Aiming for Resilience in Emerging Markets

Andres Valenciano is the Director of the United Nations ECLAC Office in Washington, D.C. Previously, he served as Costa Rica’s Minister of Foreign Trade, overseeing trade policies, export promotion, foreign investment, and representation in the WTO and OECD. Before that, Mr. Valenciano was Executive President of the INA, responsible for technical and vocational education in Costa Rica. He has also worked as Executive Director of multiple NGOs working across 12 countries on three continents. 

Mr. Valenciano holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Costa Rica, a Master’s in International Business from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School, and he is a Senior Fellow in Public Service at the Lee Kuan Yew School, National University of Singapore.

Anne Miroux is Faculty Fellow at the Emerging Markets Institute in the Johnson School of Business at Cornell University. She has over 30 years of experience in international trade and finance. Dr. Miroux began her career in the United Nations Center on Transnational Corporations in New York, where she was involved in the negotiations on the UN Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations. In the mid 1980s she joined the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), where she specialized in issues related to developing-country debt, foreign direct investment and transnational corporations, and technology and innovation policies. For several years, Dr. Miroux led the organization’s work on foreign direct investment (FDI) statistics and directed the World Investment Reports (WIR), the United Nations flagship report on FDI and transnational corporations. She also served as the editor of the UN Transnational Corporations Journal. Dr. Miroux published a number of papers and articles and led research projects and technical assistance activities in developing countries on debt, FDI, and development.

Until late 2015, Dr. Miroux was the Director of the Division on Technology and Logistics in UNCTAD, in charge of the organization’s work on technology and trade logistics. She was also the Head of the Secretariat of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD). Dr. Miroux is a member of the Advisory Board of the Technology and Management Center of the Department of International Development at Oxford University as well as a member of the Board of NetExplo. Dr. Miroux has an MBA from HEC – Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (Jouy-en-Josas, France) and a diploma from IEP (Institut d’Etudes Politiques – Paris). She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from University of Paris I – Sorbonne.

Lourdes Casanova is a senior lecturer and the Gail and Roberto Cañizares Director of the Emerging Markets Institute in the SC Johnson School of Management at Cornell University. She has been named one of the 50 most influential Iberoamerican intellectuals and one of the 30 most influential Iberoamerican women intellectuals by Esglobal, a digital magazine on international relations. Dr. Casanova is a Fulbright Scholar and has a Master’s degree from the University of Southern California as well as a Ph.D. from the University of Barcelona. Her commentary has been featured in Latin Trade, Agenda Publica, CNN en Español, and Voice of America.

Oritsemolebi Adebiyi is a Strategy and Transactions Consultant at EY-Parthenon, specializing in strategic growth, sustainability integration, and transformative business initiatives for leading global organizations. She earned her MBA from Cornell University (Class of 2024), complemented by extensive experience as a Financial Controller and Management Consultant at PwC, where she successfully led financial strategy and operational efficiency projects. 

Oritsemolebi leverages her expertise to help organizations build resilience, optimize performance, and navigate complex challenges through innovative solutions and frameworks. Passionate about sustainability and technology, she frequently contributes to thought leadership forums, exploring emerging trends and strategic opportunities in sustainability and finance.

Shailja Bang Shah is a thematic research analyst and has led the Emerging Markets Economic Growth and ESG (D-ESG) Ranking Project at EMI. Prior to EMI, she worked with JPMorgan in Strategic Research, where she covered market-moving events like the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the consequences of unconventional monetary policy, the outlook for the 2020 U.S. election, and the evolving U.S.-China trade tensions. Ms. Shah is a qualified Chartered Accountant (India) with a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from the Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics (University of Mumbai).