Winrock International Welcomes New Board Members
Paloma Adams-Allen, Lawrence S. Coben and Saud Siddique Named
WASHINGTON, D.C. — November 27, 2018 — Winrock International, the U.S.-based national and international economic development organization, today announces the appointments of Paloma Adams-Allen, Lawrence S. Coben and Saud Siddique to its board of directors. Adams-Allen is president and chief executive officer of the Inter-American Foundation (IAF), an independent U.S. government agency that encourages partnerships among community organizations, businesses and local government in the Caribbean and Latin America. Coben, chairman of NRG Energy, is an archaeologist who founded the Sustainable Preservation Initiative, which preserves the world’s cultural heritage by providing sustainable economic opportunities to the communities around them. Siddique co-founded and chairs Odyssey Capital, a Singapore-based infrastructure investment advisory firm, and is also chairman and CEO of Tigris Water Company, which invests in water companies throughout Asia.
“We are thrilled to welcome Paloma, Larry and Saud to the board of directors of Winrock International,” said Winrock President and CEO Rodney Ferguson. “To Paloma, formerly our senior director of public private partnerships, we say welcome back to the Winrock family. We’re excited to work with her in this new capacity. In Larry, we’ve found a scientist who understands the importance of providing livelihood opportunities to indigenous peoples and a businessman who chairs NRG, one of the largest electrical distribution companies in world. Saud is perfectly in sync with our market-driven approach, and he has a special interest in water projects, which represent a growing part of our work. I anticipate invaluable contributions from Paloma, Saud and Larry.”
Paloma Adams-Allen joined the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) in April 2017 as president and chief executive officer. Prior to joining the IAF, Adams-Allen led global private sector partnership initiatives for Winrock International. Before that, she served as deputy assistant administrator for the USAID’s Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Bureau, which provides close to $1 billion annually for ongoing social and economic development programs in 28 LAC countries. From 2010 to 2014, Adams-Allen served as senior adviser for USAID/LAC, during which she created and led the Bureau’s public-private partnerships practice to accelerate the private sector’s support for high-impact development partnerships. Adams-Allen, who speaks Spanish, was born and raised in the rural seaside village of Strawberry Fields, Jamaica. She holds a bachelor’s degree in development studies from Brown University, a master’s in international affairs from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a juris doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center.
Larry Coben is the founder and executive director of the Sustainable Preservation Initiative (SPI), the innovative community sustainable economic development and cultural heritage preservation not-for-profit. He is chairman of the board of NRG Energy, the Fortune 200 leading integrated power company in the U.S. He is also an archaeologist and consulting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. In 2010, Coben founded SPI, a capacity-building and economic development organization that provides sustainable business and entrepreneurial opportunities to poor communities where endangered archaeological sites are located. Coben received a B.A. in economics from Yale University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology with a focus in archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Saud Siddique is a co-founder and executive chairman of Odyssey Capital, a Singapore-based boutique infrastructure investment advisory firm, and chairman and CEO of Tigris Water, which invests in SME water companies and distributed water projects in Asia. He has over 30 years of global experience in infrastructure and financial services. His experience in infrastructure finance and development, including public-private-partnerships, spans all key infrastructure sub-sectors in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa and the U.S. Siddique previously worked with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) for more than 16 years, where he led several investment transactions in the field of project finance; structured debt and equity investments in the infrastructure sectors of such high-growth markets as India and China; and was in charge of IFC’s pioneering investments in such entities as the Latin Power Fund. He holds an MBA from Cornell University and a B.Sc. in computer science from the University of Maryland.