Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Investment Partner

Philippe Le Houérou is Executive Vice President and CEO of IFC.

Philippe Le Houérou, a French national, joined IFC in March 2016, bringing three decades of experience in international finance and development. His career includes leadership positions at the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, where he developed and implemented business strategies, helped increase lending and spearheaded new partnerships.

Prior to his arrival at IFC, Philippe Le Houérou was Vice President for Policy & Partnerships at the EBRD. In that role, he coordinated country strategies, restructured and redefined the EBRD approach to policy dialogue, and led other initiatives to support the organization’s private sector development and transition mandate. He was also responsible for the mobilization and management of donor funds for nuclear safety and for the EBRD’s engagement with key external stakeholders and organizations.

Before joining the EBRD in 2015, Philippe Le Houérou was the World Bank’s Regional Vice President for the South Asia Region. As Vice President, Philippe Le Houérou designed a new regional strategy, restructured the Bank’s portfolio in the region to improve its performance and more than doubled new lending. Previously, Philippe Le Houérou was the Bank’s Regional Vice President for Europe and Central Asia, where he led the Bank’s effort to mitigate the global economic crisis’s impact on the region and ramped up analytical and advisory work, as well as new lending.

Earlier in his career, Philippe Le Houérou held a number of other key positions at the World Bank, including Vice President of Concessional Finance and Global Partnerships; Acting Vice President and Chief Information Officer; Director of Finance and Resource Mobilisation; Macro-Fiscal Sector Manager; and Resident Representative in Madagascar. Le Houérou began his career in banking in the private sector, and initially joined the World Bank Group as a Young Professional, which included work in IFC investment operations in East Asia.

Born in Montpellier, France, Philippe Le Houérou grew up in North Africa and Italy and went on to attend the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. He holds an MBA from Columbia University and a Ph.D in Economics from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.