Nilmini Gunaratne Rubin is the Vice President for International Development at Tetra Tech. She previously advised the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on global public policy issues ranging from trade and international finance to energy and technology. On behalf of Chairman Royce, she wrote the Digital GAP Act to promote internet access in developing countries. She also drafted the Electrify Africa Act to catalyze investment in power in Africa – a bill lauded in the Washington Post as “market-oriented development policy.”
Earlier, Nilmini advocated on technology policy for the Information Technology Industry Council where she successfully influenced cybersecurity legislation. Nilmini served as a senior aide for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee where she built bipartisan coalitions in the Senate and House of Representatives as well as with investors, businesses and civil society to secure passage of groundbreaking transparency law that will allow citizens to track trillions of dollars paid by oil companies to governments, a law providing much needed debt relief for Haiti, and law requiring reform by the development banks. She secured governance reforms and contributions for the poorest countries as part of a $100 billion loan from the United States to the International Monetary Fund.
Prior to this position, Nilmini worked at the White House’s National Security Council as the Director for International Finance and the G-8. She helped lead international negotiations on trade, economic development, debt relief, HIV/AIDS, counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, and Africa for the 2003 G-8 Summit in Evian, France. She also served at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Nilmini was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2006 and a “40 under 40” in international development by Devex in 2010. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.