Okay. Lets get started. Im dan runde. Were going to have a conversation about whether or not we need to revisit the concept of u. S. Enterprise funds. U. S. Enterprise funds were launched in the early 1990s by george h. B. Bush, were country focussed where u. S. Government dollars funded investments in developing countries. It was an idea that was ahead of its time. And there were several dozen of these Enterprise Funds that were launched. Many of them were very successful. Some that had some hiccups. But most were broadly very successful. But you would ask yourself, well, why hasnt there is any number of Different Countries where you would say we ought to be applying this. Thankfully, in the obama administration, there were a number of countries where there was political will to apply this tool. And i think its a very valid and useful tool for our tool kit in the United States. And so we have examples from tunisia and egypt that were going to talk about as well. Were going to talk a little bit about the history of what are these things, how they come about, what can we learn from the past. How are some of the more recent ones operating. And then finally, i think the most important thing is about the future. Because i think there is in some ways, it was certainly ahead of its time. And there is a lot of learns from the past. But i think there are plenty of countries where we ought to be applying this in new additional countries. But also maybe in different ways, given the fact that the world has changed from, say, 25 years ago. And so the instrument needs to adapt with the times. So weve got a very experienced group of panelists. Im really pleased to have all these smart folks on the panel. Im not going to go into bios, into detailed bios for each of them. But im going ask my friend page alexander, who is the executive director of European Cooperative for world development, but he is more importantly a assistant administrator and somebody who was one of the point people on Enterprise Funds at several points in her career, but most recently during the obama administration. Paige, thanks for flying in from brussels to be here. And then ill introduce each of the panels before they speak. Paige, why dont you give us a little context here on enterprise. Sure, sure. Thanks, dan. I see so many people in the audience that know more about Enterprise Funds than i do, having spent numerous years working on them. Ill just give you a sort of perspective that i have, having come in 1993 and sort of seen what it was like through the 90s, the early 2000s. And then have the colleagues with bow and jim seeing what they were like when they started up again in 2012. So i think Enterprise Funds were truly designed for a solution to a problem in a very specific context. And kim will be able to talk more about that. Because what we had in the 90s, in the early 2000s, as we were looking at the dual mandate of how does the u. S. Government get involved in these countries in a quick way that we can get quick results, poland and hungary were the ones that were going through shock therapy. President bush wanted to announce something. These were designed in a vacuum of, okay, the u. S. Government does not have the Technical Expertise to look at private equity, venture capital. This is not what we do. We can hire private board who can go in and set up these Enterprise Funds. I dont think there, and there are probably other congressional staffers here who can attest to the fact that no one thought these were going to be financially viable or sustainable. So there was not a lot of thought done to what happens after liquidation. So then we spent most of 2010 on merge trying to figure out what to do about liquidation, legacy funds, things that we could do to leave behind. But backing up to the Enterprise Fund, at this point, the creation happened so quickly and with the dual mandate of you need to transition these countries to a market economy, yet at the same time you need to make money. And then the mandate of development was sort of left to the court of each individual board as to how much of it would be truly development for development purists sake, or was it going to be well set up an airport in albanian. Well set up Banking Sector in bulgaria. Well work with mortgage lending in the baltics. These things were decide aid moncks t amongst the private sector boards. It became tenuous as contreras congress continued to ask questions, what is it youre doing . How quickly are they going to be able to react. We went through a growth period over 25 years. And i believe a report will be coming out soon as to what these Enterprise Funds and the legacies have left behind 25 years later. And i see other members from legacy fund. Im actually a member of the romanian american legacy fund. I see the russian one. There are a number of people who are still part of this and are actively involved. But dans question is truly what can we do in an enterprise version 2. 0. The specific context of the nis left news the position to deal with very effective and educated people who just didnt have Financial Institutions in place and Banking Sectors in place. Those were things that fortunately cam and a number of people who were on the boards of those funds were able to jumpstart. And usaids continued oversight of that has gone from just the ambassador being involved to having a thousand and one questions asked of you. And when the Enterprise Funds started in 2011 and 12 after the arab spring, no one really knew what the relationship was going to be. And ill let jim and bow talk more about that. But i think the unique challenges that we have in Enterprise Fund as a new innovative tool have grown over time. We have usaid has feed the future. Its got Development Credit authority there is power africa. There are a lot of innovative tools. Ive actually moved overseas and im working on Public Partnerships with the dutch government to look at other innovative ways to bring private sector in so its not just a public set of funding that has to go in to jumpstart some of these economies. So i would say that on a whole, these theyve been blissfully successful. There are a couple that were unfortunately had de minimis returns at the end of the day. But when you look at the actual facts of 1. 2 billion in financing going to ten Enterprise Funds covering 14 countries, 6. 9 billion in private capital being leveraged from that 1. 2, and then 225 million being returned to treasury at the end of it, thats a Successful Development program. And its wonderful that they were able to do that at the time. And the question is what can we do to expand on that and do something new in some of the newer countries. Great. Thank you. I want to skip over bow and jim, and i want to ask kim davis to make some remarks. He is the chair of the baltic American Freedom foundation. He is also managing director and cochair of the charles mann capital partners. But more importantly, you chaired the baltic Enterprise Fund as well as you were the acting ceo of the check czechian. Why did you say yes . The first phone call was to join the baltic american Enterprise Fund. I thought it would be a really interesting way to observe the transition of postsoviet countries. So that was an easy yes. They needed people who had private equity experience. And i did that. The czechslovak experience was appointed as an acting board when the first board had ran into some trouble. And that director asked me to step in as the acting ceo for six months, which i did in 1996, and essentially shut down the czech operation and moved everything down to slovakia, which was the only really business decision that was available to us at that time. I had a very funny meeting with the ambassador in the Czech Republic who said im glad to meet you, and i hope i never see you again after you leave the Czech Republic and the fund is out. So that was not a particularly successful one. But i would say in general, anybody who thinks that Enterprise Funds will have a different distribute curve, is missing the point. There will be some good deals and bad deals, good funds, and bad funds. We have to simply accept that as a matter of course. Dan, if i might, we had a challenge that was very, very different than the one that jim and bow does. And a much more receptive environment. But just to give you a sense, i think the baltic american Enterprise Fund was a successful Enterprise Fund. We started with 50 million in three countries. We made three very specific decisions. We were going to focus on the credit markets. We were not going to adopt a quota system. We were going to respond to market opportunities. And we were going to invest a lot in building our staff as a real legacy of what we were going to leave behind. We ended up with two businesses, a Mortgage Business and Mezzanine Capital business. I think one of the mistakes people make is they think Enterprise Fund means being a private Equity Investor. I dont think thats true. Private equity in emerging markets with fragile legal structures is really difficult whereas i think the credit markets are more open to innovation and to some development tools. Our 50 million turned into 820 million in invested capital, both with reflows and capital we leveraged. We originated 20,000 mortgages and accomplished the first securitization of a mortgagebacked security in eastern europe. So for us, and we ended up with 60 million. And you could say geez, 60 million from 50 over ten years is not a particularly great internal rate of return. But given three countries and given the 1998 russia crisis and given our sort of development objectives, our view was that if we focused on preservation of capital in modest returns, investing in the quality of our staff and leaving a legacy behind of a more developed capital market, that we would have done our job. And were still at it now as a Legacy Foundation. So while i dont think that what we did is necessarily replica replicatable in the same way in tunisia and egypt because the geopolitical environments are so different, i like to think that the baltic american Enterprise Fund is at least an example of why the concept should have a second life. Perhaps some different rules and different environments. But it is definitely a worthwhile endeavor. And the ability to Leverage Private sector volunteers which we all are as Board Members with usaid and state department folks as well as the local governments and local citizens i think is a wonderful model of public diplomacy. So, kim, how important is it to have the right board . It is the number one and only thing. We were very lucky. We had six Board Members. We never met each other. We had the same six Board Members from 1994 to 2007. We had a great initial chair, roz ridgway who had been assistant secretary of state under president reagan. As an aside the two most famous people in the baltics when we got there were Pope John Paul ii and Ronald Reagan. We came into a pretty receptive environment. Roz was a great leader to have in that. The board is everything. The board has to exercise real oversight. We had active committees. We didnt micromanage management, but we absolutely knew what they were doing all the time. And i think that allowed us to change course when we had to, redirect resources when we had to, and innovate when we had to. Okay. So what about when you started making money, and what happened . Did the government say what do i do with this money . What was that conversation like . So we sold all of our businesses in 2007. So in 2007, we liquidated. We sold our Mezzanine Capital business to a hedge fund. And we sold our mortgage bank, which by that time was a 140person soup to nuts from origination to servicing platform to an irish bank. And my friend paige and i had spirited conversations about what to do with all of our money. And ultimately, we sent 25 million back to the treasury, and we kept 35 million for our Legacy Foundation, which is hard at work as we speak. So can you just spend a minute more on czechoslovakia. How did they find you, and what did they want you to do, and what did you do . So the acting board asked me to step in as the ceo. I happened to have some time. I was between sort of moves in my career, and i had six months available. So i took the job and flew to prague. You know, i think thats a story of a board that came in 1993 when the countries were together, 1991, and decided that their job was to just invest in anything and everything in minority equity positions in a country where there was just no Legal Framework or cultural understanding of what a private Equity Investment was. And it was just a mess. I mean, they lost i think they lost about 75 of their capital in the first two years. And, again, ive been in this business my entire life. Ive made a lot of bad deals. You lose money. But they lost it at a rate that was beyond normal. Kim, let me quickly jump in and say does visit a happy income . Well we closed down the czech taitt, moved everything into slovakia. They did. They had a second go at it. I think they did some very good things in slovakia there is a Legacy Foundation there. Its unfortunate that we lost our ability to continue in the Czech Republic, but there was no additional funding available given the history. So its fair to say it was somewhat turned around . Yeah, it was turned around with a much smaller footprint. So thats the point i want people to come away with. There were some hiccups. There were some interventions made. And then it had a pretty good turnaround outcome, right . Is that a fair way to describe it . Despite the fact we lost 75 of our capital, we did good things with the 25 remaining. To dans point, again, people are going to lose money. Youre going to make bad deals. Youre going to get your hiccups. And you just have to learn how to absorb them and move on. And thats what we did. Okay. All right. So i want to just spend one more minute on history, and then i want to turn to the present, to jim and bow and talk about the present. And then i want the four of the panel to talk about the future. But i want to dwell one more minute on the past with my friend paige. Okay, so, paige, i think there are dlsh there is a historic memory of the Enterprise Funds there is sort of a short list of complaints that some folks have. If someone was here and what about that fund or this fund that i was unhappy what happened here . What is your response to that . What would you say to some member of congress who said im unhappy about this fund or this fund and therefore we shouldnt do any more of these. What is your response to that . David coles will take all those questions. Thats my response. If thats my respond. If we were still at a. I. D. Yes, there were hiccups and there were a lot of fund, the way they were liquidated. Some had de minimus returns, and they just sort of morphed into either legacy funds to do something small. But the majority of them ended up making unbelievable returns. Bull garlia for example, although there were some concerns about it at the time the Bulgaria Fund ended up walking away with 200 no, 422 million at the end of the day for the legacy fund and they only had to return 27 million to the u. S. Government because the decision had been made at the time when congress thought these were funds that they were going to grant out. The question was do you return the liquidated assets, half of the liquidated assets to treasury or are you able to just return half of the initial grant . Regardless, the u. S. Government got more than 225 million back from a Development Grant program. Thats almost unheard of. That really is a broadly Successful Development program when you are returning money to the u. S. Government. I would say that each issue, as kim mentioned. Some was the board structure, they werent structured well. Each of the boards shouldnt have been there or were there for the wrong reasons or it just wasnt a friendly environment. I think jim and beau can talk about the environments they are facing now versus what Ronald Reagan and the pope what kim faced in the ballotics. It was a simpler time. A much simpler time. And the u. S. Was well loved. And it was helpful because you were able to do everything in conjunction with the ronreaco country government. Paige, let me and another leading question. We have there is like three or four hiccup funds. Right. But there were like 12 or 14 funds that were great. Right. Right . Thats the Bumper Sticker you should take away from this conversation, right. Absolutely. If people say a couple funds had Hillary Clinton ups, yeah, that was the small minority of funds. Most of these were smashing successes. The other thing i think paige its fair to say is that the u. S. Government and the fund boa