Elizabeth L. Littlefield has led organizations in emerging markets development finance in the public, private and multilateral sectors for the past three decades with a focus on sustainability, renewable resources and economic empowerment. She is the Senior Partner at West Africa Blue, a community-centric Blue Carbon developer and a Senior Adviser at the Pollination Group. She also Chairs the Board of M-KOPA, the pioneer in pay-as-you solar in Africa, is the Treasurer of World Wildlife Fund (US) and serves on the Boards Development Alternatives Inc and other mission-driven organizations operating in developing countries. In 2023 she was selected by Reuters as one of the world’s Twenty-five Trailblazing Women Leading the Fight Against Climate Change.

Ms. Littlefield was appointed by President Obama as the President, CEO and Chair of OPIC, now renamed the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), where she served from 2010 until 2017.  With a portfolio of $29 bn in financing and insurance across 106 developing countries, DFC’s mission is to drive private investment in sustainable economic development, especially in the world’s poorest countries. Under Littlefield’s leadership, DFC’s financing for renewable resources grew ten-fold and the agency’s overall portfolio tripled, generating increasing income for the U.S. federal budget. Littlefield also led a rebranding of the agency and a complete overhaul and modernization of the agency’s institutional architecture, introduced many new financial innovations to boost development impact and shifted focus to frontier markets.  Under Littlefield’s leadership, the agency was ranked at the top of the Best Places to Work in the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey.

From 1999 until 2010 Ms. Littlefield was a Director at the World Bank and CEO of CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor), a policy and research center dedicated to advancing poor people’s access to financial services. Prior to joining CGAP, Littlefield was JP Morgan’s Managing Director in charge of capital markets and financing in emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). She also served as JP Morgan’s head debt trader for EMEA sovereign and corporate debt and as a Director in JP Morgan’s investment bank in Paris.

Littlefield spent 1988-1990 living in West Africa setting up microfinance institutions with local communities.

She was an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), is a graduate of Brown University and attended Ecole Nationale de Sciences Politiques in Paris.