Maxwell Townsend, a Canadian national, is a second-year MPP student at Jackson, interested in development and diplomacy. Before coming to Yale, he worked for five years, first at Goldman Sachs, and then most recently at the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC). While at IFC, Maxwell worked in the Special Operations Department, where he actively co-managed a $500mm portfolio of projects that had fallen into distress or material legal challenge. During that time, he completed restructurings across the hospitality, power infrastructure, telecom, and trade-finance sectors, and spent time in-country for projects across Africa, Central America, and the Middle East. Maxwell graduated in 2016 from Queen’s University in Canada with a Bachelor of Commerce, focused on finance and economics. His writing has been published both nationally in Canada, and in his home province of Nova Scotia. In his personal life, Maxwell enjoys camping, canoeing and hiking in the summer, cross-country skiing in the winter, and reading year-round.