Upon graduation from Boston College and Boston University School of Law, Lourdes Germán began her career as an attorney specializing in public finance at the international law firm Palmer & Dodge (now Locke Lord, LLP), advising state and local governments. Subsequently, Lourdes joined Fidelity Investments as the Vice President of Public Finance, where she expanded the division’s business in the U.S. northeast region and opened and led Fidelity’s first New York Office for Public Finance investment banking.
After Fidelity, Lourdes served as General Counsel and Vice President of Research at Breckinridge Capital Advisors, where she helped develop the company's first Sustainable (ESG) investment strategy for municipal securities. Following this role, Lourdes was hired as Director of International & Institute-Wide Initiatives at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, where she launched a global campaign on municipal fiscal health in collaboration with partners in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. In her role at Lincoln, Lourdes also co-organized and presented several notable programs, including the first bi-partisan U.S. Congressional briefing focused on public finance and the fiscal health of cities; joint programs for Mayors focused fiscal sustainability in partnership with the Organization for Cooperation & Development in Paris; and served as an expert advisor to the United Nations in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and co-authored the “UN Habitat III Municipal Finance Policy Framework” and the book Finance for City Leaders (United Nations Press: 2017).
At present, in addition to serving as the founder and director of the Public Finance Initiative, Lourdes teaches Public Finance for the Graduate Program in Urban Planning and Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Previously, Lourdes has served as the Assistant Professor of Practice and Co-Director of the Managing for Social Impact Interdisciplinary Minor at the Boston College Carroll School of Management (2018 – 2021), and has taught at Boston University, Northeastern University School of Law, and helped co-create the first Certificate Program in Municipal Finance for the Harris School for Policy at the University of Chicago.
Outside of her professional and academic commitments, Lourdes is a senior advisor to the Kresge Foundation; is currently fulfilling her sixth year as the Chair of the Massachusetts State Finance and Governance Board, an appointment by the Governor of Massachusetts; and sits on the Board of several non-profits including the Rappaport Center for Law and Policy at Boston College Law School, Claremont Lincoln University, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. In 2015, Lourdes founded The Civic Innovation Project (CIP), in partnership with the Microsoft Innovation & Policy Center, to develop and host joint programs that would enhance the technological capacity of governments to innovate in the civic sector and improve the lives of their constituents. In 2021, CIP re-branded and became the Public Finance Initiative (PFI) a non-profit that is committed to developing public finance programs that promote the values of equity, sustainability, and inclusive growth as critical to fiscal decision-making.