Edwin Paxson

Chief Counsel and
Global Lead Counsel for Manufacturing & Chemicals
International Finance Corporation (IFC)

Edwin W. Paxson is Chief Counsel and Global Lead Counsel for Manufacturing and Chemicals at International Finance Corporation (IFC), a Member of the World Bank Group. Edwin serves on the advisory board of GBSN in his personal capacity and does not represent the World Bank Group.

He served as Special Assistant to IFC’s General Counsel, and has been based at IFC headquarters in Washington, DC since 2003. Before, he worked as a credit and securities lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and Tokyo. In 1994-96, he was legal manager in Moscow for IFC’s land reform initiative, a technical assistance project that created a template for privatizing all collective farms in Russia via pilot programs in six regions. In 1993, he advised Governor Boris Nemtsov of Nizhny Novgorod province as part of an American Bar Association program, and helped structure Russia’s first bankruptcy case under its new insolvency law.

Edwin obtained a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School, and is a member of the New York Bar. He earned a Masters degree in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Michigan and a Bachelors degree in Mathematics and Russian Civilization from UCLA. He holds a French Math & Physics Baccalauréat, and works routinely in English, French, Russian and Spanish.