Centennial Group Principals

Biography: Harinder Kohli, President and CEO

Mr. Kohli is a Founding Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Centennial Group. He is simultaneously the Chief Executive of the Emerging Markets Forum, Chairman of Centennial Group Latin America, a Vice Chairman of Centennial Advisors Japan, and a Director of Centennial Asia Advisors and IDBC. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of ISG Novasoft, an information technology firm based in the US with operations in India, Ireland and the UK. He is on the Advisory Board of Holcim India.

He regularly attends and moderates various international forums of public and private sector leaders, including the annual meetings of the Construction and Engineering Industry Governors at the World Economic Forum (Davos) when 30-40 CEOs and top executives of the leading global companies (engineering and construction companies, investment houses, insurance companies, equipment manufacturing firms) meet privately to discuss globalization.

Prior to starting the Centennial Group, Mr. Kohli spent 26 years with the World Bank in a series of senior positions. Between 1994-98, as the Senior Advisor Mr. Kohli focused on the Bank's efforts to promote financial sector reforms and private sector development, particularly in infrastructure, first in East Asia and then throughout the world. Mr. Kohli has worked with senior officials in some 50 countries in all continents of the world, including advising countries like China, Indonesia, India, Japan, Philippines and Sri Lanka on how to substantially increase the role of private sector and helped devise new policies and projects.

At the regional level, he has organized and advised both public and private sector forums within the APEC framework. He has been a keynote speaker at industry conferences and was invited to address the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos, New Delhi, Hong Kong and Singapore as well as the APEC Business Forum (consisting of over 450 chief executives from throughout Asia, Latin America, Australia, and North America).

Earlier, he served as the Country Director of the Maghreb and Iran Department and was directly responsible for all World Bank operational activities in Algeria, Iran, Morocco and Tunisia. This included annual new lending operations totaling $1.5 billion and policy dialogue at the highest levels of the government, and interactions with European governments.

From 1990-1993, Mr. Kohli was the Director of the Technical Department for both the Europe & Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa Regions. This was a period of a very rapid expansion of Bank activities in the former Soviet Union economies. As part of his work on the Middle East, he led World Bank teams that participated in the Multilateral Working Groups of the Middle East Peace Process and developed a conceptual program for Economic Development in the Middle East. This work became the foundation for the international development assistance to West Bank and Gaza after the peace accord.

Between 1986 and 1990, Mr. Kohli was the Director of the Information, Technology and Facilities Department. During his tenure, the World Bank provided access to modern information technology to some 8,000 staff and initiated implementation of a global communications network to link its field offices in some 40 countries. Earlier, Mr. Kohli was managed the Bank's global strategy and policy work on industry and finance. He led and oversaw development of the Bank's initial approaches to industrial restructuring, privatization and financial sector development, and managed operations in and policy advice to some 40 countries in Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Asia.

He is the principal author of the Bank's report Infrastructure Development in East Asia and Pacific: Towards a New Public Private Partnership, is a co-author of another Bank publication Frontiers of the Public-Private Interface in East Asia's Infrastructure as well as of the book Choices for Efficient Private Provision of Infrastructure. He has also authored articles on infrastructure and financial sector development for a number of books and magazines. In addition, he has written articles and given speeches on Industrial Development, Enterprise Development and Privatization, Energy, Environment, Information Technology, Transport Policy and the Middle East Economic Development issues.

Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked in private industry in India (Union Carbide) and France (Pechiney Group).

Mr. Kohli has a Master's in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School (elected Baker Scholar with High Distinction) and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Punjab University, India (First Class Honors). He also completed an Executive Development Program jointly developed and delivered by the Harvard Business School, the Kennedy School of Government, Stanford University and INSEAD.