Robert (Bob) Bestani has been appointed as a Visiting Scholar at the Collaboratory. Bob will participate in several studies related to infrastructure finance, public-private partnerships, and multilateral financial institutions.

Bob Bestani recently stepped down as Director General for Private Sector Finance at the Asian Development Bank. During his six years at the ADB, the Private Sector Department helped finance over two-hundred projects across thirty four Asian countries, investing over $6 billion of its own funds.

Prior to joining the ADB he was a Managing Director and Senior Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP. For most of his career, he has been in International Banking and Corporate Finance, working at Citibank, Texaco, Bank of America, and Duke Energy. Bob has long covered the High Tech, Petroleum/Oil & Gas and Power Industries.

Bob also served in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. His principal responsibilities included: the G-7 negotiations and the Paris and Houston Presidential Summit Meetings, several international trade and financial services negotiations, US-IMF policy coordination, the management of America's $40 billion foreign currency reserve position, policy coordination with Federal Reserve, etc.

Bob has also repeatedly worked as a financial consultant to the People's Republic of China and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has authored numerous articles on finance, energy and the multinational development banks and has been the featured speaker at over fifty international conferences.

Bob holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago and BA in Economics and Computer Science from Rutgers University.

Posted by rjorr at October 31, 2008 4:15 PM