Prior to her appointment as Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD in Paris, Ms. Sally Shelton-Colby was Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Global Programmes at the United States Agency for International Development. Her government experience also includes US ambassadorships to several Eastern Caribbean nations and holding the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. Ms. Shelton-Colby also has wide-ranging experience in the private sector. She was Vice President of Bankers Trust Co., New York, responsible for developing country debt risk and advisor to multinational corporations on investment and trade strategies.

She was co-editor of the economic journal Global Assessment as well as Director of Valero Energy Corporation, a Fortune 500 oil and gas company, and of Baring Brothers & Co’s Puma Fund, an investment fund traded on the London Stock Exchange. Ms. Shelton-Colby is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was a Fulbright Scholar at the Paris Institut des Sciences Politiques and has an MA in International Relations from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy and Washington DC. She has been a Fellow at the Harvard University Center for International Affairs and the Georgetown University Center for Latin American Studies and has taught US foreign policy decision-making at the John F. Kennedy School of government and political and economic change at Georgetown University. She is currently a distinguished Diplomat in Residence School of International Service at American University.

Ms. Shelton-Colby is fluent in French and Spanish and has been a frequent writer, television commentator, and lecturer on international affairs and development.