Robert Bestani

While most of his career has been in the private sector, Robert Bestani has served in a number of government positions including the George H.W.

Photo of Robert Bestani
Bush Administration where he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Monetary Affairs at the Department of Treasury, at the Department of State as well as the Departments of Energy and Defense where he was a member of the Senior Executive Service. 


Since 2012 Bob has served in a variety of positions at the Department of Energy. In that capacity, he has held several positions including:

  • The Director of International Finance and the Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs; 
  • The Director of Risk Management and Business Outreach for the Loans Program Office (The LPO is a $400 billion program to promote clean energy generation and efficiency); 
  • While on a five-year detail to the Department of Defense he served as a Professor of National Security and Economic Policy at the National Defense University and the National Intelligence University. For his service he was presented with the Joint Meritorious Civilian Service Award for "exceptional meritorious service" by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
  • Advisor to the Defense Science Board (2016) 


Bob's public sector career also included six years as the Director General of Private Sector Finance at the Asian Development Bank. In that capacity, he increased the Bank's financings and earnings by a factor of 41 times and helped attract over $24 billion to infrastructure and capital markets programs across 22 Asian countries in support of economic development and poverty alleviation.

In his private sector career, Bob worked in corporate and international finance in a variety of positions with Citibank, Texaco, the Bank of America, Duke Energy and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). In these positions he specialized in international energy and high technology.

Bob also brings to Georgetown a rich academic background. Most recently he graduated from the Executive Education Program at the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University. From October 2008 to October of 2012, Bob worked as a Visiting Scholar at the Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects at Stanford University. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago where he studied International Economics, Finance and Computer Science. Over the years, Bob has been invited to lecture at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Columbia, MIT, Wharton, the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins (SAIS) and other leading universities.

 He has been a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 1991.