Fall 2020 Newsletter

Friends and partners of the IFC-Milken Institute Capital Markets Program, we hope you are all staying safe and healthy. We would like to wish you all the best for the holiday season ahead, and a happy and rewarding start to the New Year!

As we wrap up the year, we are also pleased to share a few program updates from the second half of 2020.  Highlights of the past months have included:

  • Graduation of our Spring 2020 class of Capital Market Scholars on 17 September. The virtual graduation event was attended by more than 90 participants including family members, internship providers, and GW, IFC and MI colleagues. This concluded our scholars’ nine months in the US, six of which had been spent taking classes and interning online. Despite this unusual format, the class was incredibly resilient and engaged, and internship providers were very supportive. We would like to say a huge thank you to all our partners, who truly went the extra mile to ensure a highly rewarding learning experience for our scholars this year!
  • An exciting series of technical webinars and tailored policy workshops designed in collaboration with our Alumni Continued Learning Committee. These sessions, held throughout the Summer and Fall and regularly attended by alumni across 20+ countries, brought in international practitioners and industry leaders to candidly discuss practical challenges in capital market regulation and policy implementation.
  • A new Alumni Committee on Women’s Leadership in the Financial Industry, which held its kickoff meeting earlier this month. The Committee is composed of eight stellar women alumni, and will work to provide scholars and alumni with a broad range of resources (speaker series, networking and mentorship opportunities, reading materials etc.) to empower women in the financial industry and in the public service. Please stay tuned for more updates on this front!
  • An expanding library of excellent interviews for the Milken Institute’s COVID-19 Africa Watch platform, led by our alumni. We are now at over 25 interviews, which you can enjoy here.
 

Virtual Graduation, September 17, 2020. The day opened with remarks from GWSB Dean Anuj Mehrotra, IFC VP & Treasurer John Gandolfo, and Milken Institute Executive Director Staci Warden. It was followed by a dynamic discussion with Mike Milken, a valedictorian speech by Lydia Kinyanjui (Capital Markets Authority of Kenya), and certificate conferral.

Building Content to Understand COVID-19 in Africa:

 

Our alumni and scholars have continued making valuable contributions to the Milken Institute’s COVID-19 Africa Watch website (covid19africawatch.org), where they are compiling an oral history that can help us better understand and respond to the economic and policy implications of the pandemic in Africa. Recent interviews have included:

  • Gwendoline Darguste from the Central Bank of Haiti interviewed Gayle Smith, President and CEO of the ONE Campaign– find the interview here
  • Esther Kamwimba Siyanda from the Ministry of Finance of Zambia interviewed Tunde Fafunwa, Lead Advisor, Digital Centre for Excellence at United Nations Economic Commission for Africa – find the interview here
  • Thierry Guy Nadjo and Hermann Fancho Traoré, both from the Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières (BRVM), interviewed Lionel Zinsou, former Prime Minister of Benin – find the interview in French and English here

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