The management of The Development Executive Group greatly appreciates the opportunity to serve the international development community. We are a diverse team of professionals from around the world playing our small part in promoting international development.

Senior Management

Raj Kumar

President
raj.kumar@developmentex.com

Raj Kumar is President and co-founder of The Development Executive Group (www.developmentex.com), an innovative company that makes foreign aid more efficient by providing a recruiting and business development marketplace to more than 100,000 international development professionals around the world.  He is a former Principal in the political consulting firm Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, and has been a strategic adviser and election monitor for presidential elections in Venezuela, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, Israel, and Ukraine.  Raj was a co-founder of SmartPortfolio.com Inc., a successful financial information company sold to TheStreet.com (Nasdaq:TSCM) in 2000.  Earlier he was a staff member of President Clinton's national advance team.  Raj graduated from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and founded The Development Executive Group while a graduate student at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  He is a board member of the Society for International Development, Washington, DC Chapter, a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  He speaks Spanish and has worked, studied, and traveled in more than 40 countries.

Kamiar Dar

Senior Partner
kami.dar@developmentex.com

Kami is Senior Partner of The Development Executive Group. Kami had been Chief Product Manager and had led the development of The Development Executive Group's industry-leading web applications. Previously, Kami was an international consultant specializing in designing and implementing IT solutions in developing country projects. After working as an IT consultant with American Management Systems (AMS), Kami went on to design, develop, and implement a cutting-edge management system for the AMIR Program in Jordan, a $58 million development project funded by USAID. Kami's successful endeavor to bring efficiencies to this international development project led him to co-found The Development Executive Group in order to provide similar efficiencies across the industry. Kami was named Dean's Fellow at Harvard University's international development program and holds a B.S. in Science, Technology, and International Affairs from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

Jason McNaboe

Partner
mailto:jason.mcnaboe@developmentex.com

Jason is Partner of The Development Executive Group. As a founding member of the organization, Jason created the marketing and branding strategy for The Development Executive Group in his role as Vice President, Design and Development. Before joining The Development Executive Group, he was Senior Project Manager at New York Digital Design (NYD2), a strategic communications boutique. At NYD2, Jason developed marketing and communications strategies for Fortune 500 corporations, non-profit organizations, and start-up Internet companies. His clients included companies such as Lucent Technologies, Pfizer, Fiduciary Trust Company International, and World Hunger Year, Inc. Jason has also directed projects with companies such as Oracle and eBay. He holds a B.A. in Cultural Studies from McGill University.

Alan Robbins

Partner
alan.robbins@developmentex.com

Alan is Partner of The Development Executive Group. As a founding member of the organization, he has helped expand the firm's membership to include over 250 of the world's leading international development firms and NGOs. Alan is the former Deputy Director of the Washington International Business Council, an information and advisory service for major multinational corporations including ABB, Microsoft, ExxonMobil, IBM, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is also former Deputy Director of the non-profit Executive Council on Diplomacy, an organization founded at the request of the U.S. Secretary of State in 1962 with the mission of providing private sector outreach to the international diplomatic community in the United States. Alan holds a M.A. in International Affairs (International Economics) from George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs and a B.A. in Political Science and History from Rutgers University.

Management

Noel V. Salazar

Senior Research Manager and Director, Manila Office
noel.salazar@developmentex.com

Noel is the Director of The Development Executive Group Manila Office and a Senior Research Manager.  As Director, Noel recruits, trains, and manages more than 40 staff in our offices near the Asian Development Bank.  As a Senior Research Manager, he conducts and oversees research into projects funded by the ADB, World Bank, and other international development agencies. He has been a development practitioner for 20 years and has experience working for both local and international non-government organizations (NGOs). Noel was a member of the editorial board of one of the oldest and leading human rights organizations in the Philippines. >From 1990-1997, he was based in Spain and Tunisia as a member of the international staff of El Taller, a global NGO. At El Taller, Noel was responsible for membership campaign activities, the administration of international workshops and training courses, and coordinating publications in three languages (English, French and Spanish). Noel also worked as a consultant for Governance and Local Democracy (GOLD), a USAID project in the Philippines implemented by Associates in Rural Development (ARD). Noel holds a B.S. degree in Social Work from the University of the Philippines.

Kotaro Takahashi

Managing Director, Japan
mailto:kotaro.takahasi@developmentex.com

Kotaro established the Japan office of The Development Executive Group in July 2006. As Managing Director, Kotaro is assisting Japan's leading international development companies in accessing donor funding and consultants from outside Japan, bringing greater efficiency to Japan's international development industry. Prior to joining The Development Executive Group, Kotaro was an international development official in the Japanese government for more than 10 years. From 1996-2006, he served in the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), with responsibility for aid planning, technical assistance project formulation, management, and evaluation in the area of economic policy, finance, legal and judicial reform and governance, mainly in Southeast Asian Countries. He also served as an official on assignment in the Economic Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) with responsibility for Japan's aid policy in Sub-Sahara Africa. In 2001, he worked as a summer associate for The Development Executive Group during which time he developed a business plan for the company's expansion to Japan. He earned a Master of Public Administration (MPA2) degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2002 and a Master of Economics degree from the University of Tokyo in 1996.

Consultants

Jason P. Matechak

Outside General Counsel and Legal Advisor
jason.matechak@developmentex.com

Jason is a Partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Reed Smith LLP where his practice includes public procurement, international, and technology matters. Jason has served as the General Counsel/Legal Advisor at the International Development Law Institute in Rome, Italy. He has also served as a legal reform officer and as a contract negotiator during his seven year tenure with USAID. Jason earned a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law, an M.A. in International Commerce and Policy from George Mason University's School of Public Policy, a Graduate Certificate in the Economics of European Integration for studies at l 'Universite Catholique de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, and a B.A. in Political Science with minors in Russian Studies and Economics from James Madison University.