• Board of Governors

Board of Governors

David Gross (IREX Chair)

Ambassador David Gross is a partner in the Washington DC law firm Wiley Rein LLP. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on international telecommunications and Internet policies, having addressed the United Nations General Assembly and led more U.S. government delegations to major international telecommunication conferences than anyone else in modern history. 

David draws on more than 40 years of experience as a lawyer, global policymaker, and corporate executive to assist global companies seeking to enter or expand their international businesses. He also advises international organizations as well as national governments regarding global issues. He has often testified before the US Congress.

He was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as the U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy at the U.S. Department of State from 2001 to 2009, and he was unanimously confirmed by the US Senate for the rank of Ambassador. During his time in government, David led bilateral, senior level discussions and dialogues with more than 70 different countries, and he was the head of the US delegation for three APEC Ministerial meetings, as well as many treaty-writing and other conferences at the International Telecommunication Union. 

David also served as head U.S. government negotiator for both phases of the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), and he co-led the U.S. delegation at the formal heads of state summits in Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005).

Rob Mosbacher, Jr. (IREX Vice Chair)

Rob Mosbacher, Jr., is Chairman of the Board of Mosbacher Energy Company, a family-owned energy business headquartered in Houston, Texas. He served as the ninth President and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) from 2005 to 2009, an independent agency of the U. S. Government that has facilitated over $50 billion in investments in developing countries around the world. Since that time, he has served as Co-Chair of the Consensus for 

Development Reform (CDR), a platform of leading conservative and private sector voices for more effective U.S. global leadership through reforming and improving our approach to global development. 

He played an instrumental role in the drafting and passage of the BUILD Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation passed in 2018, that combined OPIC and the Development Credit Authority of USAID, into a new US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). The DFC has new powers previously lacking from OPIC, that enable it to compete more effectively against other international development finance corporations, multilateral development banks, and other superpower economic development players, such as China. 

Under the BUILD Act, the DFC was required to create a Development Advisory Council of outside experts to report directly to the Board of the DFC on how well the agency is discharging its statutory obligation to maximize the development impact on the host countries of all projects approved and funded by the DFC. Rob Mosbacher served as Chair of that Advisory Council for the for the first four years and continues to serve on it. 

He also serves on the Board of the National Archives Foundation. In 2009, he re-joined the Board of Devon Energy, a large, independent oil and gas producer, and served on the Board of Calpine Corporation, one of the largest independent power companies in the U.S., until the company was taken private in March 2018. 

He received a law degree in 1977 from Southern Methodist University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Georgetown University in 1973.