Alan Beard, Managing Director
Mr. Beard has over 30 years of international finance and business development experience. He currently leads Interlink Capital Strategies (www.interlinkdc.com), a management-consulting and private equity firm based in Washington, DC focusing on overseas business development and financing in emerging markets. (The former COO of ExIm Bank and CEO of OPIC are part of the Interlink management team.) Mr. Beard has personally led several structured/project financings in Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East ranging in size from a few million dollars to over a billion euros using government risk mitigation from North America, Europe and Asia. He has worked with many financial institutions and banks in the U.S. to service the international needs of their customers, including assisting OPIC create a public/private initiative focusing on small to medium sized business. He has co-founded three private equity funds, ExWorks Capital and FDI Capital, both specialty finance companies, which are approved ExIm Bank lenders. He led the acquisition by ExWorks Capital of one of the largest SBA export working capital lenders, World Trade Finance of Burbank, California. Mr. Beard currently also heads the fund management of an early stage geothermal power development fund for Latin America backed by Germany’s Export Credit Agency (KfW), the European Union, and other Development Finance Institutions (www.gdflac.com). He also sits on the boards of four overseas companies, including the U.S. operations of a large Turkish construction company (Yenigun) and the largest engineering company in the Middle East (Khatib & Alami). He is currently a member of the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross’ Trade Finance Advisory Council.
Previously, Mr. Beard and another partner grew a consulting firm which arranged several billion dollars in government grants, equity, guarantees and loans for more than 700 companies and sold it to Banc One Capital Corporation (now JP Morgan Chase) where he became the head of merchant banking. He also served as an official in both ExIm Bank and the Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration. He has been an adjunct professor at Georgetown University for undergraduate and graduate international business courses. (Through Interlink, he sponsors the annual international business scholar award for the McDonough School of Business.) He has edited and contributed to the writing of more than 20 books and is a frequent speaker on international finance issues. More recently, he co-authored and edited Trade Finance Handbook, Inside the World’s Export Credit Agencies, Inside the World’s Development Finance Institutions, and Terrorism & Personal Security, all published by Thomson Publishing. Mr. Beard graduated from the University of Utah and received his MBA from The George Washington University.
Previously, Mr. Beard and another partner grew a consulting firm which arranged several billion dollars in government grants, equity, guarantees and loans for more than 700 companies and sold it to Banc One Capital Corporation (now JP Morgan Chase) where he became the head of merchant banking. He also served as an official in both ExIm Bank and the Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration. He has been an adjunct professor at Georgetown University for undergraduate and graduate international business courses. (Through Interlink, he sponsors the annual international business scholar award for the McDonough School of Business.) He has edited and contributed to the writing of more than 20 books and is a frequent speaker on international finance issues. More recently, he co-authored and edited Trade Finance Handbook, Inside the World’s Export Credit Agencies, Inside the World’s Development Finance Institutions, and Terrorism & Personal Security, all published by Thomson Publishing. Mr. Beard graduated from the University of Utah and received his MBA from The George Washington University.