Elizabeth Littlefield

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Elizabeth L. Littlefield
President and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation
Incumbent
Assumed office October 1, 2010 - January 20, 2017
President	Barack Obama
Preceded by	Robert Mosbacher, Jr.
Succeeded by	Ray Washburne
Personal details
Born	Elizabeth Lascelles Littlefield Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Matthew B. Arnold
Children	2 Stepchildren
Alma mater	Brown University

Elizabeth L. Littlefield, is a Senior Counselor and Head of the Sustainability Practice at Albright Stonebridge Group.^[1]

She served as the Chairman, President, and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), now a part of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (USIDFC), during the Obama administration. Prior, she served as the CEO of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and as a Director at the World Bank. She began her career at JPMorgan where she served in positions including as Managing Director for Emerging Markets.

Early life[]

A native of Boston, Littlefield attended the Fondation Nationale de Sciences Politiques and Columbia University in Paris, France in 1981, obtaining a Certificat d'Etudes de Sciences Politiques. In 1982, she graduated rom Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island with a B.A. in International Relations. In 1984, she completed JPMorgan's 10 month bank management training program.

Career[]

In 1982, Littlefield joined the global investment banking and advisory services firm JPMorgan, the start of a 17-year career with the institution.

In her first three years, based in New York City, she managed relationships of JPMorgan with financial institution in Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg. During this time, she began collaborating with Women's World Banking,^[2] a global nonprofit devoted to giving more low-income women access to the financial tools, education, and resources they require to build security and prosperity.

From 1986 to 1988, Littlefield was JPMorgan's Director of Investment Banking based in Paris. She was responsible for design, creation, marketing, and technical aspects of 24 multi-currency investment funds incorporated in France and Luxembourg.

While working at J.P. Morgan, she obtained a leave of absence from 1989-1990 to move to West Africa to help local communities establish several start-up microfinance institutions in Central and West Africa.^[3] She helped the founding board create the Gambia Women's Finance Association as well as start-up microfinance institutions in Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, Rwanda, and Burundi.

In April 1990, Littlefield moved to London to establish the Emerging Market Sales and Trading business for JPMorgan, in which capacity she was Head Debt Trader for Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia.^[4] During this time, Littlefield also crafted also discounted debt structures, such as some of the earliest debt-for-nature swaps.

In January 1993, Littlefield became Managing Director of Emerging Markets Capital Markets^[5] at JPMorgan, responsible for bond issues and structured debt financing across Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, nations of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and Africa.

In 1999, she was recruited to serve in a joint capacity as a Director of the World Bank's Financial and Private Sector Division, and Chief Executive Officer of The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor from 1999 to 2010. CGAP is a global partnership of 33 development organizations that works to advance financial inclusion.

From 2007 to 2008, Littlefield was an adjunct professor specializing in financial sector reform and global development at SAIS, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University.

Government career[]

From 2010 to 2017, Littlefield served as the Chairman, President and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. Government's development finance agency during the Obama administration. In this role, an Under Secretary-level position,^[6] she managed OPIC's $24 billion portfolio of financing and insurance to support private investment in more than 100 developing countries. Under Littlefield's leadership, OPIC investments in renewable energy^[7] grew 10-fold within the first three years and held at $1.5 billion per annum thereafter, its income generated for the U.S. federal budget grew significantly, its investment portfolio nearly doubled, and it ranked at the top of the federal government’s employee viewpoint rankings.

Littlefield also instituted major transformations and reforms of the agency’s policies, systems and processes and introduced new financial innovations^[8] and partnerships to augment the agency’s development impact. In redirecting the Agency's sector focus toward renewable resources, especially natural resources, solar and wind energy, as well as impact investing,^[9] the Agency became the first development finance institution to provide financing to many off-grid solar companies.

During her tenure at OPIC, Littlefield increased investments in Sub-Saharan Africa by 250 percent from 2009 to 2015. (250 percent from 2009 to 2015)^[10] The agency was the principal source of financing under President Obama's signature Power Africa initiative.

Littlefield was appointed by President Obama to serve as a member of the White House Global Development Council and the President’s Export Council. She was presented in 2012 with the U.S. State Department's Distinguished Service Award, the highest award in the Foreign Service, by then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In November 2020, Littlefield was named a volunteer member of the Joe Biden presidential transition Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to international development.^[11]

Other activities[]

Littlefield currently chairs the board of M-KOPA Solar, one of the largest pay-as-you-go solar companies in Africa and serves on the boards of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF); the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University; and the International Conservation Caucus Foundation; and serves as an adviser to several other mission-driven and conservation-focused organizations.

Littlefield served on the boards and executive committees of the Women's World Banking, Mastercard Foundation, and the Calvert Foundation.

Littlefield was the founding chairman of the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance, now known as The Lab.

Littlefield was a founder of the Emerging Markets Charity in the United Kingdom.

She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

She has served as the chairperson of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Agenda Council on Social Innovation.

Personal life[]

Littlefield is married to Matthew B. Arnold and has two stepsons. She holds dual citizenship in the United States and United Kingdom. She is fluent in English and French.

References[]