About
Emmanuel is a senior advisor with Morrow Sodali focusing on governance, policy and international institutions.
Emmanuel’s career has been in the practice of law in an international context and in banking for developmental and transitional purposes. He has acquired a vast body of experience in structuring, documenting and negotiating project finance transactions and cross-border investments in a large number of jurisdictions and sectors. In addition, he has a thorough knowledge of the policies, procedures and practices of international financial institutions (IFIs), and an ability to analyze, benchmark and assess the institutional, legal and management issues they aim to resolve.
Emmanuel joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the London-based IFI, at its creation in 1991. Promoted to General Counsel in 1998, he was a member of the bank’s Executive Committee and its chief legal officer, providing legal, institutional and policy advice to its officers and governance bodies. As head of the Legal Department, he directed and oversaw the legal handling of the bank’s loans and investments in favor of project finance entities and financial intermediaries in Central Europe, Russia and the CIS, and countries of the Mediterranean, including Egypt, Morocco and Turkey. After retiring from the EBRD in 2014, he was appointed interim General Counsel of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (FIDA), an IFI and a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Rome.
Prior to EBRD, Emmanuel worked as a transaction lawyer at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, working on project finance, foreign investment and privatization operations in various countries, including Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Mexico and Tunisia. He started his career in the New York and Paris offices of Willkie Farr and Gallagher, an international law firm, working on numerous acquisitions and investments, as well as legal frameworks and transactions consistent with Islamic finance principles.
Emmanuel is a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Sciences and has law degrees from the universities of Paris I, Paris II and Stanford. Emmanuel speaks French and English.