Jim Gohary

As Managing Director/Chief Financial Officer, Jim Gohary is responsible for overseeing the financial stability of the Academy and central coordination of all business and talent operations, including facilities, government affairs, philanthropy, and experiences. In addition to managing the finance and accounting team, Gohary is responsible for mentoring several other senior leaders who together manage a combined staff of nearly 400 employees. Gohary joined the Academy in January 2024, bringing a unique blend of experience from finance, nonprofit, and government sectors.

Before joining the Academy, Gohary worked as Managing Director and Global Head of Finance for MSCI, a $2.5 billion provider of tools and services for global investment firms and a leader in developing indexes designed to facilitate the move to low-carbon investments. In that role, Gohary was responsible for driving enterprise financial management and strategy development. Prior to MSCI, Gohary spent eight years with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a private financing arm of the World Bank Group, where he served as Regional Head of Equity and Long-term Debt Investments for EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), based in Dubai and Istanbul. Before the IFC, Jim held a number of finance leadership positions at GE Capital, including CFO of Budapest Bank in Hungary and CFO of Banc Post in Romania. He also served as a foreign service officer for USAID in Uganda and started his career as a small business development volunteer with the Peace Corps in Paraguay.

Gohary earned a BA in economics from the University of Texas at Austin and a master’s degree in international management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.