Maryse Gautier currently serves as co­-chair of the Preparatory Committee of the U.N. conference for housing and sustainable urban development, Habitat III, to be carried out in Quito in October 2016. She is general inspector at the General Council of Environment and Sustainable development at the Ministry of Ecology in France. She previously worked for the French Caisse des Dépôts. Previously she spent 17 years at the World Bank where she has worked as urban expert in the MENA region, specifically Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Yemen, and Latin America, with a special focus in Colombia and Argentina. She also managed the World Bank portfolio for the Philippines for four years during which she focused on governance and anti­-corruption issues.