Marcela Escobari

Speaker at the St. Gallen Symposium

Marcela Escobari is a senior fellow at Brookings and a leading voice on international development, inclusive growth, and economic mobility. Her career has spanned the private sector, government, and academia, with a common thread of promoting growth that is inclusive and sustainable. She has been twice confirmed by the U.S. Senate under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden to lead the Latin America & Caribbean bureau at USAID, and most recently served on the White House National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President on hemispheric migration and protection. In this role, she led efforts to promote safe, orderly, and humane migration and to advance a collaborative, regional response to the displacement of over 8 million people across Latin America and the Caribbean. This regional effort contributed to a more than 75% decrease in irregular migration at the U.S. border in 2024, helping to stabilise and integrate over 4.5 million migrants and refugees within Latin America. Before her government service, she was Executive Director at the Center for International Development at Harvard University and worked at Brookings, where she launched the Workforce of the Future initiative focused on policies to restore opportunity in U.S. cities and states in the wake of globalisation and COVID-19. She holds a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College and a Master in Public Policy in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School.