Mary Kathryn Cope

Mary Kathryn Cope Vice President, Business Development International Executive Service Corps.

"Mary Kathryn Cope has more than 15 years of experience developing and managing international economic development and trade facilitation programs worldwide and currently serves as IESC's Vice President of Business Development. Ms. Cope has worked extensively in Sub-Saharan Africa as IESC’s Regional Vice President for Africa (managing trade-related activities in 48 countries), Country Director in Zimbabwe and Zambia, and as IESC’s Deputy Director for Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho.  Ms. Cope has been responsible for implementing training and technical assistance activities (including managing hundreds of individual volunteer and consultant projects) for small and medium-sized businesses, trade facilitation between African and US firms, trade and business association strengthening, financial management of USAID funds, and new business development. Ms. Cope has been instrumental to IESC in developing program activities designed to maximize and leverage use of resources including cluster projects, value-chain assistance, export marketing training, business association development, conflict resolution, leveraging USAID resources and other donor funding. An experienced program designer, Ms. Cope also conceived and designed IESC’s innovative "BizAIDS" training and enterprise support program which aims to mitigate the economic impact of HIV/AIDS on MSMEs, their employees and communities."