Preston Motes

Background

About Preston Motes

Preston Motes is an international economic development specialist with more than 20 years of experience designing and implementing programs focused on private sector competitiveness, entrepreneurship, workforce development, local economic development, and tourism. He is the chief of party of USAID’s Building Economic Sustainability through Tourism (BEST) project in Jordan, which seeks to enable Jordan’s transformation into a globally competitive tourism destination through improved tourism facilities and services; management and promotion of primary and secondary tourism sites; tourism marketing; and increased employment of women and youth in the tourism sector. Previously he served as a director in the Middle East and North Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean region’s at Chemonics International. He has worked in over 30 countries throughout the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean engaging with a broad range of stakeholders from local entrepreneurs to national governments, multilaterial governmental and nongovernmental agencies and multinational firms. He has expertise managing complex multi-sector programs in full compliance with USAID regulations. Programs have delivered services through U.S. and indigenous NGOs in tourism, microenterprise and SME development, agribusiness (improving competitiveness, export trade, regional market development, quality improvement, quality standards, etc.), environmental protection, democracy and civil society participation. Used training and technical assistance to supplement grant/subcontract programs, and to improve recipient organization’s management and service delivery capability. Worked with producers and groups to establish marketing linkages for domestic and export production, to define market demand requirements (e.g, quality, transparency and certifications, and becoming competitive in target market segments). Specialties: SME Development, trade, competitiveness, investment, export promotion, business process reform, value chain assessment and training, tourism, strategic/work planning, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), program design, proposal development, recruiting, budgeting and budget management, communications, USAID contract implementation and management, Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) compliance and Federal Government Contracting