Courtney Ashley Vaughan has over twenty years experience working with corporate and international finance, financial instruments, institutions, and markets.  Ms. Vaughan leverages her investment and development banking experience to lead the Courtney Vaughan LLC team with major investment and divestment opportunities in the United States, Africa, and Caribbean.  She is an expert in developing and leveraging strategies to support and strengthen client's business expansion objectives.  As Senior Financial Strategist and Economist, she develops growth strategies for private firms and governments, as well as financing, investment, alliance, and cross-border risk mitigation strategies to improve capital formation and sustain growth both at the firm and country level.   

Prior to establishing Courtney Vaughan LLC, Ms. Vaughan worked for several years as a Wall Street Banker, providing operational support for up to US$2 billion in syndicated deals for Chase Manhattan Bank.  She supported a team to restructure US$33 billion in sovereign debt finance for Latin American countries under the Brady Bonds Guidelines, while on Wall Street. Her professional experience includes technical assignments with World Bank, Arthur Anderson, Booze-Allen Hamilton, Consolidated Edison Company, Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Over the last 10 years, Ms. Vaughan led several missions to Africa and the Caribbean.  She supported projects by providing technical assistance and advisory expertise mainly to secure capital for divestment and investment projects.  In recent years, she served as a Special Advisor to the Government of Nigeria where she consulted on appropriate financing and investment strategies to support Jigawa State’s economic development program.  She also served as a consultant to the World Bank for Europe and Central Asia and Middle East and North Africa  regions; in the private sector, financial sector development, and energy units.  Ms. Vaughan has developed a 5-year (2006 through 2011) strategic plan and a 3-year (2006 through 2009) business plan to institute the West Africa Electricity Power Pool (WAPP) under a World Bank contract financed by The Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF), a multidonor technical assistance facility aimed at helping developing countries improve the quality of their infrastructure through private sector involvement.  She has also prepared a business plan to support funding options for a U.S. Government contractor participating in the  modernization of Iraqi power sector.  Ms. Vaughan has represented several U.S. Government contractors before major financial institutions, including the United States Export Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

Ms. Vaughan’s country-level, project, and research experience includes Algeria, Armenia, Bangladesh, Benin, Cameroon, Chile, China, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Gabon, Georgia, Ghana, Hungary, Iran, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Sao Tome Principe, Slovak Republic, Senegal, South Africa, Syria, Togo, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Ukraine, Venezuela, West Bank/Gaza and Yemen.  Her sector level experience includes the energy, telecommunications & information technology, tourism, transportation (air & maritime), housing, education, and financial sectors.  She is skilled in econometric and financial modeling, costs/benefit, and input/output analyses. 

ACADEMIC & LECTURE: Ms. Vaughan lectured in the fields of finance at George Washington University, and Mathematics at the State University of New York, Maritime College.  Recently, she delivered a 3-hour lecture to government ministers and private sector executives from four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, covering trade capacity building and leveraging resources to  derive benefits from the new “Africa Growth and Opportunity Act” (AGOA).   

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND: Courtney Ashley Vaughan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and a minor in Mathematics from Fordham University, and a Master of Public Policy and Administration degree from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.  She studied economics at Columbia University, New York University, and Fordham University in the graduate programs.  She also studied transportation management (graduate program) at State University of New York Maritime College, and holds a certificate in Managing Fiscal Risk from the World Bank Institute.