Building Markets was founded by Scott Gilmore, a diplomat who specialized in conflict and post-conflict missions. In 2001, Scott took leave from the Foreign Service to join the newly deployed UN peacekeeping mission in Timor-Leste. Unfortunately, once on the ground he quickly grew frustrated with the international community’s inability to create jobs or generate an economic recovery, even though
the operating budget of the UN was larger than the GDP of the country! Scott worried that the opportunity for a prosperous future for the Timorese was slipping away.
