Dr. Guevera Yao
- Vice President, U.S.-Africa Business Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Dr. Guevera Yao is the Vice President for African Affairs at the U.S.-Africa Business Center of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Yao oversees programs and policy initiatives to broaden commercial relationships between the U.S. and African markets. He advises the U.S. Chamber’s Fortune 500 companies, Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs), and government leaders to deepen and expand trade & investment opportunities between the U.S. and markets across Africa. He also leads a number of initiatives within the U.S. Chamber’s U.S.-Africa Business Center, including the Trade and Investment Task Forces, the U.S.-Angola and U.S.-Côte Working Groups, the U.S.-Nigeria Business Initiative (USNBI), the U.S. Chamber – African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat Joint Working Group, and the Africa Responsible Energy Steering Committee (RESC).
Previously, as Director and Coordinator of the ECOWAS Regional Development Program in Abuja, he led the preparation of the ECOWAS Community Development Program and coordinated regional infrastructure, energy, and agriculture projects with an estimated value of $24 billion. Dr. Yao is an economist and policy expert with over 20 years of experience in economic integration, regional infrastructure development, and trade and finance for several developing countries.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Yao was a senior technical adviser for the governments of Tanzania and Namibia, where he provided policy guidance on the design and enactment of intergovernmental fiscal transfer systems for subnational governments. He was also a senior research associate for the International Center for Public Policy at Georgia State University. There, he contributed to several analytical studies, including the USAID project on Fiscal Reform in Support of Trade Liberalization. Additionally, he provided consultancy services to the Urban Institute and the World Bank on urban service delivery in South Asia.
Dr. Yao is currently a member of the Sub-Saharan Africa Advisory Committee for the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) and served two terms on the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) advisory council. He was also a board member of ACDI /VOCA. He has a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in economics from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University and is fluent in French, English, and several African languages.
