JumpStart International

Brad Higgins joined JumpStart in March 2009 as Chairman and President, bringing a wide range of relevant experiences from both the private and public sectors to this role.  He is currently a Managing Partner at SOSventures International, a private venture capital fund whose primary investment focus is on energy efficiency and the environment.  Prior to SOSventures, he served as the Assistant Secretary for Resource Management and Chief Financial Officer to the U.S. Department of State from February 2006 to January 2009, where he was responsible for the State's $34 billion operating and foreign assistance budgets.  In that capacity, he traveled to over 50 countries and instituted a number of major initiatives at State, including the creation of their Global Partnership Center which seeks to significantly expand and improve the USG's public private partnerships efforts both in Washington and at US missions around the world.  As State's CFO, Mr. Higgins also served as the Chairman of the Audit Committee to the Organization of American States (OAS), where he played an important role in addressing the OAS's serious financial problems.

Prior to his confirmation as Assistant Secretary, Mr. Higgins served in various capacities in the US Government, first as the CFO to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq, then staying on with the State Department as the Chief of Planning to the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office in 2004, where he played a key role in the comprehensive review and major restructuring of the US reconstruction efforts in Iraq.  He then served as a senior advisor to the State Department's CFO in Washington, DC, where he lead NSC assessment teams back to Iraq, developing numerous action plans to improve our reconstruction and aid efforts in that area.  He returned to Iraq for an extended stay in mid-2005 to serve as the strategic advisor to the US Ambassador and as the first director of the US Mission's Strategic Planning Office in Baghdad.  It was in Iraq that he first came in contact with JumpStart, greatly admiring as well as seeking to support their novel and highly cost effective efforts.  

Prior to his public service, Mr. Higgins spent over 20 years on Wall Street, were he was a Managing Director and head of the public power and infrastructure groups at CS First Boston's public finance department.  Prior to CS First Boston, he was co-head of the tax-exempt energy group at Goldman Sachs.  As a public finance investment banker, he worked on many of the largest and most complicated financings in the US municipal market.  Trained as a lawyer, Mr. Higgins started his career as an associate at the international law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.  Mr. Higgins is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Law School and lives in New Canaan, CT.