Loren Nadres
Loren Nadres has over 12 years of international economic development, innovation and entrepreneurship experience, of which 10 years are at leading global institutions such as the World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC) and United Nations. She has also worked at a startup tech company and an international development consulting firm. Loren has traveled to nearly 80 countries, survived triathlons, and climbed Mt. Everest Base Camp.
Currently, Loren is the Director of Economic Development for the City of New York at the Mayor's Office for International Affairs. The office is NYC’s liaison to the largest diplomatic corps in the world. On the economic development front, the NYC metro area’s $1.8 trillion GDP is larger than all but eleven countries in the world. In Loren’s capacity, she works with the international community, businesses, and City agencies to help create economic opportunities for New Yorkers. Specifically, she assists international businesses and startups to start and grow their business in NYC by connecting them to the City’s opportunities and resources. She also works with NYC based businesses to grow globally. Furthermore, she works on new policies and programs to help drive inclusive economic development. Loren is a member of the Global Entrepreneurship Network’s Startup Nations, which is a policy-focused community of leaders from around the world working on advancing innovation and entrepreneurship.
Previously, she served as Director for Inclusive Growth and Strategic Partnerships at Emerging360, an international development consulting firm. At Emerging360, Loren was the co-creator of HerVenture.org, an interactive mobile app for women entrepreneurs to start and grow their business. Prior, she was an Advisor and Senior Consultant at the World Bank Group on innovation, entrepreneurship and gender inclusiveness. One of the programs she focused on was bolstering the growth of women owned businesses through the infoDev World Bank Group's $15 million innovation and entrepreneurship global program, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. She was also the co-author of the World Bank report titled “Women Wavemakers: Practical Strategies for Recruiting and Retaining Women in Coding Bootcamps” which is focused on increasing inclusiveness in the tech industry and beyond.
In her previous roles, she served as a leadership member providing strategic guidance on a $20 million World Bank innovation and entrepreneurship program in Latin America and the Caribbean. Within the same program, she led a $3 million project providing business acceleration and startup support for women entrepreneurs across 14 countries in the region. Prior, Loren was part of the scale up team at IFC’s Small Business Toolkit program, an interactive online training platform, which reached and built the capacity of over 30 million small businesses across 18 languages in 30 emerging markets. Lastly, she has had stints in Trinidad & Tobago and Thailand working on United Nations projects focused on gender, global health and youth empowerment.
Loren completed a Harvard University Kennedy School of Government's Executive Education for Emerging Leaders. She holds a Master of Arts from Georgetown University and Bachelor of Arts from George Mason University. She participated in Georgetown's Graduate Business Summer Exchange Program in International Management at Oxford University. In addition, she was a Fellow in the Asia Pacific Leadership Program at the East West Center based in Hawai'i and included field studies in Thailand and Laos. She lives in NYC with her husband and children.