Faculty Profile: Joseph Harrington

Larry Harrington is an attorney licensed in Tennessee and the District of Columbia. He has extensive experience at the intersection of multilateral finance institutions, private sector investment, and related public policy issues. He has recently worked on anti-bribery and anti- corruption matters for international companies.

He has held leadership, management, and legal positions in government, multilateral financial institutions, and the private sector. Harrington served as Chief Policy Deputy for the Attorney General of the State of Tennessee where he worked on matters ranging from utility regulation to consumer protection and public corruption. He represented the Attorney General’s office on the Governor’s task force on human trafficking.

Harrington’s most recent assignment in Latin America was as Representative of the Inter- American Development Bank in Mexico where he managed the Bank’s portfolio and was a member of the diplomatic corps. Previously, he was appointed by President Clinton and twice confirmed by a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate as United States Executive Director and Alternate Director of the IDB and the Inter-American Investment Corporation. During his six year term, the board reviewed billions of dollars of loans and grants in virtually every country of Latin America and the Caribbean. Much of his focus was on private sector project finance, environmental compliance, governance, and anti-corruption. In recognition of his leadership at these institutions, Harrington received a distinguished service award from the U.S. Treasury Department.

After the IDB, Harrington joined the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, as a Public Policy Scholar where he studied energy market integration in Latin America. He served on Presidential Transition teams for trade finance agencies, multilateral financial institutions, and regional development banks in 1992 and 2008. A Spanish speaker, Harrington has observed elections and worked in democracy programs in El Salvador and other countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Harrington has extensive experience on Capitol Hill where he was a political advisor to the Democratic Senate majority as well as counsel, legislative assistant, and advisor to Al Gore during his tenure in Congress and in several campaigns. He briefed and travelled with Vice President Gore on official trips to Latin America.

He currently holds an appointment as affiliated faculty at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Latin American Studies and taught classes as adjunct professor of law and ethics at Belmont University’s Massey Graduate School of Business. He is a founding member of the Advisory Board of the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Harrington clerked for a federal district judge, practiced law with the New York firm of Hawkins, Delafield and Wood and worked as a strategic consultant with the MAPA Group of Washington and Madrid. Harrington is a graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Law. He is married with two adult children.