Potomac Group LLC

Ms. Dauchy’s career as a trusted advisor to sovereigns and public entities spans nearly twenty years and over a dozen countries throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. She has focused on issues of debt sustainability and restructuring, as well as strategies for stimulating growth, ensuring market access, and infrastructure financing. She is committed to protecting the immediate and long term interests of her clients. Since founding Potomac Group, Ms. Dauchy has provided support to a multitude of sovereigns, international institutions, and also public and private sector businesses with respect to debt negotiations, climate finance, and PPP projects. She also serves as an external expert to the IMF in the Monetary and Capital Markets Department. She is a member of the Principles Consultative Group and the Committee for Debt Transparency of the Institute of International Finance.

Ms. Dauchy began her career in finance at Swiss Bank Corporation on the Emerging Markets fixed income trading floor in New York City. Following the bank’s acquisition of S.G. Warburg & Co and subsequent merger with UBS, she moved to London and joined its well known sovereign advisory team. She continued to collaborate with members of that team for over 15 years until returning to the US in 2015. Prior to forming Potomac Group, Ms. Dauchy was Managing Director at Millstein & Co.

Ms. Dauchy earned an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business and an M.A. in International Studies from the Lauder Institute, both of the University of Pennsylvania. She also received a B.A. in Soviet/Russian studies from Barnard College of Columbia University. She is fluent in French and Russian.

Christopher Dielmann is a financial and macro economist with nearly 15 years of experience in both the public and private sectors. Prior to joining Potomac Group, he served as a sovereign debt advisor to the World Bank’s Macroeconomics, Trade & Investment Global Practice, specifically working on Angola’s sovereign debt portfolio and providing advice on the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI). ​

Dr. Dielmann previously served as Director of Macroeconomic & Sovereign Research at Tellimer (formerly Exotix Capital), based in London. Prior to this, Dr. Dielmann spent four years as lead analyst for debt sustainability analysis (DSA) for both low-income and market access countries in the IMF’s Debt Policy Division.

Dr. Dielmann holds a B.S. degree in economics from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University and two master’s degrees and a doctorate in international affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is a chartered financial analyst (CFA), chartered alternative investment analyst (CAIA), and a member at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Julien Hartley has over 20 years of extensive experience working on debt issues at the IMF and the European Commission. He has participated in policy formulation of debt policies, provided support to country teams, and participated in technical-capacity building activities in debt policy.

He was part of a core team that developed the revamped IMF debt limit policy. He delivered technical assistance to middle- and low-income countries but also to IMF economists. In addition, he has had experience with debt relief to highly-indebted poor countries (HIPC) while carrying-out Debt Sustainability Analyses for 15 low-income countries and actively involved in Paris club debt restructuring meetings. Mr. Hartley was also on the team at the IMF that developed the Debt Sustainability Analysis framework for market-access countries (DSA-MAC).

Mr. Hartley earned an MA from the Institut d’ Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences-Po) in Economics and Finance, and MA from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and is an alumni of the Advanced Studies Program in International Policy Research of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Bruno Silvestre has been a trusted name in the television news business for 28 years and has joined Potomac Group to provide media counsel and strategic advice to national institutions and international organizations.

Prior to joining Potomac Group, Mr. Silvestre was a Senior Communications Officer at the International Monetary Fund and personally advised Managing Director Christine Lagarde on her media outreach, particularly when dealing with international challenges and crisis situations. He has worked with Ms. Lagarde since the height of the financial crisis in 2008, when he became a member of her private staff at the French Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Previously, Mr. Silvestre spent more than two decades running the Paris bureau of ABC News, where he became Pierre Salinger’s right-hand man. As a producer and senior producer, he spent countless weeks reporting on the fall of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe, on wars and upheavals in the Middle East, on sieges and agitation in the Balkans, and on coups, catastrophes, and health emergencies in Africa. Working for one of the busiest networks at the time, Mr. Silvestre covered global news alongside world-class journalists and anchors like Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, and Dan Rather, and was awarded several distinctions: Peabody Award, ATAS Emmy Award, Overseas Press Club, among others. He ended his career at ABC News as Paris Bureau chief before eventually joining CBS, and then later NBC

Mr. Silvestre earned a MS from Columbia University’s School of Journalism.

David Thirkill specializes in economic data analysis and data visualization.

Prior to joining Potomac Group, Mr. Thirkill was a research analyst at the International Monetary Fund, where he provided statistical and analytic support to the Director of the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs department for external outreach across a wide range of macroeconomic topics. Additionally, Mr. Thirkill was a key member of the small team responsible for updating and managing the IMF’s Global Debt Database.

Previously, Mr. Thirkill worked to promote investment and foster mutually beneficial business-to-business relations at the Embassy of Jordan’s Economic and Commerce Bureau in Washington, DC, and later gained experience reviewing anti-dumping duties at the United States International Trade Commission’s Office of Investigations.

Mr. Thirkill earned an M.A. in International Economic Relations from American University’s School of International Service.

Mr. Vodola has over 17 years of experience in the financial services industry, with a specialization in investments in Emerging Markets (EM) sovereign and corporate debt. Throughout his career, Mr. Vodola has provided advice to ministers, debt management offices, and central bankers on debt restructurings, liability-management exercises, and general sovereign financings.

Prior to joining the Potomac Group, Mr. Vodola was an Analyst at Citadel, a multi-strategy hedge fund, from November 2018 until June 2021, where his responsibilities included due diligence, as well as analyzing and investing in opportunities across the capital structure in sovereign and corporate debt in over 35 EM countries. Prior to joining Citadel in 2018, he was an Analyst for nine years at Brigade Capital, a global investment management firm specializing in credit investment strategies in stressed and distressed situations in EM and US companies in retail, restaurants, CPG, food & beverage, among others.

Additionally, Mr. Vodola worked in capital markets roles at Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, among other financial institutions. Throughout his career as an investor, Mr. Vodola has been particularly focused on legal and bond documentation issues in stressed and distressed sovereign debt and has participated in numerous debt restructurings, including holding key steering committee roles.

Mr. Vodola holds an MA in International Political Economy and Development from Fordham University. He also holds certifications in debt sustainability & financial programming from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Ambassador Wisner is a Senior Advisor to Potomac Group and assists the firm in its understanding of global trends and geopolitical landscapes. He is also an International Affairs Advisor at Squire Patton Boggs and serves on a number of boards, including the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

Ambassador Wisner’s diplomatic career spans over 40 years, including serving as US Ambassador to Zambia, Egypt, the Philippines and India. Ambassador Wisner began his distinguished foreign service career at the State Department stationed in Algiers immediately after Algeria won independence from France. He was then transferred to Vietnam at the apex of the Vietnam War.

Ambassador Wisner later served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and was Under Secretary of State for International Security Affairs after serving as Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs in the 1980s. He worked closely with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to launch negotiations with Zimbabwe and Namibia.

Appointed by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Ambassador Wisner served as US special representative in Kosovo Status Talks in 2005. He was also vice chair of external affairs at AIG until 2009.