Juniper Neill

Deputy Mission Director, Regional Development Mission for Asia (RDMA) at USAID

Ms. Neill is an executive manager and sustainable development expert with over 25 years experience advancing country and regional-scale sustainable development policies and programming. Ms. Neill excels leading multi-disciplinary organizations and teams to advance ambitious solutions to complex global problems such as poverty, inequality, climate change and political and economic marginalization. Her career has focused primarily on environmental conservation, inclusive agricultural and economic growth, community-led development and governance, women's economic empowerment, climate change adaptation, sustainable water resource management, and integrated, applied research for enhanced decision-making. Ms. Neill builds partnerships across diverse stakeholders who share common goals to advance human dignity and protect our planet’s natural resources for a sustainable and inclusive future. A perceptive strategic thinker who has the ability to mobilize resources, talent and energy for positive outcomes, Ms. Neill is driven by her belief that human advancement and a better future for our children and planet is possible. At 24 she founded an environmental consulting firm with fellow entrepreneurs. After growing that business into a multi-million dollar consulting company with offices across the west coast of the US, she joined the US Peace Corps in Ukraine and afterwards received a master's degree in International Affairs at Columbia University. As a Presidential Management Fellow, the US government's prestigious leadership recruitment program, she led national applied climate adaptation research programs for NOAA, and identified major gaps in US research policy, serving as a Special Assistant on Climate Change to the Director of the National Parks Service, Alaska region and as Visiting Scholar at the East-West Center advanced gender equity in climate adaptation across the Pacific. She joined USAID as an Environment Foreign Service Officer in 2005 and since then has served in senior technical and now executive-level positions in East Africa and South East Asia leading substantial US government development programming.