Experts & Staff

Manish Bapna is the acting president of the World Resources Institute. He joined WRI as its executive vice president and managing director in 2007. His interests and expertise are in international development with a particular focus on rural poverty and natural resources. Bapna chairs WRI’s management and executive teams and oversees the impact and quality of program strategies. Under his leadership, the institute has developed a five-year strategic plan, redesigned its managing for results system and deepened its engagement in China and India.

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Previously, he was the executive director of the nonprofit Bank Information Center (BIC), whose mission is to protect rights and promote sustainability in the projects and policies of international financial institutions. Bapna presided over considerable growth at BIC, including sizable increases in staff, funding and influence, especially in developing countries.

Bapna has also served as a senior economist and task team leader at the World Bank, where he led multidisciplinary teams in designing and implementing water, watershed, and rural development projects in Asia and Latin America. Several of the projects he helped develop received “excellence awards” by the Bank and were highly rated in independent evaluations.

His experience in international development also includes advisory roles at Seva Mandir (a leading grassroots nonprofit in India) and Women’s World Banking (a microfinance support organization). Earlier, he worked as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company in the financial services and technology industries.

Bapna has been cited in front-page articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and International Herald Tribune and is regularly quoted in leading papers including recent op-eds in the Washington Post and Bangkok Post. He has testified multiple times before U.S. Congressional Committees, serves on the boards of Oxfam America and New Rules for Global Finance and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Bapna received graduate degrees in business and international development from Harvard University and an undergraduate degree in engineering from MIT. He is married to Geeta and they have two children, Laila and Arav.