Mauricio Claver-Carone

Claver-Carone began his career as an Attorney-Advisor for the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller, where he provided counsel on banking laws, capital requirements and securitizations.[3] He was also a Clinical Assistant Professor at The Catholic University of America’s School of Law, an Adjunct Professor at The George Washington University’s National Law Center and a Research Fellow at Georgetown University’s Law Center for the Americas.

From 2017 to 2018, Claver-Carone was Senior Advisor for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he was a principal policy advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury and to the Under Secretary for International Affairs on geopolitical, national security and economic issues.

He then served briefly as acting U.S. Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund, representing the United States on the Executive Board.[4] He played an important role in lending arrangements for Argentina, Barbados and Ecuador, and revolving credit lines for Colombia and Mexico.

In September 2018, Claver-Carone was appointed Special Assistant to U.S. President Donald Trump and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on the National Security Council.[5] In 2019, he was promoted to become a Deputy Assistant to the President. In this role, Claver-Carone is credited for creating the U.S. government's maximum-pressure campaign against the Maduro regime[6] in Venezuela and for conceptualizing the "América Crece" economic growth strategy and frameworks.[7] He was also selected by President Trump to represent the United States in inauguration delegations to Brazil,[8] Panama[9] and Uruguay.[10]

Claver-Carone also helped design the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act of 2018, which created the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.[11]

He also spearheaded the first White House-led Western Hemisphere Strategic Framework for U.S. inter-agency policy guidance and development since 2004.

In June 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced its intention to nominate Claver-Carone for the president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB),[12] the principal source of long-term financing for economic, social and institutional development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

His nomination generated a mixed reaction among the Bank’s member countries, as the institution’s presidency was historically reserved for a citizen of one of its borrowing member countries.[13]

He was elected by the IDB’s Board of Directors on September 12, 2020, for a five-year term beginning on October 1, 2020.[14] Thirty of the Bank's 48 governors voted for him (67% of total shareholding), including 23 out of the 28 regional governors.[15][16]

As president, he oversees the operations of the IDB Group, comprising the IDB, which works with the region’s governments; IDB Invest, which works with the region’s private sector; and IDB Lab, which incubates innovative development projects.

He has pledged to focus on regional job creation, especially through digitalization, entrepreneurialism and nearshoring, during his presidency.[17] He also begun efforts to secure a capital increase for the Bank, which would allow it to boost its lending to help counter the effects of COVID-19 and further address entrenched economic problems in the region.[18]

Before joining the U.S. government, Claver-Carone was Executive Director of Cuba Democracy Advocates, a lobbying organization for human rights, free markets and the rule of law in Cuba.[19]