About the blog

Kelle Bevine

Kelle Bevine es jefa de estrategia en el departamento de Finanzas Estructuradas y Corportativas del BID. En su puesto, gerencia un equipo de profesionales que facilitan un mayor impacto social y medioambiental en las operaciones del sector privado del BID, trabajando con clientes para idear inversiones que conduzcan a un desempeño de negocios sostenible. Anteriormente, Bevine fue consejera del director ejecutivo del BID e hizo carrera en el Departamento del Tesoro de Estados Unidos, la Casa Blanca y Dean Witter en Nueva York. Bevine ostenta un master en economía internacional por la Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Laura Giraldo

Laura has over 8 years of experience working in operations, strategy, and project management at IDB and the private sector. Prior to joining the Advisory Service Team as Gender, Diversity, and Inclusion Officer, she structured blended financed transactions that focused on increasing access to finance to women entrepreneurs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Prior to this, Laura worked at UberEATS as an Operations Specialist helping them optimize processes for the opening of new markets in the US. She has also worked for BID Lab in gender projects, and for the Grants Co-financing management unit at the IDB providing analysis and fund reporting to donors. She holds an MBA from IE Business School, and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Florida at Gainesville.

Laura Goyeneche

Laura Goyeneche is a consultant for the Social Protection and Health Division of the IDB, where she provides technical support in governance and data analytics. Prior to joining the IDB, Laura worked at Urban Labs at the University of Chicago providing technical support for juvenile justice analysis. She also worked at Fedesarrollo, supporting the calculation of public spending on drug policy and the estimation of the illegal gambling market in Colombia. Laura has a Master's Degree in Analytics and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.

Leonardo Mazzei

Leonardo leads stakeholders’ engagement and non-financial risk management in high-risk high-reward projects at IDB Invest. He coordinates institutional and operational-facing engagement activities and partnerships to accelerate the private sector's adoption of sustainability solutions and best practices. Leonardo is a sustainability expert with over 20 years of experience leading regional and global impact investing initiatives involving multilateral development agencies, government, private sector, and non-profit organizations to advance sustainable development. He has extensive experience dealing with political and business leaders during economic reform, public-private partnerships, and project finance in over 40 countries. Before this role, Leonardo was Head of Communications at IDB Invest supporting private sector investments in Latin America and the Caribbean. Before the IDB, he worked as Senior Communications Officer for the World Bank, leading stakeholder engagement interventions in Africa, Central, and East Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, focusing on infrastructure, energy, governance, and private-public partnerships. He has authored four books on the role of communication to enhance sustainability performance.

Leonardo Shibata

Leonardo Shibata is a Health Specialist at the IDB with 10 years of experience in international organizations. A physiotherapist by training, he holds a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University. He previously worked at Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, renowned as one of the top healthcare institutions in Latin America, and at the Ministry of Health of Brazil, where he contributed to programs improving access to rehabilitation services for people with disabilities and increasing physician availability in remote areas. His expertise lies in health data analysis and health systems and services planning.

Liliana Castilleja-Vargas

Liliana is a country economist for Bolivia in the Andean Countries Department (CAN) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Previously, Liliana served as Peru's country economist and regional economist in the Southern Cone Countries Department (CSC) at IDB headquarters in Washington. Before joining the IDB, she held senior economist and finance positions at BBVA-Research, ECLAC/UN, and the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) in Mexico. Liliana has a PhD in Economics from the University of Nottingham, UK, and a Masters in Finance and a BA in Economics, both from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). Liliana is the author and co-author of several publications and articles on economic, financial, and socioeconomic development issues.

Liliana Olarte Rodríguez

Liliana Olarte es Oficial de la División de Efectividad en el Desarrollo de BID Invest. Actualmente trabaja en conjunto con los clientes de la organización realizando testeos experimentales de soluciones innovadoras y evaluaciones de impacto rigurosas de proyectos aprobados. Adicionalmente, apoya el diseño de proyectos para maximizar su impacto en el desarrollo, brindando apoyo técnico en su conceptualización y mediante el diseño de análisis costo-beneficio y planes de monitoreo y evaluación. Antes de incorporarse a la organización, Liliana se desempeñó como consultora del Banco Mundial en Yakarta (Indonesia), de la División de Integración y Comercio del BID en Washington, y como investigadora de Fedesarrollo y de la Universidad de Los Andes en Bogotá (Colombia). Liliana es Economista e Ingeniera Industrial de la Universidad de Los Andes y tiene una maestría en Administración Pública y Desarrollo Económico de la Universidad de Harvard en los Estados Unidos.

Lina María Rojas Cuéllar

Lina Rojas is a workout expert and business engineer with 15 years of experience in international business transactions. She is responsible for managing impaired loans, guarantees and equity investments. She enforces the IDB Invest’s rights and preserves its capital via negotiations, recoveries and restructurings of non-performing loans and equity positions. Due to her extensive knowledge in this area, she also works in disseminating the "lessons learned" to all IDB Invest. Lina joined the IDB in 2013. She previously worked as a manager in what is today Itau Banco in Colombia. Lina obtained an MBA from American University’s Kogod School of Business and an Industrial Engineer Degree (BS) from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia.

Lorenzo Colombo

Lorenzo Colombo leads the Digital Strategy business unit for Colombia at NTT DATA. In his professional career, he has held various executive positions in Colombia, the United States, and Latin America, helping clients in their transformation processes through consulting in strategy, operations, and evolution towards new technologies. He holds a degree in Electronic Engineering from the Universidad de los Andes and postgraduate degrees in Business Administration and Corporate Finance.

Lucas de Beaufort

Lucas de Beaufort is a Principal Investment Officer for the Investment Funds team at IDB Invest, where he invests in private equity funds and multi-sector debt throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Lucas has more than 25 years of experience in debt and equity in Latin America. Before joining the IDB Group in 2019, he was responsible for raising and investing the Central American Mezzanine Infrastructure Funds (CAMIF I & II) in LAP Latin American Partners. Lucas also served as Head of Investor Relations. He previously co-managed a $1 billion Latin infrastructure fund at EMP Global. Prior to that, he was Investment Officer for Latin America at the Dutch development bank FMO. Lucas completed a Master's degree in Corporate Law from Leiden University in the Netherlands and a Master's degree in International Economics and Latin American Studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where he was a Fulbright scholar.

Lucas Figal Garone

Lucas Figal Garone is Lead Economist of Development Impact for Latin America and the Caribbean at IDB Invest, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

He has more than 15 years of experience leading the design, monitoring, and evaluation of public and private sector development projects with the aim of maximizing their impact. He also leads economic analyses, studies, impact assessments, and testing of innovative solutions for the generation and dissemination of knowledge linked to the operational experience of IDB Invest, its clients, and the public-private sector in the region.

Previously, he worked in the Competitiveness, Technology, and Innovation Division, and the Strategic Planning and Development Effectiveness Division at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington, D.C.

Lucas is also Visiting Professor in the Economics Department at the Universidad de San Andrés (UdeSA) and coordinator of the SIDPA productive development initiative.

His areas of expertise and interest include development economics, productive development, impact evaluation, and applied economics. His recent research includes publications in World Development, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Research Policy, The Journal of Development Studies, Small Business Economics, Research in Economics, Journal of Development Effectiveness, Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, IDB WP Series, IDB Invest Development through the Private Sector Series, and chapters in several books.

He holds a PhD in Economics from UdeSA, where he also obtained his Master's degree in Economics, after completing his Bachelor's degree in Economics at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).

Lucas Navarro

Lucas Navarro is an external consultant in the Development Effectiveness Division of IDB Invest and in the Competitiveness, Technology, and Innovation Division of the IDB. He has worked as an academic in the economics departments of Queen Mary University of London, Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Chile), and Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina), where he has published in specialized academic journals, such as The Economic Journal, Review of Economic Dynamics, and Economics Letters, among others. He has experience leading research projects in the areas of productive development, productivity, and innovation, and in the intersection of these topics with labor economics. Lucas also has experience in the design, execution, cost-benefit analysis, and impact evaluations of development projects. He holds a degree in economics from the National University of Córdoba and a PhD and Master's degree in Economics from Georgetown University.