Katherine Marshall has worked for over three decades on international development, with a focus on issues facing the world’s poorest countries. She is a senior fellow at Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs and Visiting Professor. She is also a senior advisor for the World Bank. Her long career with the World Bank (1971-2006) involved a wide range of leadership assignments, many focused on Africa. From 2000-2006 her mandate covered ethics, values, and faith in development work,as counselor to the World Bank’s President. She served earlier as Country Director in the World Bank’s Africa region, first for the Sahel region, then Southern Africa. She led the Bank's work on social policy and governance during the East Asia crisis years. She also worked extensively on Eastern Africa and Latin America. As a long time manager she was involved in many task forces and issues, among them exercises addressing leadership issues, conflict resolution, the role of women, and issues for values and ethics.

Ms. Marshall serves on the Boards of several NGOs and on advisory groups, is a core group member of the Council of 100, an initiative of the World Economic Forum to advance understanding between the Islamic World and the West, also of the Council on Foreign Relations. She serves on the board of IDEA (International Development Ethics Association) and is a Trustee of Princeton University. She has been closely engaged in the creation and development of the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD)and is its Executive Director. She has served as comoderator of the Fes Forum which is part of the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music since its inception. She speaks and publishes widely on issues for international development.

Ms. Marshall's daughter served in the Peace Corps in Guinea and is currently preparing for medical school; her son is a high school student in Washington DC.