Yolanda Tayler is Practice Manager in the Public Integrity and Openness Department of the World Bank’s Governance Global Practice where she leads the Bank’s public procurement reform efforts in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries and oversees the delivery of the procurement function in a portfolio heavily focused on infrastructure.

Currently she is leading within the Governance Global Practice of the World Bank the coordination of the implementation of the new procurement framework approved by the Board of Executive Directors in July 2015, which will become effective in July 2016. Most recently, she led a Bank-wide Global Task Force under the Governance Practice that sought to define how to rebalance implementation support and institutional development and capacity building in the Bank’s procurement function.

From 2006 to 2008, she was the Lead Procurement Specialist and deputy manager of the Procurement Office in the South Asia Region. In that capacity she directed the procurement response to the comprehensive forensic review of the India health portfolio. Prior to that, Yolanda led the development of a number of World Bank Group procurement policy publications, such as standard bidding documents and technical guidance notes, and directed the dissemination strategy of these publications including the development of training courses.

In 2004, she was the editor of the World Bank publication Battling HIV/AIDS: a Decision Maker’s Guide to the Procurement of Medicines and Related Supplies; a groundbreaking compendium that helped increase access to life-saving antiretroviral drugs in the developing world. Prior to joining the World Bank, she was a financial analyst with the National Finance Corporation in her native country of Panama.

Yolanda holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Boston College and an Industrial and Systems Engineering degree from the Technological Institute of Monterrey, Mexico.