IFC appoints new Regional Manager for Central and Southeast Europe

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has appointed Ary Naïm as its Regional Manager for Central and Southeast Europe.

Naïm will be based in Belgrade and will oversee operations in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, and Serbia.

He is taking over the position from Thomas Lubeck, who was recently appointed as Manager for Transaction Advisory Services Public-Private Partnerships in Asia and Pacific, based in Singapore.

A French national and a former banker, Ary Naïm has been with IFC for 17 years. He joined IFC in 2003 in Morocco as Access to Finance Specialist, then moved in 2005 to Washington as part of IFC’s Financial Institutions Group, where he actively contributed to IFC’s global thought leadership in SME Banking and Leasing. In 2010 he took the role of Country Head for the Dominican Republic and Haiti, leading IFC's reconstruction efforts after the 2010 earthquake. For the past six years, Ary Naïm has been the Country Manager for IFC in Mexico.

Naïm is an engineer in Computer Sciences, with a master's degree in Artificial Intelligence.

As of January 2020, IFC's committed investment portfolio in Central and Southeast Europe stood at USD 2.6 billion across a broad range of sectors, including financial markets, infrastructure, information and communication technology, manufacturing, services, and education. This figure includes USD 575 million mobilized from partner institutions.

(Photo source: the company)