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Jeremy Gorelick

Lecturer in Emerging Markets Finance, Johns Hopkins University

Professor Jeremy Gorelick has over 15 years of experience in developing and implementing complex financial systems in the United States and abroad. Thematically, he focuses on municipal finance, climate change, and infrastructure services; geographically, he is most interested in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. He is currently the Senior Infrastructure Finance Advisor on the WASH-FIN program, a 5-year USD 40 million facility launched in 2016 by the United States Agency for International Development. The facility’s goal is to assist public and private water and sanitation service providers in rapidly-growing urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa and south/southeast Asia to access finance from a variety of sources of funding for infrastructure expansions and upgrades.

From 2011 to 2016, Prof. Gorelick served as the Lead Technical and Financial Advisor for the City of Dakar’s Municipal Finance Program. Invited at the behest of the Mayor of the City of Dakar, he has been responsible for the technical elements of establishing the necessary framework and organizational infrastructure to launch a USD 40 million municipal bond, whose proceeds will be used to improve the quality of life for the urban poor in Dakar. As part of his responsibilities with the Dakar Municipal Finance Program, Prof. Gorelick has facilitated the ratings process with local and international credit ratings agencies, performed an extensive analysis of the city’s debt service capacity, recommended appropriate investment projects that met the twin goals of revenue-generation and international development, developed comprehensive financial projections for the investment project and its debt service, directly negotiated with the US government for a partial credit guarantee of USD 20 million, and worked closely with the financial intermediary to receive regulatory approval for issuance and to build strong investor appetite to meet the bond issuance. To encourage other cities in the global south to explore bond issuance, Prof. Gorelick participates in a wide range of conferences, speaking about the benefits and relative simplicity of the process.

Prof. Gorelick also has worked closely with both bi-lateral/multilateral DFIs as well as non-governmental organizations, including the World Bank, the United Nations Capital Development Fund, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the British Department for International Development (DFID), the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GIZ), the French Development Agency (AFD), Reall (formerly Homeless International), United Cities and Local Governments, Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, C40, the Affordable Housing Institute, and Water and Sanitation for Africa. These consultancies primarily addressed opportunities to involve development agencies, charitable foundations or private-sector participants in the core work of each organization. His participation as a critical member of the capital markets debt origination team led to the successful issuance of over $750 million for eight governments and municipalities across the developing world. Domestically, his property development firm (founded in 2005) has, over the past ten years, successfully built and sold 360 residential units of affordable housing in the greater New York metropolitan area.

Experience

  • –present
    Lecturer in Emerging Markets Finance, Johns Hopkins University

Education

  • 2018 
    University of Cape Town, PhD (anticipated)