DAMIAN MERLO

Damian worked for Michel Martelly successful presidential campaign. He also served as a policy adviser to Haiti’s former Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe. Most recently, he was on Jeb Bush’s 2016 Presidential campaign’s foreign policy team. Prior to setting up his own political consulting practice, he served as US Executive Director for the OstosSola group, Merlo also worked as Vice President at Otto Reich Associates, LLC. In this capacity, he advised U.S. and multinational business in areas such as government relations, trade and investment financing, anti-corruption activities, political risk analysis and non-litigious dispute settlement. Previously Mr. Merlo worked for five years at the International Republican Institute (IRI), where he was in charge of programs in Latin America, primarily Mexico, Cuba, and Brazil. He was a key player in the Latin America and the Caribbean division at IRI’s growth over the past years, helping increase funding for his portfolio by over 300 percent, as well as establishing a presence and name recognition in Mexico with the political parties, a country where IRI had not had a presence in over 10 years. Merlo was an adviser to the Latin America working group for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, where he also conducted media interviews on Sen. McCain’s policies towards the region. Merlo received his B.S. in Political Science from the University of Maryland. While at the UMCP he was an active member of the young Republican club and was involved as a volunteer in electoral campaigns.