MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The Board of Directors of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), acting on the recommendation of President Haruhiko Kuroda, has approved the appointment of Stephen P. Groff as Vice-President (Operations 2).

As ADB’s Vice-President for Operations 2, Mr. Groff will be overseeing the operations of the East Asia Department, Southeast Asia Department, Pacific Department and Central Operations Services Office.

Mr. Groff is currently Deputy Director for Development Cooperation at the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where he leads OECD’s work on a wide range of development-related economic and political issues. He also serves as OECD's envoy to the G20 Working Group on Development and is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council. Prior to this he was Deputy Vice-President for Operations at the Washington-based Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), where he helped set up the agency and led MCC programs while advising the CEO on development issues, strategy and policy. He has spent the last 25 years working on development cooperation in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Mr. Groff succeeds C. Lawrence Greenwood, Jr. who left the post on 26 May 2011.