Peter Ballinger
Director, Business Development, Small & Medium Enterprise Finance, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC)
OPIC Support for California Small Businesses Investors Seeking to Tap Overseas Markets
Peter Ballinger of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) is a Director in the Small and Medium Size Enterprise Finance Department in charge of business development and marketing for OPIC’s fast-growing SME lending programs, including OPIC’s recently launched Environmental Loan Initiative.
He joined OPIC in 1986 in a position promoting U.S. investment in the Middle East/Africa region. Since 1989, Mr. Ballinger has concentrated much of his efforts at OPIC on developing new finance and insurance projects in the Europe/Eurasia region. This included a five-year assignment as the OPIC Director at the Caspian Finance Center, a joint regional office of OPIC, the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the U.S. Trade and Development agency based in Turkey. From this regional office, OPIC completed the first small business projects in countries such as Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Turkey as well as several power generation and energy transport projects.
From 1992-1995, Mr. Ballinger was the Director of Marketing; prior to this, Mr. Ballinger managed investment development and outreach activities in the Asia, Africa and Latin American region. He also managed two successful USAID-funded investment promotion projects for the Latin America (1990-1992) and Africa (1990-1994) regions and oversaw the establishment of OPIC’s first overseas office, in Moscow, Russia, in 1992.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
Before joining OPIC, Mr. Ballinger worked for several years at the Washington International Center of Meridian International in a variety of international economic program positions. Prior to this, he owned and operated a sports-related travel company with operations in the eastern United States and western Europe. He has lived and worked in some 10 countries, including Turkey, the Philippines, Taiwan, Switzerland, Germany, Panama, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.
EDUCATION
Mr. Ballinger received his M.S. in International Business from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S. in International Relations from the American University.
