Speakers
Featured Speakers
Alice P. Albright is the Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation where she provides strategic leadership and vision to the agency helping deliver on programmatic priorities. Ms. Albright has more than 30 years of international experience in the private, non-profit and public sectors.
Prior to MCC, Ms. Albright served as the CEO of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). As a political appointee of the Obama Administration, between 2009 and 2013, she was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank). Beforehand, she was the Chief Financial and Investment Officer for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI). Prior to working in international development and government, Ms. Albright was a banker focusing on emerging markets, working principally at J.P. Morgan.
Ms. Albright has served on two G7 Gender Equality Advisory Councils, appointed first by the President of France for the 2019 G7 and subsequently by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for the 2021 G7. Additionally, she has served on the Boards of Williams College and Mercersburg Academy.
Ms. Albright received her MIA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and her BA from Williams College. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Scott Nathan serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). He was appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate on February 9th, 2022, and formally sworn in by the Vice President.
Mr. Nathan has had extensive experience across the public and private sectors. Most recently, he served as the Senior Advisor to the White House Office of Presidential Personnel after having worked on the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition’s Appointments team, where he oversaw appointments for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and the General Services Administration (GSA).
He previously served during the Obama-Biden Administration as the Associate Director for General Government Programs at OMB. In that capacity, he led a team of OMB experts overseeing a range of policy, budget, and management issues impacting numerous cabinet departments and federal agencies. Mr. Nathan first entered public service as the Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs at the Department of State, where he led a team of foreign service officers and civil servants focused on protecting U.S. economic interests abroad and advocating on behalf of American exports. In that role, he traveled to more than 30 countries supporting the Administration’s economic diplomacy agenda.
Prior to public service, Mr. Nathan was for nearly two decades a partner, management committee member, and the Chief Risk Officer of The Baupost Group, a private investment partnership based in Boston. There, he gained extensive experience investing across asset classes and global markets while also leading some of the firm’s management and operational initiatives. He chaired Baupost’s portfolio risk committee, co-chaired its best practices and business risk committee, and ran investment team hiring. Mr. Nathan began his investing career focused on emerging markets, particularly public and private equity markets in Central and Eastern Europe.
He graduated from Harvard College and has a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Additionally, he attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge University in England as the Lionel de Jersey Harvard Scholar.
Mr. Nathan lives with his family in Washington, D.C.
Michele Sumilas is Acting Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Deputy Sumilas previously served as the Assistant to the Administrator of the Bureau for Planning, Learning and Resource Management (PLR). PLR strengthens the Agency’s policy voice and leadership in the interagency by better aligning budgetary considerations, planning processes, implementation discipline, and monitoring and evaluation with our development and humanitarian priorities.
Before that, she served as the Assistant to the Administrator of the Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning. She previously served as Executive Director of Bread for the World, an anti-hunger Christian advocacy organization. Her government experience includes serving as USAID Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff during the Obama administration, and on the House Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations. Prior to serving in government, Sumilas worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Health Council.
Sumilas attended Mount Holyoke College and received her Master's Degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Kimberly Ball serves as the Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU). USAID/OSDBU coordinates the Small Business Program and is the initial point of contact at USAID for all categories of U.S. small businesses. USAID/OSDBU also oversees USAID’s efforts to increase the participation of Minority Serving Institutions of Higher Education in USAID-sponsored programs and activities.
Prior to joining OSDBU in 2008, Ms. Ball served as a Contract Specialist in USAID’s Management/Office of Acquisition and Assistance (M/OAA). During her ten year stint in M/OAA, she supported the Global Health (GH), Europe and Eurasia (E&E), Economic Growth and Trade (EGAT), Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA) Bureaus and M/OAA’s Policy Division. She ended her M/OAA career as a Contracting Officer and Team Leader supporting various divisions in the DCHA Bureau.
Prior to joining USAID, Ms. Ball worked as a contract negotiator with the United States Air Force. As a civilian employee of the U. S. Air Force, Ms. Ball served at Nellis Air Force Base, Gunter Annex and Bolling Air Force Base. She began her career with the U.S. Air Force as a Palace Acquire Intern.
Ms. Ball holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Hampton University.
Matthew is currently Assistant Secretary, Development Procurement Agreements and Systems Branch in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In this role, Matthew has responsibility for development procurement, supplier engagement and contract management, including overseeing a procurement team that manages all of DFAT’s complex and high risk development procurement. Prior to this role, Matthew played a key role in the implementation of Australia’s international development policy. Matthew has had a range of roles across DFAT, including designing and implementing the regional Pacific COVID-19 Response Package, and managing a range of Pacific regional economic programs and was posted to Vanuatu. Prior to joining DFAT in 2009, Matthew worked as a Senior Economist with the Canberra based Centre for International Economics. Matthew has a degree in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Wollongong.
Acquisition Program Management (Level III certified) professional with an active top secret clearance (TS-SCI), an MBA, and professional experience as a Foreign Military Sales Program Manager, Deputy Project Manager, and Assistant Product Manager working in the U.S. government. Extensive experience in leadership and managing the overall viability of programs to include financials, risks, resources, and quality while reporting to all levels including senior U.S. government personnel.
Erin Elizabeth McKee serves as the Assistant Administrator in the Bureau for Europe and Eurasia (E&E) at USAID.
Prior to joining the Bureau for Europe and Eurasia, Assistant Administrator McKee served as the United States Ambassador to the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, to the Solomon Islands, and to the Republic of Vanuatu from 2019 to 2022. Prior to her ambassadorial appointment, she served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at U.S. Embassy Jakarta, and Mission Director for USAID/Indonesia and USAID/ASEAN, also in Jakarta.
Assistant Administrator McKee is a member of the Senior Foreign Service, with the rank of Career Minister, and brings a wealth of foreign policy and development experience to her position. Prior to her tour in Indonesia, Assistant Administrator McKee served as the Senior Deputy Assistant to the Administrator for the Human Capital and Talent Management Office (HCTM). She also served as the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning (PPL). Preceding her assignments in Washington, D.C., Assistant Administrator McKee was the USAID Regional Mission Director for Central Asia. There she was responsible for direct management of USAID’s programs in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Before her assignment in Central Asia, Assistant Administrator McKee was the supervisory contracting officer at USAID’s missions in Iraq, South America (covering Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Brazil), and West Bank-Gaza. From 1995 to 1999 she served as a private enterprise officer, then as the chief of the economic growth office in USAID/Russia. Assistant Administrator McKee was recruited as a Foreign Service Officer in 1995 from the private sector.
Before her U.S. government career, Assistant Administrator McKee served as the general manager and then Executive Director for Capital Investment Group’s (CIG) Russia operations, and earlier for Morrison Knudsen, Inc.’s international mining division throughout the former Soviet Union. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, and a master’s degree from the University of Washington. She speaks Russian, Spanish, and Bahasa Indonesia.
Paul K. Martin was confirmed by the United States Senate as Inspector General for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on December 18, 2023. Prior to his current role, Mr. Martin served for 14 years as Inspector General at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Mr. Martin has also served as Vice Chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) since its formation in April 2020. Congress established the PRAC at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate oversight of the federal government $5 trillion in pandemic relief funding.
Before his NASA appointment, Mr. Martin served as the Deputy Inspector General and held other leadership positions at the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for more than 12 years.
Mr. Martin also spent 13 years at the U.S. Sentencing Commission in a variety of positions before joining the Department of Justice OIG, including 6 years as the Commission's Deputy Staff Director. Mr. Martin was one of the Sentencing Commission's first employees when the agency was created in 1985 and helped develop the first set of federal sentencing guidelines.
Mr. Martin began his professional career as a reporter with The Greenville News, a daily newspaper in Greenville, S.C. He holds a B.A. in Journalism from The Pennsylvania State University and a Juris Doctor from The Georgetown University Law Center.
Mr. Martin is married to Rebekah Liu, an attorney working in Washington, D.C. A native of Pittsburgh, PA, he and his wife have three daughters.
George L. Price, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Director of the Office of Small Disadvantaged Business Utilization for the U.S. Department of State. He assumed the role in October of 2015. In this capacity, he advises the Department on all small business procurement issues and is responsible for promoting the use of Small Businesses, Small Disadvantaged Businesses, HUBZone, Women-Owned Small Businesses, Veteran-Owned Small Businesses, Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Businesses, Historically Black Colleges, and Minority Institutions within the Department of State to support the Department’s mission of protecting U.S. interests abroad and implementing foreign policy initiatives.
Mr. Price began Federal Service in 1992. Prior to the Department of State, he was the Deputy Associate Director for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Training and Management Assistance Program. He was responsible for providing Federal agencies with over $500M annually in direct acquisition and project management assistance in the area of human capital management and customized training services. In addition, on behalf of OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy, he led an interagency commodity management team to establish a government wide strategic sourcing solution in the area of Human Capital Strategy and Custom Training.
Before joining OPM, he served ten years as the Director of Outreach Communications for the U.S. General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service. During his tenure, he managed all strategic marketing communications and was the executive sponsor and champion of the creation of “Interact.gsa.gov”, a pioneering interactive open community dedicated to increasing government’s effectiveness through collaboration and communication.
Mr. Price began his Federal career with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). Over a ten-year span at SBA, he was a Business Opportunity Specialist within the 8(a) program, a Business Development Specialist, and lastly as the Director of the HUBZone Program for the Eastern United States. Mr. Price holds a Bachelor’s degree in Management Science and a Master of Business Administration.
Elizabeth Shortino is the Acting U.S. Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an international financial institution charged with promoting international monetary and financial stability and growth. In this role, Ms. Shortino represents the United States at the IMF Executive Board and advances U.S. interests on a range of issues, including IMF lending to strategic countries, IMF macroeconomic surveillance and capacity development, and all IMF institutional and policy issues. Ms. Shortino coordinates closely and regularly with U.S. agencies such as the Treasury Department, the State Department, USAID, and the Development Finance Corporation.
Ms. Shortino has spent 20 years in public service working at the U.S. Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget working on international economic and development issues. She served as Director for the International Monetary Policy office from 2017-2020 and led Treasury’s staff engagement and coordination on all G7 and G20 Finance Track issues, including communique negotiations, designing and advancing the U.S. agenda for its presidency of the G7 in 2020, shaping the G7 and G20 economic response to the COVID crisis, and advancing key U.S. priorities on issues such as international tax. Ms. Shortino also oversaw the Treasury stance on all IMF policy issues and country lending programs. Prior to this role, Ms. Shortino managed the Office of Middle East and North Africa and helped coordinate an international response amongst the G7, Gulf partners, and international financial institutions to support countries undergoing democratic transitions as part of the Arab Spring. She also oversaw U.S. Treasury economic engagement in strategic countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, and negotiated U.S. sovereign loan guarantees to several Middle East countries. Prior to joining the U.S. Treasury, Ms. Shortino worked at the Office of Management and Budget covering international and defense spending and served as a management consultant for Cap Gemini and at Ernst & Young. Ms. Shortino holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Masters in International Studies from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Vas is currently Director of the Development Partners Engagement Section, where he is responsible for outreach and engagement with development contractors and helping ensure the contractor market DFAT operates in is vibrant and competitive. Prior to this role, Vas was director of Human and Environmental Safeguards, responsible for ensuring a risk based approach to safeguarding the development program. Vas began his career in the public service at the Attorney-General’s Department, where he delivered a range of law and justice capacity building programs focusing on counter-terrorism and transnational crime across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Prior to this Vas worked in refugee law and advocacy at UNHCR in Australia and Thailand. Vas has a degree in Liberal Studies from the University of Sydney and a Juris Doctor in Law from the Australian National University.