Christopher Stephens

Christopher Stephens is IFC’s Vice President and General Counsel, Legal and Compliance Risk. In this capacity, he is responsible for IFC’s legal and compliance, risk management functions. He serves as the principal advisor to the IFC Board of Directors, the World Bank Group President, the IFC Chief Executive Officer, and other members of the IFC Management Team on legal and compliance risk matters relating to IFC. Prior to joining IFC in September 2019, Mr. Stephens was the General Counsel of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) since December 2012. In this role, he advised ADB’s Board of Governors, its resident Board of Directors, Management, and business and administrative departments on issues relating to compliance, strategy, operations, and human resources.

Previously, Mr. Stephens was the Managing Partner for Asia and a member of the Management Committee of U.S. law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, and was based in Hong Kong for 17 years. Before that, he was the Vice Chairman and Asia Managing Partner for the New York-based Coudert Brothers law firm. In New York, Mr. Stephens focused on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and asset and project finance for 12 years. In private practice, Mr. Stephens was named Managing Partner of the Year by Asian Legal Business and was ranked in several international league tables as a leading lawyer in project finance and M&A for nine consecutive years. At the ADB, Mr. Stephens was named among the World’s Top 20 General Counsel by the Financial Times, In-House Lawyer of the Year by Thompson-Reuters ALB, Market Reforms Leader, by International Financial Law Review, and Outstanding Innovative In-House Lawyer by Financial Times.

Mr. Stephens has a BA degree from Colgate University with a double major in Political Science and Economics, and a Juris Doctor degree from New York Law School.