Nancy Lee is a senior fellow and Director for Sustainable Development Finance at the Center for Global Development. She is also a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Her work at CGD focuses on the role and performance of multilateral development banks and development finance institutions, mobilizing private development finance, blended finance, sovereign debt restructuring architecture, public-private infrastructure finance, and gender lens investing.
Previously, she was the deputy chief executive officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an innovative, independent US aid agency that fights poverty through country compacts that support inclusive growth. Key MCC attributes are rigorous country selection, country ownership of compacts, data-driven resource allocation, results accountability, and transparency.
Prior to joining MCC, Dr. Lee was the general manager (CEO) of the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) at the Inter-American Development Bank, the Bank’s laboratory for private sector-led development and a key impact investor in the region. Under Dr. Lee's leadership, the MIF launched initiatives in lending to women-owned SMEs; a public-private partnership to scale youth job training programs; a program to introduce social impact bonds to the region; innovative climate finance models; and a crowdsourcing platform for development solutions.
Previously, Dr. Lee served at the US Treasury Department, where she was deputy assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere and for Europe and Eurasia. She led Treasury’s work to put financial inclusion, SME finance, and women’s access to finance on the G20 agenda. She co-chaired the G20 SME Finance Group and led the development of the G20 SME Finance Challenge and the SME Finance Innovation Fund. She was a Treasury negotiator in the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. Dr. Lee is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and holds a PhD and an MA in economics from Tufts University and a BA in economics from Wellesley College.
