A senior international development leader and former U.S. diplomat with over 25 years of experience leading global food security, agriculture, nutrition, and resilience programming across Africa, Asia, Europe, and Haiti. Served in managerial, technical, and strategic roles, contributing to national and global impacts. Deep experience in policy and strategy development, public and private sector partnership engagement, sustainability, business and product development, portfolio and project management, and monitoring and evaluation. Technical sector expertise spans multi-sectoral programming in agriculture, nutrition, risk management, social protection, resilience, and disaster response and recovery. She has also worked on global health, education, and peacebuilding.

Formerly, as a Senior Resilience Integration Advisor at the USAID Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security, she led agency-wide strategies, external partnerships, and technical assistance for USAID Missions on multi-sectoral resilience programming. In previous consulting and technical advisory roles, she advanced global thought leadership on nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food systems, resilience, and inclusive development for USAID partners, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the Government of Malawi, and the World Bank Group in Sudan and the Sahel. She is highly accomplished in leading major resource mobilization initiatives resulting in over $2 billion in funding. Ms. Smith has conducted livelihoods assessments, program evaluations, and organizational capacity assessments, and facilitated trainings on gender, women’s empowerment, business development, and program design. She is a skilled leader who works collaboratively with cross-functional teams and has managed portfolios valued at over US$20 million annually, funded by the U.S. Government, UN agencies, and other donors. She speaks fluent French.