Roy Southworth is a co-founder of the McLain Association for Children (MAC) and an economist, who is currently retired after a 30 year career with the World Bank. Prior to becoming involved with MAC, he was the country manager for the World Bank office in Georgia. He has also been involved with numerous other assignments with the World Bank and other organizations in Africa, Europe, and Asia. His interests for MAS include advocacy, capacity building, and micro-financing.
Mr. Southworth has had a long career in the Bank, joining in 1979 as an agricultural economist, and has worked throughout Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He completed field assignments in Tanzania and Croatia before coming to Georgia in January 2004. Mr. Southworth graduated with High Honors from Washington State University with a BA in Economics. After a stint in Peace Corps in Ethiopia he attended Stanford University where he earned a PhD from the Food Research Institute. Mr. Southworth has extensive experience in the development, implementation and evaluation of investment operations in agriculture and rural development. Since 2001 he has been working on country operations and management of field offices in the Europe and Central Asia Region.
At ISET Andrei helped building and enhancing the statistical engine behind LEI, the Leading Economic Indicators report. He was also the lead author for the 2013 Competitiveness Report for Georgia. Andrei has also been a member of the Bank for International Settlements Research Task Force, a deputy editor of the UNDP bulletin “Development and Transition”, and has co-written a University of London study guide.
Robert Tchaidze holds Ph.D. in Economics from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. He also holds M.A. in Economics from the New Economic School, Moscow, Russia and Diploma (M.A. equivalent) in Mathematics from the Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia. His research interests are macroeconomics and in particular, monetary economics.
He taught at ISET in 2007-09 and, since 2012 has been chairing the Policy Expert Committee of ISET-PI in his personal capacity.