Fifth Annual Sovereign Debt Restructuring Conference

VIDEO March 1, 2022

Speaker / Author

Tamon Asonuma

Economist in the Strategy Policy and Review Department, International Monetary Fund

Tamon Asonuma is an Economist in the Strategy Policy and Review Department of the IMF. Since joining the IMF on September 2010, he has spent most of times in Research Department and Strategy Policy and Review Department. During his time in the Strategy Review and Policy Department, he has contributed to series of the IMF Policy Papers on sovereign debt restructurings and IMF lending, and sovereign-bank linkages, and involving in many debt restructuring cases (Greece, Myanmar, Belize, Cyprus, Grenada) as an expert. In Research Department, he has worked on research papers on costs of sovereign debt restructurings, fiscal policy, sovereign ... Read More

Elena Duggar

Managing Director - Chief Credit Officer Americas, and Chair of Macroeconomic Board, Moody’s Investors Service

Elena Duggar is Moody’s Chief Credit Officer for the Americas, and a Managing Director in the Credit Strategy & Research team. Elena is also the Chair of Moody’s Macroeconomic Board, which sets the global macroeconomic forecasts underpinning Moody’s universe of ratings. In her role leading the North and Latin America Credit Strategy & Research teams, the Global Macroeconomic Research team and the Proprietary Data Analytics team, Elena is responsible for forming house views on emerging risks, driving cross-functional alignment on key credit factors, coordinating rating approach across sectors in the Americas, and maintaining rigor in analytic frameworks. Elena leads major cross-sector outreach ... Read More

Patrick Honohan, Ph.D.

Former Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland

Patrick Honohan was Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland and a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank from September 2009 to November 2015.  He is an honorary professor of economics at Trinity College Dublin and a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.  Previously he spent twelve years on the staff of the World Bank where he was a Senior Advisor on financial sector issues and led half a dozen of the first wave of FSAPs for developing countries. During the 1990s he was a Research Professor at Ireland’s Economic and Social ... Read More

Thordur Jonasson

Deputy Division Chief, Debt Capital Markets Division, International Monetary Fund

Mr. Thor Jonasson is a Deputy Division Chief in the Debt Capital Markets Division in the IMF Monetary and Capital Markets Department. Prior to joining the IMF, he worked for the World Bank on developing public and private debt markets and participating in the Financial Sector Assessment Program. He has published on debt management, debt policy and capital market development. ... Read More

Yan Liu

Deputy General Counsel in the Legal Department, International Monetary Fund

Ms. Yan Liu is Deputy General Counsel in the Legal Department of the International Monetary Fund. Ms. Liu has advised on all aspects of the IMF’s policies and operations, including the design and implementation of its financial assistance programs, the surveillance over member countries’ economies and the technical assistance to its members. She currently oversees the IMF’s work to help member countries strengthen their legal frameworks in the areas of central banking and financial sector - including in response to the opportunities and challenges posed by technological changes - corporate and household insolvency, debt enforcement, public debt management, and fiscal ... Read More

Liam Localio

Managing Director, Farallon Capital Management

Liam Localio joined Farallon Capital Management in 2022, and is a Managing Director in the Credit group focused on emerging markets sovereign investments. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Greylock Capital Management with responsibility across the firm’s positions in distressed and special situations sovereigns and corporates. Prior to that, he was a member of the investment banking group at BroadSpan Capital in Miami, advising creditors and debtors in the restructuring of corporate and sovereign debt in Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr. Localio received a BS in Economics with a concentration in Finance from the Wharton School at the ... Read More

Rafael M. Molina

Senior Managing Director, Newstate Partners LLP

Rafael has 25 years of experience advising a wide range of clients on finance related matters, including liability management strategies aimed at optimizing debt service profiles and yield curves, enhancing risk management practices, and the financing of sustainable infrastructure projects.  His experience includes:

  • Advising governments around the world in addressing public sector debt challenges, including the restructuring of public sector liabilities and the enhancement of risk management operations
  • Advising governments on the formulation and implementation of targeted liability management strategies
  • Advising sovereign fixed-income creditors and creditor committees on consensual negotiations to settle outstanding public sector claims
Rafael is currently leading the ... Read More

Athanasios Orphanides, Ph.D.

Professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management

Athanasios Orphanides is a Professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.  He is also an Honorary Advisor to the Bank of Japan’s Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, a member of the Shadow Open Market Committee, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Financial Studies, and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability. His research interests are on central banking, finance, and political economy and he has published extensively on these topics. He has also contributed to the ongoing ... Read More

Michael G. Papaioannou, Ph.D.

TA Expert Advisor, International Monetary Fund and Senior Visiting Scholar and Professor, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University

Dr. Michael G. Papaioannou serves as a TA Expert Advisor at the International Monetary Fund and is a Visiting Scholar and Professor at the LeBow College of Business, School of Economics, Drexel University. He was a Deputy Division Chief at the Debt and Capital Markets Instruments, Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the International Monetary Fund until July 2017. While at the IMF, he served as a Special Adviser to the Governing Board of the Bank of Greece and led numerous IMF missions on developing economic and financial policies for emerging market and developed economies, designing and implementing sovereign asset ... Read More

Alfonso Prat-Gay

Former President of the Central Bank of Argentina

Alfonso Prat-Gay was Minister of Treasury and Finance of Argentina from 2015 until 2016. Previously, he was a member of Congress (2009-2013), and president of the Central Bank of Argentina (2002-2004). Prat-Gay earned a degree in economics from the Universidad Católica Argentina in 1989. He is a PhD candidate the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his Master´s Degree in Economics in 1994. Shortly afterwards, Prat-Gay joined JPMorgan in New York and went on to work for the bank in its Buenos Aires and London branches until 2001. Back in Buenos Aires, he co-founded APL Economía, an economic consulting firm. In December ... Read More

Federico Sequeda

Head of Country Research & Portfolio Manager, Morgan Stanley Investment Management

Federico is the head of Country Research and a portfolio manager on the Emerging Markets team at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. He oversees the country research process and is responsible for buy and sell decisions, portfolio construction and risk management for the team’s emerging markets strategies. He joined Eaton Vance in 2010. Morgan Stanley acquired Eaton Vance in March 2021. Federico began his career in the investment management industry in 2009. Before joining Eaton Vance, he was an investment associate with Bridgewater Associates, LP. Federico earned a B.A., magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College. He is a CFA charterholder. Federico ... Read More

George Tsetsekos, Ph.D.

Francis Professor of Finance and Dean Emeritus Drexel’s LeBow College of Business

Dr. George Tsetsekos, serves as the Francis professor of Finance and Director of the Risk Management Center at the LeBow College of Business. He served as Dean of LeBow (2002-2012) and under his transformative leadership the college achieved national rankings and quality milestones in research and teaching. Prior to his appointment as Dean, he served as Drexel’s Vice Provost and Vice President for academic administration and contributed to the completion of the strategic merger between Drexel and MCP Hahnemann University. Dr. Tsetsekos’ extensive research covers the broad areas of corporate finance, investments, banking and international finance. His research contributions include articles ... Read More