Professor Mates has worked in both the private and public sectors and is an experienced practitioner in business and financial law, with an emphasis on the legal aspects of project and corporate finance in emerging markets. Professor Mates was Principal Counsel at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in Washington, D.C., the intergovernmental international financial organization that is the private sector affiliate of the World Bank, where she worked for almost three decades. She represented IFC as a lender and equity investor in private-sector projects in emerging markets including Latin America, Africa, Eastern and Central Europe, India and East Asia; these include infrastructure projects such as power, telecom, transport, and water projects (including public-private partnerships), corporate debt and equity investments in sectors as diverse as education and hotels, private equity funds (including microfinance funds) and corporate restructurings. At IFC she worked on co-financings with commercial banks as well as with other intergovernmental and bi-lateral development organizations. She was also involved in new initiatives such as the formulation of IFC’s first environmental and small business loan procedures. After retiring from IFC, Professor Mates worked at USAID covering the legal aspects of the Development Credit Authority guarantee program (now part of DFC). Prior to her position at IFC, Professor Mates worked in private law firms in New York City and in the legal department of a US multinational commercial bank in Boston. Ms. Mates is a frequent speaker on topics in development finance, including project finance, public-private partnerships and private sector infrastructure financing in emerging markets, as well as on careers in international law. She holds leadership positions with the American Bar Association’s Section of International Law and Practice.