Strengthening our leadership team: Message from Executive Director Marie Gaarder
Strengthening our leadership team: Message from Executive Director Marie Gaarder
Dear colleague,
One of my priorities as executive director is to ensure 3ie remains a credible and reliable partner for our many stakeholders working to improve people's lives. One of the key success factors, is the right combination of staff and leadership who can deliver high-quality, timely and relevant evidence for decision-makers, ensure evidence is accessible and used. I'm proud to lead a team of very talented staff who are committed to achieving 3ie's mission, and excited to announce two new additions to our leadership team.
Neelakshi Mann joined us as Program Director, Asia to oversee our large program of cross-cutting work on gender and livelihoods in the region. Since taking over in March, Neelakshi has been actively engaged with our field teams, funders and policymakers to strengthen relationships and explore new avenues of collaboration. She brings more than 20 years of experience in the development sector with a variety of organizations including IPE Global, with India's rural development ministry, USAID, GIZ, Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, among others.
The common thread running across our discussions with evaluation and development leaders in the past two years – as you will recall – has been strengthening and institutionalizing evidence use. To take this commitment forward and operationalize 3ie’s new Evidence to Policy and Learning unit, Thomas Kelly has joined us to lead 3ie’s agenda to strengthen evidence cultures and to develop practical solutions to facilitate evidence use. Thomas has held senior positions at the Millennium Challenge Corporation providing strategic direction and technical oversight as part of the monitoring and evaluation, economic analysis, and development policy divisions. He has also taught at Middlebury College in addition to the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán and the Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Mexico. We stand to gain immensely from his rich experience as a researcher and practitioner bringing evidence to bear on efforts to improve development outcomes.
As I complete my fourth year as executive director of 3ie, I am committed to ensuring that 3ie continues to grow from strength to strength and is well-placed to deliver on our mission to improve people's lives through evidence-informed decision-making.
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Executive Director, 3ie