Speaker Biographies

Ambassador John J. Danilovich began his duties as chief executive officer for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) on November 7, 2005. Prior to joining the MCC, the ambassador had a distinguished career of more than thirty years in both the public and private sectors. Ambassador Danilovich served as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Federative Republic of Brazil from June 2004 to November 2005. He also served as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Costa Rica from 2001 to 2004. Prior to these appointments, Ambassador Danilovich was a businessman and private investor with a strong background in foreign affairs. A native Californian and resident of London for many years, he was active in the international shipping business for over two decades and served as director of companies in the shipping, property, publishing, and investment fields. He served on the board of directors of the Panama Canal Commission from 1991 to 1996 and chaired the Commission’s transition committee prior to the transfer of the canal to the Panamanians. Ambassador Danilovich has been a director of the Stanford Trust, a trustee of the American Museum in Britain, a director of the U.S.-UK Fulbright Commission, and has also served in leadership positions for several charitable organizations. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Knight of Malta, and is the only American ambassador to be decorated by the Government of Costa Rica with their highest diplomatic honor, the Orden Nacional Juan Mora Fernandez.

Ambassador José Brito was appointed ambassador of Cape Verde to the United States on November 8, 2001. Ambassador Brito has more than twenty years’ experience in management and government service. He worked for Ocean Energy from 1997 to 2001, serving as the company’s government relations manager, government relations vice president, and consultant in government affairs. From 1992 to 1996, he worked on a UN project to assist African governments in developing a long-term strategic planning process. Ambassador Brito also served on the management team of the ruling party in Cape Verde (1981–1991) and as minister of development planning and foreign aid (1977–1991).

Maureen Harrington is managing director for Africa at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), where she is responsible for overseeing MCC’s efforts in Anglophone and Lusophone Africa. Prior to serving in this role, Ms. Harrington was the senior advisor to the chief executive officer at MCC. She previously served as special assistant with the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, where she was responsible for a number of private sector development projects, including participation in the work of a congressionally mandated policy advisory panel that prepared recommendations on how the U.S. government can help strengthen the African capital markets. Prior to joining the State Department, Ms. Harrington served as senior associate at J. E. Austin Associates, an emerging markets economic development consulting firm in Washington, D.C., directing the competitiveness practice. Earlier, she rebuilt and led the Massachusetts Trade Office, the organization responsible for promoting international trade initiatives in Massachusetts. Ms. Harrington has also held a variety of positions over eight years with the International Republican Institute (IRI), a non-profit organization that supports democracy initiatives worldwide. As project director in South Africa, Ms. Harrington served as the senior official for IRI’s USAID funded political party and municipal governance and economic development training program. In addition, Ms. Harrington managed, developed, or participated in democracy assistance programs in South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Cambodia, Yemen, and Romania. She directed or participated in election observation efforts in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Romania, and Cambodia.

Adam Lerrick is the Friends of Allan H. Meltzer Professor of Economics at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University and director of the University’s Gailliot Center for Public Policy. He is also a visiting scholar at AEI. He created and leads the negotiation team of the Argentine Bond Restructuring Agency plc (ABRA). ABRA unites the interests of an estimated 30,000 European retail investors to create the largest foreign creditor in the $100 billion Argentina debt restructuring. Since 2001, Mr. Lerrick has served as advisor on international economic policy to the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress of the United States. He was separately an advisor on international economic policy to the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress from April 2001 to January 2003. He acted as the senior advisor to the chairman of the International Financial Institution Advisory (“Meltzer”) Commission of the U.S. government. Formerly head of product development for the international capital markets at Salomon Brothers and then at Credit Suisse First Boston, Mr. Lerrick found solutions to the large-scale financing needs of major governments and multilateral borrowers. In the international capital markets, he designed and executed pioneering debt instruments for many governments, including those of Germany, France, Belgium, and Sweden. Mr. Lerrick has written, testified before Congress, and spoken widely on questions of development aid, debt relief, financial markets, sovereign debt crises, and the international financial system. His commentaries have been published in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, and his views have aired on PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and For the Record, National Public Radio, and Bloomberg Television. His academic writings have appeared in the Journal of Monetary Economics and the Journal of Restructuring Finance. He has been a featured speaker at conferences organized by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Emerging Markets Creditors Association.

Clay Lowery was sworn in as assistant secretary for international affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department on November 2, 2005. The assistant secretary supports the under secretary for international affairs in advising the secretary and deputy secretary of the Treasury in the formulation and execution of United States international economic policy. Specifically, these responsibilities include guidance and oversight in the areas of economic and financial diplomacy, monetary affairs, debt strategy, U.S. participation in the international financial institutions, trade and investment policies particularly financial services negotiations, and development policy. Prior to his service as assistant secretary, Mr. Lowery was vice president of markets and sector assessments at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). In addition to helping form an investment committee reporting to the CEO of the MCC, Mr. Lowery managed a division of technical experts in areas as diverse as agriculture, infrastructure, and financial sector development as well as fiscal and environmental safeguards. From 1994 to 2004, Mr. Lowery served at the Treasury Department as a career civil servant in a variety of positions, most recently as deputy assistant secretary for debt and development finance. His work included negotiating debt workouts, assisting in the formulation of policy to provide debt reduction to the poorest countries, designing responses to financial crises in Mexico and Asia, representing Treasury in negotiations with Congress and the G-7, and leading a task force on behalf of the White House to shape the policy, operations, and administrative plans of the MCC. From 2001 to 2002, Mr. Lowery worked as the director of international finance at the National Security Council. His work included being part of a small team that developed the Presidential initiative that would become the MCC, and advising the National Security Advisor and President Bush on policy responses to financial crises in emerging market countries. Mr. Lowery has also worked at the New York branch of the German bank Bayerische Vereinsbank, and from 1990 to 1993, was involved in managing projects and monitoring elections, primarily in Africa, for the International Republican Institute, a democracy development group.

Roger F. Noriega is a visiting fellow coordinating AEI’s program on Western Hemisphere issues. Twice appointed by President George W. Bush (and confirmed by the U.S. Senate) and with a ten-year career on Capitol Hill, Mr. Noriega’s breadth of experience and contacts offers strategic vision and practical insight on the Americas. As assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Mr. Noriega managed a 3,000-person team of professionals in Washington and fifty diplomatic posts to design and implement political and economic strategies in Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean. As U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Mr. Noriega coordinated complex and sensitive multilateral diplomacy in a thirty-four-member international organization to bolster OAS efforts to promote trade, fight illicit drugs, and defend democracy. Mr. Noriega has held various other positions as well, including senior policy advisor with the U.S. Mission to the OAS; many program management and public affairs positions with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of State; press secretary and foreign policy advisor for U.S. Representative Robert Whittaker (R-Kan.); and research assistant for the secretary of state of Kansas.