During a career in international development that spans some 30 years, Dr. Phillips has contributed innovative methodologies, produced consistently solid results, and authored numerous scholarly publications. Dr. Phillips' early work reflected innovative foresight, contributing to what later became major trends. In the 1970s, when the development community had not yet recognized that the problems it was facing were structural, she pointed it out on project after project. In the 1980s, when investment promotion focused exclusively on foreign investment, she initiated one of the first Doing Business studies, that examined factors affecting local as well as international investors. When poverty studies were still in their infancy, she developed indicators such as the low-income household consumer price index (CPI) basket, that could be tracked through prices instead of repeated surveys. In the 1990s, when business persons' networks brought in only token women-owned firms, she helped West African businesswomen organize a network of their own. When artisanal mining boomed in the 1990s and observers bemoaned its effect on the poor workers, she listened to mine workers and everyone else throughout the value chain. It eventually became clear and was documented that the mine workers could earn six to ten times what they earned in agriculture. Posing the question, "Would you give up the opportunity to multiply your income by ten?" she demonstrated that the maintenance of an extraordinary number of middle-income jobs justified developing policies and programs to meet new realities. Since then she has worked on improving the regulations, conditions and impacts of mining -- small and large -- to preserve those jobs, reduce rural poverty and multiply rural investments.

She holds a Ph.D. in Economic History and African Studies from Columbia University in New York and a bachelor's degree from Smith College. Dr. Phillips is fluent in French, and has studied Wolof, Hausa, Arabic, Spanish, German and Kiswahili.

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As Senior Advisor and President of the Board of IBI, Mr. Colvin provides guidance for the firm's partnering and new business initiatives, and delivers technical assistance and training on a range of international development projects. Prior to assuming this role, he served as IBI’s President and CEO. During his tenure at the firm since 2006, IBI has emerged as one of USAID’s leading small business partners.

Mr. Colvin applies field-tested methods to improve the performance of organizations around the world, in line with IBI’s emphasis on local solutions, the priorities of host country partners, and the donor community’s evolving approaches to development. He makes frequent presentations at industry events to share IBI’s experiences and lessons learned, and to stay abreast of the approaches that work best in today’s fast-changing world.

Mr. Colvin has worked to improve the performance of institutions and individuals in Africa, Asia and Europe. He has conducted specialized field work and led trainings in Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) and Human and Institutional Capacity Development (HICD), helping clients focus on solving problems that matter.

Prior to joining IBI in 2006, Mr. Colvin served for seven years in the U.S. Department of State as a public diplomacy officer, completing assignments in Washington, Cote d’Ivoire and Tanzania. He also worked for three years as Managing Editor of The Middle East Journal, published by the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC.

Mr. Colvin earned his undergraduate degree in Middle East Studies from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, and a Master's degree in Political Science from the American University in Cairo. He is a Certified Performance Technologist (CPT) by the International Society for Performance Improvement and holds a Certificate in Human Performance Improvement (HPI) from the American Society for Training and Development. He speaks fluent French, and basic Arabic and Kiswahili.

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Mr. David Wall, Chief Executive Officer of IBI, has more than 25 years of experience successfully managing international development portfolio’s, setting strategic goals, implementing change management, supervising and motivating staff, and developing and implementing policies and procedures.  Prior to assuming this role, he served as IBI’s Vice President for Strategy where he served as part of the executive team responsible for directing and overseeing the implementation of strategy for IBI in the areas of Governance, Economic Growth, Organizational Development and M&E services.

Mr. Wall’s extensive global experience includes technical advisory and project management for USAID, the World Bank, and Asian Development Bank.  He has been recognized by USAID for his service in Iraq where he received a Meritorious Honor Award and was awarded the Commanders Certificate of Appreciation, from Lieutenant. General, John R. Allen, USMC, for his participation in the CENTCOM assessment in 2008.  He has proven experience collaborating with executives, stakeholders, and multinational teams in both the private and public sectors.

Prior to joining IBI, Mr. Wall served as a respected leader and strategist with such firms as AECOM, KPMG and The Nasdaq Stock Market.  He has a proven record in senior line management and boardroom strategic consulting combined with a global background in financial services industry throughout the Middle East, America’s, Europe and the Pacific Rim.

Jason Burneskis serves as IBI’s Vice President, Project Management. In this role, he guides and oversees IBI’s project management unit and is responsible for ensuring that IBI’s projects are implemented in accordance with the technical and administrative requirements stipulated in each contract. Jason also serves as a technical expert on customs reform, trade facilitation, and public financial management. He joined IBI in 2013.

Jason has over 15 years of experience in diverse international development contexts. Examples of his field work include financial audit and compliance (Liberia, Jordan and Afghanistan), customs reform and risk management (Bangladesh and East Timor), private sector competitiveness (Georgia), process improvement and change management (Romania), and tax policy and administration (Armenia). Prior to joining IBI, Jason worked with Deloitte Consulting.

Jason holds a BS in Finance from George Mason University and a certificate in Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation from the Harvard Center for International Development.

Andrew Dicello leads IBI’s Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) practice area. In this role, he provides technical support on IBI’s growing number of MEL projects, contributes to the monitoring and learning components of IBI’s economic growth and governance projects, supports new business opportunities, and strengthens the capacity of IBI teams around the world in MEL. 

Mr. Dicello has worked for nearly two decades in monitoring, evaluation and learning for US government clients, including USAID, the US Department of State, the US Department of Labor, the US Department of Agriculture, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Food and Drug Administration, and the US Department of Defense. He has managed projects, facilitated project and strategy design workshops, developed monitoring tools and systems, supported evaluations, assessments and studies, developed learning agendas, and delivered dozens of courses on MEL to build the capacity of clients and their implementing partners. He has worked extensively throughout Africa and Latin America and is fluent in Spanish.

Mr. Dicello earned his undergraduate degree in Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA in International Business from the  Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Rebecca Lamberton leads IBI’s efforts to obtain new business by developing responsive and cost effective proposals for IBI’s clients, and also manages IBI’s recruitment systems. She was instrumental in developing the successful cost and technical proposals for IBI’s 2015 Liberia Administrative Support Project (LASS), the 2014 Justice Administration Management Support project (JAMS), the 2013 Bangladesh Trade Facilitation Activity (BTFA), and the 2013 Human and Institutional Capacity Development Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity contract, as well as a number of other smaller awards.

Prior to joining IBI she worked at Engility Corporation (then known as IRG), where she supported the development of several successful proposals that won a total of more than $100 million in awards. Ms. Lamberton's 25 years in business development includes 17 years as a Foreign Commercial Service Officer (FCSO) with the US Department of Commerce, serving overseas and at the Inter-American Development Bank. In these positions she consulted for U.S. companies seeking enter new markets overseas on government regulations, customs processes, trade policy, trade and project financing, local partners, and market trends, supporting over $80 million in US Exports. She also served in senior management positions at Commerce HQ in Washington DC as Acting Director for Latin America and the Director of Human Resource Development.

Ms. Lamberton holds a certificate in Human Performance Improvement (HPI) from the American Society for Training and Development, and a Master’s degree in Organizational Development and Knowledge Management from George Mason University.  She graduated from Grinnell College with a BA in International Studies.  She speaks Japanese, and has working proficiency in Spanish and French.

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Ms. Renee Tillery serves as Vice President, Operations for IBI. In this role, she oversees IBI’s internal operations including corporate services, compliance, and human resources functions. She works across all teams to ensure policies and procedures are followed, improved, and updated as needed. Ms. Tillery also provides strategic leadership on evolving processes and systems to accommodate company growth.

Prior to joining IBI, she worked at the Palladium Group where she led the U.S.-based information technology, facilities, and process excellence teams. As the point person for the rollout and implementation of multiple corporate change initiatives, she helped implement new systems and tools to streamline project management, communications, and internal processes. Ms. Tillery’s experience also includes more than 15 years supporting management of USAID projects. At Chemonics International, she worked on a number of complex post-conflict, civil society strengthening, and governance projects in Haiti, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. She also served as operations director for the Africa Region, supporting the team’s senior vice president and more than 100 staff to solve staffing, budgeting, security, and other challenges.

Ms. Tillery holds a Master’s degree in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where she concentrated her work in science, technology, and international affairs. She graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations.

IBI’s Layla Slonim is a seasoned financial management professional who brings extensive experience working in donor-funded development projects and environments. She has worked extensively to provide financial and other management support to USAID-funded projects. She brings first-hand experience working in for-profit, non-profit and public sector environments. She has extensive experience setting up financial management, internal control, and reporting systems (including manuals, templates, and handbooks). She has taught Economics at Belmont University in Tennessee and at Turkmen State University in Turkmenistan. She has also worked as a Monitoring and Evaluation specialist for the United Nations Development Program in Turkmenistan.

As Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Slonim manages all aspects of IBI’s corporate and project financial management, from revenue projection and financial planning to overseeing day-to-do financial transactions. She also provides IBI’s clients with expertise in economics and econometric modeling, and monitoring and evaluation. She holds a Masters degree in Agribusiness from Texas A&M University, and a Masters degree and Bachelors degree in Economics from Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia. She speaks fluent Russian and Turkmen.

Mr. Waddell is IBI's Transformation and Technology Advisor.  His role is to help the firm to be innovation-friendly; to organize itself with tools, processes, skills and ways of thinking that will allow it operate at its best, and to be aware of and adaptable to challenges that confront it.  He appreciates the value in fast learning smaller teams, able to combine quickly with others in cooperative arrangements to exploit opportunities and defend from threats.

In his previous position Mr. Waddell was based for 7 years in Liberia, initially as a Public Sector Payments Advisor with USAID-GEMAP project, and then as the ICT Advisor on the USAID-GEMS project, both implemented by IBI.

Mr. Waddell's roots and much of his earlier work experience has been based in Southern Africa. He has 30 years experience in advancing social and economic development, working with public sector, for-profit, not-for-profit and civil society organisations to help them to identify and implement improvements. He has earned extensive experience in using technologies to improve the effectiveness and affordances of organizations, starting out as a designer and developer of computer systems that met targeted and niche needs in diverse fields and organisations, and growing to head teams that designed, built and implemented information and knowledge systems cutting across disciplines and silos.

He is interested in understanding how people organise themselves to make sense of their lives, to sustain their communities and to thrive as individuals and collectively in an increasingly complex world.

Mr. Waddell has a postgraduate degree from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, and is currently completing a thesis towards an MPhil, learning from the Ebola crisis in West Africa. 

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