Leadership Team

Jacques Defay

Chief Executive Officer & Board Chairman

Jacques Defay is Pragma’s founder and Chairman of the Board. From 1977 to 2006 he directed the company’s development strategy and supervised its worldwide consulting and project implementation activities as President. In 2007 he became Chairman of the Board. Prior to founding Pragma, Mr. Defay was a Development Economist at the Organization of American States and a Project Economist with the Inter-American Development Bank. Mr. Defay holds an MS in Economics and a BS in Statistics from the University of Minnesota.

​Paul Davis, PhD

President

Dr. Davis is a senior development economist with a proven track record in analyzing and effectively addressing economic policy and institutional development conditions and constraints in post-conflict environments and diverse emerging market settings. Prior to joining Pragma in 2010, Dr. Davis served as a senior economist and program/project manager for over two decades with USAID. During that time he designed and managed innovative and notably successful USAID programs and project initiatives across a broad range of macro-economic/structural reform and competitiveness-enhancement areas. Dr. Davis has senior expertise in the areas of public-sector budget planning and management, inter-governmental finance, tax policy/administration, monetary policy reform, financial market regulation, infrastructure policy and regulatory reform, accounting reform, pension reform, enabling environment, and private sector development/competitiveness. He holds a PhD in Economics from Boston University.

Jim Defay

Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Jim Defay is responsible for Pragma’s financial and accounting operations. He manages Pragma’s finance team and oversees the financial management support for Pragma’s development projects. Mr. Defay became Pragma’s Chief Financial Officer in 2007. Prior to joining Pragma, Mr. Defay was a Senior Manager at Pfizer working in the areas of Finance and Information Technology. Mr. Defay also worked for Boston Consulting Group as a Project Leader providing management and financial consulting to Fortune 1000 companies. Mr. Defay holds an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University and a BS in Computer Science from the University of Virginia.