JOE BORGATTI
Extensive international experience in commercial banking, mining, venture investment and privatization.
Mr. Borgatti began his career as a management trainee for CitiBank (then First National City Bank) in Brazil in the 1950s. He quickly rose to branch management, followed by starting new branches in different countries. By the time he left Citi 17 years later, he was running the southern half of South America. In 1970 he as was asked by International Nickel Co. to set up their operations in Guatemala. INCO been trying unsuccessfully for 12 years to negotiate a deal with the Guatemalan government. Mr. Borgatti made the deal, built the plant and ran it until the Arab-Israeli war pushed oil prices up to an unsustainable level.
At that point, he was hired to lead another rescue operation as President of the ADELA investment company. ADELA had been founded with great fanfare in the early 60s as a vehicle to promote development in Latin American. Unfortunately, after a string of poor decisions, corruption and lack of oversight, by the 1970s it was in bad shape and owed a great deal of money to a great many creditors. Mr. Borgatti restructured the organization and cleared out the corruption. The company was eventually liquidated and every creditor was paid back in full.
For the last 20 years, Mr. Borgatti has been on the board of the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund (as well as its legatee the America for Bulgaria Foundation), serving various roles including President, Chairman, head of the audit committee and so on.
Over a similar period, he has also been active on the Board of Directors of a U.S. foundation, Friends of Ixchel Museum, which he co-founded. The foundation supports the Museo Ixchel del Traje in Guatemala, which exists to document, preserve and propagate the weavings of the Maya.
As a member of the American Participant Program, Mr. Borgatti gives lectures and provides privatization seminars to foreign government officials, students, and journalists both in the U.S. and abroad. He has written extensively for publication and also lectured at conferences and courses on privatization at Columbia University and Baruch College in the U.S., and at universities in Bolivia, Mexico, and El Salvador, under the programs of USAID.
Mr. Borgatti holds a B.A. in History from Harvard College and an M.B.A., with Distinction, from Harvard Business School.