Mauro De Lorenzo

Mauro De Lorenzo "is Vice President for Freedom and Free Enterprise at the John Templeton Foundation. He is responsible for creating large-scale initiatives on issues relating to the nature of freedom, the ethical foundations of free enterprise, the relationship between markets and character formation, entrepreneurial innovation, and enterprise solutions to global poverty.

"Before joining the Foundation in September 2009, Mauro served as a resident fellow in foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington D.C, where he is currently a visiting scholar. Mauro's work at AEI focuses on U.S. foreign policy in the developing world; the effectiveness of foreign aid; entrepreneurship and business-climate reform as a development strategy; China’s impact in the developing world; African politics and security; post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction; and refugee and humanitarian policy. He is working on a book about four countries—Rwanda, Georgia, Vietnam, and El Salvador—that are making it easier to do business and the lessons they offer for U.S. foreign and development policy.

"As the official "plus one" representative of former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on the board of directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Mauro helps to oversee the performance-based U.S. development agency that was established in 2003. Since 2007, he has also contributed to the Brenthurst Foundation’s research and presidential advisory work in Africa.

"In 2005, Mauro worked with private Afghan construction companies in Kabul. Prior to that he was a research associate at both the American University in Cairo and the Makerere Institute of Social Research in Kampala, Uganda. In 2002, he researched and was associate producer of The Price of Aid, a BBC documentary about food aid and the misdiagnosis of famine in southern Africa. In 1996-97, while based in Vienna, Zagreb, and Sarajevo, he helped to manage the refugee component of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s first post-war elections.

"Mauro studied linguistics and cognitive science at the University of Delaware and development studies and social anthropology at the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar."