We aim to increase our sovereign clients’ access to sources of low-cost, stable capital flows and create opportunities for financing sustainable development.
We are laser-focused on achieving optimal results in debt management and debt restructuring negotiations.
We strive to reform the international financial architecture to facilitate financing the sustainable development goals and to meet the challenges of climate change.
Our team has supported over 20 sovereign governments worldwide. We also regularly work with international organisations, helping shape the landscape of sustainable sovereign debt and sovereign resilience.
Jill Dauchy is the founder and chief executive of Potomac Group LLC. Her career as a trusted advisor to governments and public entities spans more than twenty-five years and over twenty countries throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Throughout her career she has focused on issues of debt sustainability and restructuring, as well as strategies for stimulating economic growth, ensuring market access, and financing infrastructure.
Jill Dauchy is the founder and chief executive of Potomac Group LLC, a financial advisory firm based in Washington DC that specializes in advising governments on complex matters of the sovereign balance sheet. Ms. Dauchy’s career as a trusted advisor to governments and public entities spans more than twenty years and over a dozen countries throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Throughout her career she has focused on issues of debt sustainability and restructuring, as well as strategies for stimulating economic growth, ensuring market access, and financing infrastructure. She has a particular interest in working with governments and their stakeholders to find innovative financial solutions to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.
Since founding Potomac Group, Ms. Dauchy has advised a range of sovereign and institutional clients, including the World Bank, United Nations, and the African Development Bank. Previously she advised the European Stability Mechanism. Select sovereign clients include Zimbabwe, Botswana, The Gambia, Cote d’Ivoire, Iceland, Serbia (FRY), Indonesia, Ecuador and Pakistan; as well as the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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 is the host of Sovereign Debt, a podcast that is regularly downloaded in over 120 countries. In addition, Ms. Dauchy serves as an external expert to the IMF and is a member of the Institute of International Finance (IIF), where she regularly participates in the Principles Consultative Group, the Committee for Sovereign Risk Management, and the Committee for Debt Transparency.
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.
Financial and macro economist. Former advisor to the chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank.
Open full bio →Clemens Graf von Luckner is a financial and macro economist. Prior, he served as economist and advisor to the chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank. In this role he assisted the chief economist in high level debt servicing strategy meetings with client countries and IMF representatives. He also provided advice on the Debt Service Suspension Initiative, as well as the G20 Common Framework, developed in response to the Covid pandemic and was part of a small team developing recommendations to improve the joint World Bank and IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis.
Prior to the World Bank he has held positions at Eurasia Group and worked as an external consultant for JP Morgan’s sovereign advisory, inter alia.
Graf von Luckner holds a B.A. degree from Sciences Po and two master’s degrees in economics, public policy and finance from Sciences Po and Columbia University. He is currently a PhD candidate at Sciences Po.
Debt sustainability analyses for low-income countries; Africa. 20+ years at the IMF; Former Senior Economist. Former French Treasury. Native speaker of French.
Open full bio →Julien is a global expert with extensive knowledge of IMF operations and policies honed over 20+ years contributing to the lending, surveillance, and capacity development activities of the Fund. He has expertise in applying international macroeconomic, social, and structural policies in bilateral (low-income, emerging, advanced economies), regional (ADB, AfDB, EC), and multilateral contexts (G20, G7). He has developed wide and technical experience on debt issues while working at the IMF and the European Commission. He has participated in debt policy design, provided support to country teams, and participated in technical-capacity building activities. He was part of the core team that developed the revamped debt limit policy. In addition, he has experience with HIPC while carrying-out DSAs for 15 LICs and actively involved in Paris club debt restructuring meetings.
Tala Rafii brings over four years of experience in finance and strategy consulting to her role as an Associate at Potomac Group. Her expertise includes economic analysis and data visualization.
Open full bio →Tala Rafii brings over four years of experience in finance and strategy consulting to her role as an Associate at Potomac Group. Her expertise includes economic analysis and data visualization, enabling her to offer valuable insights to clients.
At Potomac Group, Ms. Rafii is engaged in in-depth quantitative and qualitative research projects, financial and economic modeling, and more. She recently contributed to a technical paper for an international institution, exploring the potential of sustainability-linked bonds in select countries.
Prior to joining our team, Ms. Rafii worked at Advancy, a boutique consultancy in Paris, where she participated in corporate strategy and due diligence projects, including a project to optimize and monetize a major Sovereign-owned entity. Her comprehensive approach to both financial and business matters allows her to provide well-rounded guidance to clients .Additionally, she gained experience at Rothschild & Co, where she advised Western Asian and Eastern European Sovereigns on debt management strategies, debt transactions, and Public-Private Partnership schemes.
Ms. Rafii holds a Master’s degree in Finance from Sciences Po Paris.
35+ year career as news producer and media strategist; Former Senior Comms Advisor, IMF; Foreign Press Advisor, French Ministry of Finance; Paris bureau chief, ABC News.
Open full bio →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. For more than three years, he was the key interlocutor between the minister and the Paris-based foreign press. He also accompanied her as press advisor on foreign trips, international seminars, G7 or G20 conferences, and bilateral visits, which gave him a unique perspective on the inner workings of domestic and international institutions. He was also a key member of the team that ran her election campaign.
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, Bruno covered world news with Pierre and other networks’ correspondents, working 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.
Mr. Silvestre ended his career at ABC News as Paris Bureau chief before eventually joining CBS, and then later NBC. His network news experience, together with reporting in more than 70 countries worldwide gave him an unparalleled knowledge of the world political landscape, as well as a substantial list of media contacts.
He is now capitalizing on these years of experience and distinctive qualifications by working with domestic or international authorities as well as private companies to help them devise a targeted communications strategy and/or a proper media response in times of crisis.
Mr. Silvestre earned a MS from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. He lives between Paris, Washington, and southern Maryland.
40+ year career as a diplomat including as US Ambassador to Zambia, Egypt, the Philippines and India. Experience working with the Government of Sudan. Arabic speaker.
Open full bio →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.
Continuing his career in both North Africa and Asia, Ambassador Wisner worked as a senior diplomat in Tunisia and Bangladesh before returning to Washington as Director of Plans and Management in the Bureau of Public Affairs. Afterwards, he joined the President’s Interagency Task Force on Indochina, serving as its Deputy Director.
Ambassador Wisner also 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.
Fellow at the Olin Center for Law, Economics and Business at the Harvard Law School. Juris Doctor and Master in Public Administration in International Development.
Open full bio →Juan P. Farah Yacoub is currently a fellow at the Olin Center for Law, Economics and Business at the Harvard Law School. He is also a joint Juris Doctor and Master in Public Administration in International Development (JD & MPA/ID) at the Harvard Law and Kennedy Schools. While on leave from his graduate studies he served as economist and advisor at the World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President’s office during 2020-22. Prior to the World Bank he worked at the International Monetary Fund, the International Finance Corporation, the Potomac Group, Keystone Strategy, and Goldman Sachs & Co. His areas of focus are macroeconomics, international finance, and financial and sovereign debt crises; covering these topics from both law and economics lenses.
