
This week our personality profile has taken us to another level; featuring Ms. Larisa Leshchenko, the World Bank’s Country Manager for Liberia, started on August 1, 2016.
Prior to this appointment, she worked for more than16 years in various positions in the Bank, including her latest jobs as the Country Manager for Azerbaijan, Country Program Coordinator for the South Caucasus and as Senior Country Officer for the Southern African countries and for Nigeria.
In these positions she managed the teams working on the development of Country Partnership Strategies and monitoring and managing portfolio, led preparation of the work programs and ensured quality of deliverables.Before 2005, as a Senior Economist on Ukraine she worked on the budget support operations and was engaged in policy dialogue on public expenditure management and intergovernmental financial relations, public administration and civil service reform, pension reform and regional development issues, etc.
Prior to joining the World Bank in August 1996, Ms. Leshchenko worked as a research fellow at the Institute of Cybernetics and the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. She holds Ph.D. in operations research with specialization in stochastic optimization.
Ms. Leshchenko graduated with an MA equivalent in economic cybernetics from the Kiev National University named after T. Shevchenko in 1981. In 1992-93 she studied at economic department of the Central European University in Prague, Czech Republic, and holds another MA diploma in economics from New York State University. In 1993-94 she was a research fellow at Oxford University, UK. Ms. Leshchenko is the author or co-author of various Bank’s publications and research papers.