40 years of DAI

to realizing Mickelwait’s vision of DAI’s future.
The first step in this direction was taken in 1992
when DAI opened an office in Manila just a
block from the ADB. By 1997, DAI’s international
marketing network included regional offices
in Bangkok, Beijing, Jakarta, Manila, Tokyo,
and Tashkent. Jean Gilson took up residence in
Hanoi in 1998 with supervision responsibility for
this network.
DAI investments in two subsidiary companies
complemented the network of offices in Asia.
The first was in London. In 1995, Graham
Bannock—a well-known economist who owned
a small research and consulting firm—paid a
visit to Tony Barclay on the recommendation of
mutual friends. He told Barclay that he intended
to sell his firm, which then had revenues of $1
million per year, and gradually exit the business,
but that he had found most potential suitors
“very boring.” He also said that he had been
turning away development work from the U.K.
government and the EBRD due to a lack of
internal capacity.
Barclay assured him that DAI was anything but
boring, and that it would fill the gap when clients
called about new work. He and Mickelwait
quickly agreed that taking a stake in Bannock’s
firm would provide DAI with a much-needed
“foothold in Europe.” DAI initially bought 40
percent of Graham Bannock & Partners Ltd., increasing
it to 51 percent in 1997. Matthew Gamser
moved to London to join the management
team, several other senior hires were brought in,
and by 2000, rebranded as Bannock Consult-
ing, the company had $7 million in revenue and
a strong bottom line. But its relationship with
its “parent across the pond” remained tenuous,
especially after Bannock retired, and DAI was
unable to establish the desired close strategic fit
with its investment in the United Kingdom.
A second subsidiary in South Africa had a
slower but more promising journey through the
late 1990s. DAI established Ebony Development
Alternatives in 1994 as a joint venture
with Ebony Financial Services, the first black
accounting firm in South Africa. The initiative
got little support from its South African partners,
however, and by mid-1997 Barclay decided
to buy them out and install Adam Saffer as
DAI has had
mixed results with
its subsidiaries
through the years.
Ebony Consulting
International (now
ECIAfrica), shown
here in 2002, is one of
the success stories.
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