Jim Friedlander
James Friedlander is an American lawyer, who began his international career as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi in 1966. Over the past 43 years, he has worked as a lawyer in the World Bank and with several law firms, including Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP, for whom he opened their office in Moscow, Russia in 1994. He has also been a banker with Citibank in Kenya and with a non-bank financial institution in London.
Over his extensive international career, he lived in Kenya and Malawi for 13 years, Moscow for 8 years and London for 5 years. He has advised corporates, individuals and Governments on direct foreign investment and relationships with local partners in emerging markets. During this time, he has worked in many sectors, including oil & gas, mining, telecommunications, industry, financial services, and tourism and hotels. In addition to his corporate and commercial legal expertise, he has participated in international arbitrations for large Russian companies. Most of his experience has been in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in the former Soviet Union. He has extensive contacts in both sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet Union.
He also has experience as a non-executive director on the boards of listed companies, serving on the board of NMBZ Holdings (Zimbabwe) for seven years (listed on the ZSE and LSE exchanges) and currently on the board of Franconia Minerals Corp for eight years (listed on the TSE exchange). He was also on the board of the International Eye Foundation for four years.
His expertise on legal aspects of direct foreign investment has been recognised by the Foreign Investment Advisory Service of the World Bank Group, for whom he has been a consultant since the mid-1980s, advising Governments in twelve African countries and ten other countries in emerging markets. He has assisted in the preparation and enactment of investment codes in more than a dozen countries.
He received his B.A from the University of Wisconsin in Political Science and Psychology and his J.D. from the Harvard Law School. He is a member of the Illinois and District of Columbia Bars. His four children and three grandchildren live in the United States.