Harry G. Broadman is a global authority on international finance, investment and trade; business growth, risk-mitigation and innovation strategy; and corporate governance. One of the earliest serial entrepreneurs, he’s re-invented himself more than a handful of times not only in an interdisciplinary fashion, but also across greatly differentiated senior roles in the private sector, interspersed with stints as a high-level policy maker. Broadman has emerged as a genuine thought-leader on the unforeseen dynamics that have changed the underlying structure and character of world markets—long before the term “globalization” was commonplace.
These insights shaped his career focus on structuring cross-border transactions that propel a firm’s growth, especially in emerging markets, the parts of the world toward which Harry has always had a strong predisposition. These are where there is significant untapped potential for growth arising from increasing opportunities for arbitrage by exploiting misperceptions of risks and rewards. Illustrative of this, he’s worked on-the-ground with firms large and small as well as public and private, in more than 75 such countries across 5 continents. He’s a driving force advising, creating, and establishing highly-successful enterprises positioned at the leading edge of their markets.
With an innate sense of how business functions, his professional journey has been propelled by intense personal inquisitiveness about the ways successful firms pierce through these misperceptions and grow rapidly, excel at remaining more competitive than rivals, reduce exposure to risks, and constantly innovate.
Broadman brings to audiences a unique combination of fundamentally insightful and pragmatic views about how commercial, financial and policy changes that drive international markets impact and alter today’s businesses in ways few ever could have predicted. He has the rare ability to frame his speeches on the most salient business issues not only from a prospective rather than a simple rear-view mirror vantage point, but also expose the ways markets intrinsically tend to operate in non-linear patterns. Aside from leaving audiences with concrete takeaways, Broadman’s speeches are entertaining and infused with his infectious sense of humor.
Broadman is currently CEO and Managing Partner of Proa Global Partners LLC, a global cross-border investment transaction strategy firm that provides operational, field-level advice on the design and execution of deals in emerging markets structured to provide for growth while also mitigating commercial and governance risks. Clients include corporations, banks, private equity firms, institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds and family offices and high net worth individuals.
Concurrently, Harry is a member of the Johns Hopkins University Faculty, where he serves as Director of Johns Hopkins’ new Council on Global Enterprise and Emerging Markets as well as a Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins’ Foreign Policy Institute. He is also a monthly columnist for Forbes, Newsweek International and Gulf News.
Broadman serves or has served on the Boards of Directors or Advisors of: ArmorText, an enterprise systems cyber security software provider; PartnersGlobal Institute, an international alternative dispute resolution firm; The Corporate Council on Africa; The Global Business School Network; The Russian-American Chamber of Commerce; and The Lake Tanganyika Floating Health Clinic. He is a Master Workshop Faculty Member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD).
In 2015, Broadman stepped down as Senior Managing Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where he founded and led PwC’s Global Business Growth Strategy Management Consulting Practice, a transaction-centered business that worked with U.S. and non-U.S. Fortune 100 corporates, private equity firms and investment houses providing operational advice on structuring greenfield market entry, consummating mergers and acquisitions, forming public private partnerships (PPPs), managing global supply chains, plant location decision-making, and carrying out reputational due diligence.
Before joining PwC, he was Managing Director and a member of the Investment Committee at Albright Capital Management, a private equity and alternative strategy investment fund focused on emerging markets, co-chaired by Madeleine Albright. He was also Managing Director of The Albright Group (now Albright Stonebridge), a business diplomacy consultancy.
Earlier Harry was a senior official at the World Bank, where he oversaw the Bank’s largest operational and enterprise restructuring loans to China and Russia, and was Economic Advisor for the entire Africa Region
Before joining the Bank, he was Chief of Staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in the White House during the first Gulf War and the Savings and Loan Crisis; United States Assistant Trade Representative, leading the U.S. negotiations on international trade and investment in the services sectors as part of the establishment of both NAFTA and the WTO, and where he also managed all negotiations of U.S. Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with other sovereigns, sat on the Board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and served on the White House Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), which assesses national security impacts of inbound investment; and served as Senior Professional Staff Member on U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, then chaired by John Glenn.
Prior to his government service, Harry was on the Harvard University faculty; staff member at the RAND Corporation; Assistant Director, Center for Energy Policy at Resources for the Future, Inc.; and fellow at the Brookings Institution.
He has authored several books and numerous professional articles published in a wide array of peer-reviewed economics, law, and foreign policy journals. His most recent books are: Africa’s Silk Road: China and India’s New Economic Frontier; From Disintegration to Reintegration: Russia and the Former Soviet Union in the Global Economy; and The State As Shareholder: China’s Management of Enterprise Assets.
Harry is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of The Bretton Woods Committee. He received an A.B. in economics and history, Magna Cum Laude, from Brown University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and an A.M. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.
