Nicole Barnes

Nicole Barnes serves as senior vice president of RTI's Growth unit, leading business expansion in the public and commercial sectors.

Ms. Barnes has been with RTI for 22 years, most recently leading the Sustainable Growth and Resilience unit as a municipal finance adviser and has since led major strategic initiatives on a global scale focused on the institute’s long-term growth. She is known for her cross-sector leadership and innovation in business development. A natural connector of people, ideas, and initiatives, Ms. Barnes encourages creative technical expansion of the Institute’s work, growth in RTI’s key markets, and positive impact to the countries and communities where we work.

Ms. Barnes spent more than two decades in international development, including 11 years working overseas. Her unit focused on driving solutions across RTI’s work in food security, agriculture, energy, environment, water, governance, and economic opportunity.

Her technical experience is rooted in numerous elements of public finance. In multiple countries, Ms. Barnes has worked on education finance, implementing local governance support programs, urban service delivery, fiscal decentralization, own-source financing for local government, intergovernmental grants, and local economic development.

Ms. Barnes’ overseas experience includes technical project work in India, Indonesia, Montenegro, Pakistan, South Africa, and Uganda. Ms. Barnes has also worked extensively in India, Indonesia, Jordan, the Philippines, and South Africa on RTI’s strategic positioning and business development. She has held both long- and short-term assignments for the US Agency for International Development and its contractors, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. She has extensive experience in working with host country counterparts.