Jamil Sopher spent his early years between New York City and Paris, France; he is a dual citizen of the USA and France. He received a BS in 1965 and a Master of Engineering (Electrical) in 1966, both from Cornell; and his MBA (Finance) from Harvard in 1968.
Jamil served during 1968-70 in the US Maritime Service, teaching Meteorology and Electronic Navigation at the US Merchant Marine Academy. Then, he became an investment banker, first at H. Hentz and Co. from 1970-72 and then with DH Blair from 1972-73. During 1973-78, he worked with The J.G. White Engineering Corp., where he did project finance and workouts of troubled companies. During that time, he was on the Board of Directors of Globe Industries, Inc., a modular construction company based in Raleigh, NC; in that role, he served as overseer of Globe’s financial management.
Between 1978-2000, Jamil was a staff member of the World Bank. Until 1997, he worked in operations, reaching the grade of Principal Financial Analyst. In all, he led 25 Investment Loans, for $2.6 billion, to 10 countries of South and East Asia. These financed investments in water supply and sewerage; power and electrification, including a geothermal project in the Philippines; telecommunications; ports; mass transit; fuel refinery; and development finance.
Jamil was among the first to make government guaranteed World Bank loans to private companies. These included a $135 million loan in 1984 to India’s Tata Electric Companies to promote the private supply of power; a $50 million loan in 1989 to the Manila Electric Company (MERALCO – the Philippines’ leading electricity distributor); and, a $135 million loan in 1994 to the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT – the country’s principal provider of telephone services). The first two helped open the Indian and Philippine power sectors to private investment; the third catalyzed a tenfold expansion of telecom services in the Philippines.
In the mid-1990s, Jamil pioneered the application of Private Participation in Infrastructure in emerging countries. Under his leadership, the World Bank supported BOT/BOO deals for power, water supply and transport in the Philippines and Laos. His most prominent BOT/BOO activities were: the Nam Than Hydroelectric Project, a private-public partnership to export about 1,800 MW of power from Laos to Thailand; and. the EDSA Light Rail Transit Project, a private project providing mass transit for 1 million Manila residents per day.
In 1997, Jamil was elected Chairman of the World Bank Staff Association. For two years, he served as the bargaining agent for the Bank’s 11,200 staff. In that position, he was one of the few Cornellians to lead a union who never took any courses in the University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School. As part of this job, Jamil participated on an array of managerial reforms, including the Bank’s human resources policy, compensation and benefits, the grievance system, the pension program, the transition to a new MIS system, and the regularization of 2,900 long term consultants. His service on the Task Force that developed the new MIS system fueled a strong interest in cyber security, which he pursued vigorously during his post-Bank career.
From Jan. 1, 2000 until his retirement in Sept. 2000, Jamil served as Operations Adviser in the Quality Assurance Group. Following his retirement, he returned to QAG as a consultant, where he refined the methodology for assessing the quality of Bank supervision of projects and led the evaluation of the quality and relevance of the Bank’s country level procurement and financial management assessments.
During 2002-09, Jamil served as the quality adviser to the Bank’s Latin America and Caribbean Financial Management Unit, focusing on (i) Country Financial Accountability Assessments, (ii) Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability Assessments; and (iii) Reports on the Observance of Accounting and Auditing Standards and Codes. In that role, he guided reviews of public financial management practices in Guyana, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and the OECS Countries.
During 2007-08, Jamil co-authored a background paper for the Brookings Institution on the efficiency of Public Expenditures in the LAC region. That study analyzed the accounting and auditing legacy and the details of current Public Financial Management practices in the region. In 2009, that background paper was turned into a World Bank book: “Accountability in Public Expenditures in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Later, he contributed to a second book: “Accounting for Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean,” which provided similar analysis of the region’s private sector accounting and auditing practices. More recently, he has conducted quality assurance reviews for the Bank’s Vienna Office.
As the Bank adjusted its focus to alternative energy, the Energy Global Practice has drawn on Jamil’s unique experience, dating back to the late-1980s, in developing geothermal electricity. Since late 2009, Jamil has served as senior advisor to a team that financed the Indonesia Geothermal Project and more recently prepared the geothermal projects in St. Lucia, Dominica and Nicaragua. Jamil is currently considered to be one of the Bank’s leading experts in geothermal electricity.
Between 1996 and 2004, Jamil served on the Board of Directors of Telebyte, Inc., a manufacturer of data communications peripherals. Between January 2003 and February 2005, he led a team that conducted the feasibility study of a wastewater treatment plant in Chongqing, China for Liberty Pacific Direct Investment Ltd..
From late 2002 till the end of 2012, Jamil provided assistance to two Geneva based asset management firms, developing investment strategies, which are fully compliant with US tax laws, for the accounts of US citizens. In this role, he worked with US based lawyers to develop appropriate Trust structures; and advised on the inclusion of municipal bonds and variable life insurance instruments in the portfolios of US nationals. In 2004, he helped the firm identify favorable investment approaches in China, Korea and other Far Eastern countries. Since 2009, he has reviewed numerous special situations, in some cases for his own account. At the end of 2012, he dropped one of the two Geneva affiliations and has a long-term relationship with Penta Asset Management.
Two special situations, in which Jamil made substantive investments, have major implications for developing countries. In 2008, Jamil became a shareholder in Sterling Trustees, which had previously created his family Trusts and since then has served as the manager and administrator of those Trusts. In 2014, Jamil became one of the early investors in Copia, a company that pioneered the use of modern shopping techniques to serve the residents of ex-urban villages in Kenya. Jamil has participated in several subsequent financings. In turn, the company’s growth exceeded expectations; and, it is expanding operations in Kenya while considering opening new operations in neighboring countries.
In 2015, Jamil became a charter investor in Option 3 Ventures, a company that finances ventures that address broad cybersecurity issues in the US and world-wide. Jamil is not a staff member of the company; however, he serves as a member of the investment committee, and he has made extensive contributions to the company’s investment and managerial strategy. O3 has focused on investment opportunities in the New York – Washington, DC corridor, where small companies either serve as suppliers to the Government, or were initially funded by government sponsored research. As a result, the company has pursued opportunities that were not available in Silicon Valley, and were early entrants to new fields of Cyber. O3’s first portfolio of investments has very substantially exceeded expectations, and the early investments for the second portfolio suggest some major game changers.
In 1981, Jamil married Mary Lynn Miller, his long-time fiancée. They remain married, and are the proud parents of 3 children. Their eldest, Margaret, graduated from Cornell in 2006, taught history in private schools until 2011, completed her JD and LLM degrees at the Georgetown Law School, and earned an MAT at the Vanderbilt school of Education. Currently, she is conducting a fellowship at Georgetown Law School, conducting research into areas of family law. Twin sons Peter and Philip both graduated from Princeton as Economics majors in 2011. Peter has worked with the Environmental Defense Fund, studying different approaches in use around the world for pricing carbon. From leading an Environmental Defense Fund project in Austin, Texas, he pursued a three-year joint program that earned him an MBA from the Wharton School at UPenn and an MPA from the Kennedy School at Harvard. He is currently a senior investment analyst for a venture capital firm based in the Boston area, which specializes in early stage alternative energy companies. Philip is following an entrepreneurial track; he is currently living in Paris, deepening his computer coding skills and breaking into the French IT industry.
Outside of work, Jamil had been a long-time aficionado of the sports of Squash and Pétanque. He played Squash competitively through the late 1980s, reaching a level of 4.5. All three children played Squash, were nationally ranked juniors, and were recruited to play on university teams; daughter Margaret played for Cornell’s women’s varsity, while sons Peter and Philip were both four year starters for Princeton.
Over the last ten years, Jamil has become an active Pétanque player in the Washington, DC area. For the past seven years, he has served as President of the National Capital Club de Pétanque, wherein he also serves as regional representative to the Pétanque governing body in the US. He is currently among the top 2000 players in the US.
In 2009, Jamil acquired a modest apartment in Paris. Since them, he tries to go about three times a year and for between three to four weeks at a time. Since his youth, Jamil has enjoyed French culture and haute cuisine. Happily, his wife and children also enjoy Paris, and the easy access has given them an up close appreciation for the family’s French roots.