HispanicBusiness

The Inter-American Development Bank, the primary source of multilateral financing in Latin America and the Caribbean, has hired Brigida Benitez as Chief of its Office of Institutional Integrity (OII).

Benitez, who was HispanicBusiness magazine's 2005 Woman of the Year, is an attorney with extensive experience in corporate fraud investigations, litigation, and arbitration. The OII is responsible for investigating allegations of fraud and corruption in IDB-financed projects. This is a natural fit for Benitez, whose background is steeped in conducting internal inquiries involving embezzlement, fraud, accounting irregularities and employee misconduct for major corporations. Her new duties include heading up the team of lawyers and investigators at the forefront of bank efforts to prevent and combat prohibited practices.

She began her new post on Jan. 25, 2010.

Benitez comes to the position at critical moment. IDB, whose loan portfolio totaled $56 billion at the end of 2009, is an important entity in Latin America and Caribbean economic development. The bank recently enacted a major overhaul of its anti-corruption framework, so that allegations of wrongdoing will be promptly investigated.

Benitez received national attention for her efforts as second chair in a pair of cases involving the University of Michigan admissions office. The issue of whether diversity at public universities was a compelling state interest eventually saw Benitez and her colleagues at WilmerHale giving oral arguments before the Supreme Court. Benitez's team ultimately prevailed in what the New York Times said was "the most important statement on affirmative action in a quarter century."

Benitez, who grew up in Miami, Fla., earned a bachelor's degree with high honors from the University of Florida, where she studied journalism. Subsequently, she graduated cum laude from Boston College Law School with a Juris Doctor degree.