Katherine Meighan

Katherine (Katie) Meighan is the Associate Vice-President and General Counsel of IFAD with 25+ years of international development experience. As part of the IFAD senior management team, she sets the Fund’s strategy to double IFAD’s impact for the rural poor while scaling up climate adaptation, private sector lending, and IT for development. At IFAD, Meighan leads complex initiatives including amending IFAD’s Articles to enable private sector lending, lending to sub-national entities, creating a unique impact investment fund for small farmers, and attaining IFAD’s historic AA+ credit rating (as the first UN fund to be rated).

While serving as IFAD Acting Chief Financial Officer from May 2022 – April 2023 as well as General Counsel, she led the IFAD legal and finance teams on the inaugural bond issuances for the institution, the largest framework loan in IFAD’s history, and emerging development finance topics on increasing debt vulnerability (including potential SDR rechannelling). Meighan is a strong champion of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, having co-created the strategy at IFAD, one of the first UN organizations to do so.

Before joining IFAD, Meighan was Assistant General Counsel at IFC, leading the legal teams on Financial Institutions, Treasury, and global restructurings. She founded and co-led the IFC Women’s Network and IFC Diversity & Inclusion Council. During her 17 years at IFC, she was based in Buenos Aires, Istanbul, and Washington. Previously, she practiced law with a global firm in Washington and Paris focusing on international transactions and capital markets work for financial institutions.