Robert Hans - Senior Managing Director, IOS Partners

Mr. Hans is the Founder and Senior Managing Director of IOS Partners and its predecessor firm, Global Consulting Group. He consults frequently on key international development issues including Private Sector Participation, privatization and public-private partnerships, institutional strengthening, transport sector development, infrastructure consulting and private sector development, economic structural adjustment, local government development, public sector restructuring, financial sector reform, trade and investment facilitation as well as regulatory framework development. Throughout his career, he has successfully developed a number of innovative risk-sharing mechanisms to foster public-private partnerships on both infrastructure and service provision initiatives.

Mr. Hans is an expert in transport sector reform and transport infrastructure modernization and development and has worked in over 80 countries on multiple engagements promoting and facilitating the development of the transport sector. In total, he has over twenty five years of high-level experience in civil aviation, port, rail and road development and modernization and has worked throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia/Pacific, the Middle East and Africa for corporate, government and multilateral clients.

He has significant Transport sector experience worldwide including serving as Team Leader for the World Bank/Ecowas sponsored Economic Regulatory Framework Project for Air Transport Liberalization in West and Central Africa (23 countries) and Principal Advisor on privatization efforts in the aviation sector in Cameroon, Ecuador, Peru, Madagascar, Laos, Solomon Islands, Malawi, Bosnia, Georgia, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, the Philippines Paraguay, Tanzania and Sierra Leone. He has also worked significantly on aviation sector reform, development and restructuring over the last few years including participating and/or managing engagements with airlines in Laos, Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Ecuador, the Republic of Georgia, Jamaica, Poland, Burkina Faso, Bosnia, Malawi, among others. He is currently serving as Project Manager/PPP Expert for a number of assignments including:

• IOS Partners’ engagement to develop a national aviation strategy for the Cameroon Civil Aviation Authority, including developing the best concession strategy for the 7 main airports.

• An options study for Private Sector Participation in Sierra Leone Airports Authority

• Designing and formulating a costing system for the Tanzanian Civil Aviation Authority.

He is also currently engaged in a technical assistance project in Morocco to conduct a comprehensive study to identify the specific needs of and feasibility for date cold storage and associated postharvest handling infrastructure. 

In the port sector, Mr. Hans has supervised the diagnostic, regulatory and strategy development for the privatization of ports in Madagascar, the Republic of Georgia, the Solomon Islands, Nicaragua, Uruguay and the Philippines. Supervised privatization execution and tender processes for the privatization of ports in the Comoros Islands and Haiti with the World Bank.

Mr. Hans has served on the Subic Bay (Philippines) Metropolitan Authority Institutional Strengthening Project as Team Leader for the Privatization and Commercialization activities addressing private sector participation in infrastructure and services including the port concessioning and regulatory framework development.  He was involved in the successful concessioning of the large Container Terminal for this major port.

He previously served (1998-99) as Principal Advisor for Public Sector Reform and Privatization, under World Bank auspices, providing technical and transactional assistance to the Madagascar government. He supervised the strategy development for the privatization of the ports, telecommunications, airline, airport and petroleum companies as well as the development of a new regulatory framework for transport, petroleum and telecommunications. 

Mr. Hans undertook for the World Bank a comprehensive assessment of the privatization program in the Republic of Georgia (1998 and 1999) providing strategic advisory services to the Ministry of Privatization in regard to the major transactions (power, ports, telecom, airline, etc.). He additionally served (1996-97) as Resident Privatization Advisor to the Burkina Faso government providing institutional support to the Committee of Privatization as well as transaction advisory services on the major divestitures (power, petroleum storage and distribution, cement, sugar, textiles, etc.), also under World Bank auspices. Numerous other privatization assignments with the World Bank include infrastructure privatization in Haiti and the Comoros Islands. He has also assisted the governments in Cameroon, Nepal and Thailand to identify projects for joint public/private sector participation under the auspices of the United States Agency for International Development. 

Mr. Hans holds a Master of International Management degree (MIM) and a Master of Business Administration degree (MBA) from the American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird) with a specialization in International Finance. He is fluent in English, Spanish and French and has knowledge of Italian, Portuguese and Hungarian.

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