible for overseeing the Bank’s strategy, lending and programming for a significant share of the Bank’s activities including agriculture and agroindustry; water management and sanitation; and education and healthcare, as well as the cross-cutting themes of job creation and gender empowerment. Prior to that she was Chief Economist at the World Economic Forum, in Geneva, overseeing economic research activities and analysis and represented the World Economic Forum externally on key global economic issues, and with a particular focus on economic development and inclusive growth. Before joining the World Economic Forum, she worked as a management consultant in the banking and financial sector for Eurogroup Consulting (Mazars Group) in Paris. Jennifer was until 2019 a member of the Canadian Government’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth. She holds a BA in International Relations from Hamilton College; a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University; and a PhD in International Economics from the Graduate Institute, Geneva.

Hank has served in many areas of environmental business and policy. His career in the environmental policy world has included leadership positions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as COO (Deputy Administrator) under President George H. W. Bush. During his time with the EPA he oversaw the development of innovative air and water programs to prevent pollution, including the development of the Energy Star program and implementation of market based trading programs under the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. He has also served at the U.S. Department of Justice as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Environment and Natural Resources Division.

In economic development and investing, Hank served as Principal of Global Water 2020 focused on enhancing public-private WASH partnerships and he currently is Co-Founder of the Water Finance Exchange. Hank has served as Senior Vice President in charge of acquisitions and other divisions of Safety-Kleen, a billion-dollar environmental service company. He has also served as Managing Partner of SAIL Capital Partners and Vice President of William D. Ruckelshaus Associates, which co-managed the successful Environmental Venture Fund. As Co-Founder of Capital E, LLC, a strategic consultancy, he advised Fortune 100 and early-stage ventures on sustainable growth strategies. He also previously served as CEO of the Global Environment & Technology Foundation (GETF).

Hank has served as Commissioner of the National Commission on Energy Policy, and on the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, and has served on the Advisory Board to the National Renewable Energy Lab and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.  

Other positions include serving as Board Member of the US Water Alliance, Managing Director of the US Water Partnership, Chairman of the Board of WaterHealth International, Co-Founder of the American Council on Renewable Energy and Member of the Board of the Global Water Challenge. In 1991 the EPA awarded him with the Total Quality Leadership Award and in 2009 he received the national Richard Mellon Award for Environmental Stewardship. Hank holds a Bachelors degree with High Honors from Princeton University   and a J.D. from the University of Virginia.

Jingdong Hua is currently the Vice-Chair of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). Mr. Hua was Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank, and also served as the Pension Finance Administrator of the World Bank Group.

As Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank, he was responsible for the capital markets operations and oversaw an annual funding program of US$60 to 70 billion through debt issuances of IBRD and IDA. He led a global team of capital markets professionals in the prudent management of US$200 billion debt portfolio; US$170 billion asset portfolio managed for the World Bank Group and over 70 clients. He headed the World Bank Treasury’s capacity building, advisory and capital market intermediation services in financial analytics, asset management, and financial solutions for its clients.

As Pension Finance Administrator of the World Bank Group, he supervised the investment and administration of the World Bank Groups pension plans—with US$30 billion assets under management invested in a diverse pool of asset classes including fixed income, public and private equities, real estate and alternatives.

Mr. Hua was previously Vice President and Treasurer of IFC, where he established a global treasury and focused on the development of local currency debt capital markets and innovative financial products and solutions. During his tenure, IFC has significantly increased its local currency financing capacity to benefit private sector clients. He led market-opening and innovative bond issuances and structured financial products in emerging markets including Rwanda, Nigeria, Indonesia, Colombia, Uzbekistan, and India. He also significantly enhanced IFC’s loan syndications and co-investment program which has mobilised over US$60 billion for private sector development.

Prior to IFC, Mr. Hua served as Deputy Treasurer at the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) in Manila. He previously held various positions in the treasury departments of AsDB, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in New York, and the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Abidjan.

A Chinese national, he started his career in 1983 with China National Chemical Construction Corporation. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Qingdao University of Science and Technology, an MBA Finance from the University of Texas at Arlington and a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Columbia University. 

Monish Mahurkar is currently Head of Climate Transition at ARGA Investment Management LP, a global value manager serving institutional clients with demonstrated ESG leadership. In this role, he leads a team focused on building sector and technology frameworks to help analyse portfolio companies’ decarbonization strategies.  

Prior to joining ARGA, Monish served as Vice President of Corporate Strategy & Resources at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group (WBG) till June 2021. In this position Monish led the alignment of IFC’s corporate strategy leveraging critical enabling resources with oversight of departments responsible for Strategy and Stakeholder Engagement, Human Resources, Budget, and Administration as well as Information Technology.

Since 2015, he was actively involved as IFC’s lead on a series of strategic WBG initiatives, including Financing for Development, IDA18 Private Sector Window, Voice Reform, Forward Look and Capital Increase. He played a key role in shaping IFC’s 3.0 strategy and the Capital Increase Policy Package.   

As a member of IFC’s management team, Monish provided active leadership to the institution’s strategic and people related programs and deliverables including as a member of IFC’s Upstream Steering Committee and the Blended Finance Committee, as well as Chair of the Information Technology Steering Group and the HR Sounding Board. He also represented IFC on WBG corporate committees including as Co-Chair of the Committee on Diversity & Inclusion and member of the Global Crisis Response Platform, the Real Estate Council, Corporate Procurement, Internal Justice and Corporate Responsibility committees. 

Previously Monish was IFC’s Director of Treasury Market Operations (2014-17) with oversight of IFC’s substantial funding program and its liquid assets and cash portfolios. Prior to that, as Director of Treasury Client Solutions (2012-14) he led a team focused on local-currency financing and capital markets development through innovative transactions in various countries. Monish has extensive experience in emerging markets including Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa with application of a range of financial instruments including bonds, derivatives, and structured products from both an issuer and investor perspective. He has managed substantial risk, revenues and balance sheets at Citibank Tokyo, Citigroup New York and IFC in Washington DC. 

With over 35 years of international banking and development finance experience at technical, managerial, and senior leadership levels – across the private sector as well as at multilateral institutions – Monish has successfully led businesses and teams of high calibre professionals in different cultural environments across Mumbai, London, Tokyo, New York, Manila and Washington DC holding senior positions at Citibank, Merrill Lynch, ADB and IFC. He has demonstrated leadership and commitment to internal and external clients, stakeholders, regulators, and policy makers with significant engagement in strategic initiatives including at IFC and World Bank Group. 

Monish holds a BA (Hon) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

United Nations Assistant Secretary-General (IFAD) and IFAD Associate Vice-President and General Counsel (2017 – current) as well as former Acting Chief Financial Officer (May 2022-April 2023), Katherine (Katie) Meighan has 25+ years of international development experience. 

As part of the IFAD senior management team, Katie sets the IFAD’s strategy to double its impact for the rural poor while scaling up climate adaptation, private sector lending, and IT for development. She leads complex initiatives including amending IFAD’s Articles to enable private sector lending, lending to sub-national entities, creating a unique impact investment fund for small farmers, and attaining IFAD’s historic AA+ credit rating (as the first UN fund to be rated). 

Katie is a strong champion of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, having co-created the strategy at IFAD, one of the first UN organizations to do so.

Before joining IFAD, Katie was Assistant General Counsel at IFC (2012-2017), leading the legal teams on Financial Institutions, Treasury, and global restructurings as well as focusing on women empowerment by co-leading the establishment of the IFC Women’s Network and IFC Diversity & Inclusion Council; during her 17 years’ tenure at IFC, Katie held assignments in Buenos Aires, Istanbul, and Washington, working on investments in emerging markets, restructuring/workout transactions as well as designing and teaching legal courses to banking and legal Staff.

Before joining the IFI arena, she practised law with a global firm in Washington and Paris focusing on international transactions and capital markets work for financial institutions.

Mr. Rakesh Nangia has more than 30 years of development experience serving at both the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank. He has lived in 9 countries and has experience of managing development programs in four regions (Africa, East Asia, Eastern Europe, South Asia) across more than 40 countries and multiple sectors.

Rakesh served as the Evaluator General at the African Development Bank from 2012-2018 where he led the transformation and revitalization of the evaluation function. Overseeing the preparation of more than 50 high-level evaluations, he helped AfDB reform institutional structures, policies and procedures to strengthen development outcomes.

Prior to this, he spent more than 25 years at the World Bank, where he held several senior positions. As Director of Strategy and Operations (Deputy Vice President) for the global Human Development Network he was responsible for guiding the World Bank’s global program in health, education, and social protection. He also served as Director of Operations and Ag Vice-President for the World Bank Institute, where he led more than 300 staff in reinventing the business model to better deliver on individual and institutional capacity across the world. While living in Hanoi, he was responsible for managing the World Bank Portfolio in Vietnam, where he grew the lending five-fold in six years to US$1.5 billion per year through innovative programming. In Tanzania, he was responsible for leading the preparation of several strategy documents and country/economic analysis as well as reforming the World Bank lending and knowledge portfolio.

He is currently a Partner and Chief Operating Officer at the Centennial Group, a global strategic, policy advisory and international development firm that provides actionable advice and support on a wide range of development and institutional issues. He also serves on a five member UNDP Audit and Evaluation Committee.