Lee Babcock

Technical Managing Director, New Business Development & Senior Private Sector Specialist

Vice President for New Business Development and Senior Private Sector Specialist Lee Babcock has extensive experience in evaluating small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance and advising financially distressed companies. He also currently chairs the ACDI/VOCA Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Task Force. Prior to joining ACDI/VOCA, he served as SME and development consultant to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency, the Indonesian Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises, a large project in Bosnia and the prime minister of Latvia’s office. In addition to starting businesses in the U.S. and Europe himself, Dr. Babcock has trained a range of stakeholders in SME development and coauthored or edited three books on the subject. Other publications include “Establishing a Baseline for Development: An Exploratory Analysis Comparing Indicators of E-Readiness and Policy Performance,” “How to receive credit: From a banker's perspective” and “How to prepare a business plan.” An internet-based initiative Dr. Babcock launched in the Republic of Georgia was hailed by the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency as “setting a new standard” in the electronic dissemination of investor information. As a Peace Corps volunteer working in SME, he was in the first group to serve in the former Soviet Union. Other field-based experiences include Russia and Panama. He is the founder of the 500-member organization Friends of the Baltics and has served on the National Peace Corps Association’s board of directors. Dr. Babcock earned his Ph.D. in organization and management at Capella University with published research on the nexus between ICT and international development. He earned his M.B.A. in international business and finance, at the Drucker Graduate Management Center at Claremont Graduate University and his B.S. in finance and investments at California State University-Long Beach. He is proficient in Bosnian, Latvian, Bahasa Indonesia and Spanish.