Hélène Kirémidjian is a Lead Technical Specialist within DAI’s Private Sector Development and Skills practice. Hélène has more than 15 years of professional experience in private sector development and market systems strengthening, including private sector engagement, enabling environment reform, sector selection, and value chain analysis in a wide range of sectors, including agriculture, tourism, and renewable energy. She has led numerous assignments in the field involving analysis and implementation of economic growth projects mainly in Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean, and has conducted a variety of assessments worldwide, including market systems analyses. Most recently, she has led the conduct of qualitative research on the effect of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)’s COVID-19 efforts on the private sector for USAID’s Private Sector Engagement Hub as part of USAID’s Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP) Activity.

From 2014 to 2018, as part of a USAID-funded Feed the Future initiative in Haiti, Hélène designed and implemented upgrading strategies in the cocoa, rice, and banana value chains and piloted, scaled up, and managed an electronic voucher system to improve producers’ access to agricultural inputs. Previously, in Morocco, for USAID’s Improving Business Climate in Morocco Program, she led value chain strengthening activities in the solar technologies sector that included working with stakeholders to analyze regulatory environment constraints and facilitating the creation of the first Moroccan network of renewable energy service providers, RESOVERT.

• M.S., international development and journalism, Georgetown University