Barger quits IFC to start emerging markets firm

The International Finance Corporation’s director of governance, Teresa Barger, will this fall walk away from a 20-year career with the organisation to launch an emerging markets equity investment venture.

Barger joined the World Bank’s lending arm in 1986. She worked for several years in the Capital Markets Development group, where she was the first division manager for capital markets for the Sub-Saharan Africa department, and later senior manager for securities markets development. Barger worked to develop capitalist infrastructure in communist countries before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and to reform the restrictions on members of the private sector in India. She then helped to set up the private equity department of the IFC, and grew the division to profitability, before joining the corporate governance department.

Barger developed the IFC's first benchmarks for emerging markets private equity, and oversaw the Emerging Markets Database, which was later sold to Standard & Poor’s. She is also a founder of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA).

Barger will leave on 4 October to work on her new project, which she has not yet described in detail.

“It will require lots of work and lots of fundraising, but I am very excited about moving on to new ventures where I can still fulfill my commitment to supporting the private sector in developing countries,” Barger said in an email to colleagues.