Erica Isaac Berkenpas

Erica Berkenpas is a senior leader with a proven record of success designing and implementing large scale, high priority projects in difficult operating environments. Erica has operational and programmatic expertise in management, leadership, and team building; strategic planning; program design; grants, contracts and procurement award, implementation and administration; budgeting and financial oversight; contractual and regulatory compliance; communications and reporting; and, monitoring, evaluation and learning. Ms. Berkenpas is the Chief of Party on the USAID/OTI Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative. Prior to her move to Ukraine she was based in Nairobi, Kenya for over seven years. In this time she provided grants and operations direction for DAI’s USAID funded Countering Violent Extremism activity, Kenya NiWajibu Wetu (NIWETU); Managed program design and implementation for Africa Lead II, a regional USAID/Feed the Future intervention; Served as the Deputy Team Leader on the DFID-funded Somalia Monitoring Programme (SMP); and Deputy Chief of Party on the USAID and DFID co-funded Monitoring and Evaluation Program for Somalia (MEPS). Prior to her move to Kenya, Ms. Berkenpas was DAI’s Senior Program Manager for the USAID/OTI Tunisia Transition Initiative project and its subsequent Syria regional option. From 2006 – 2011 Ms. Berkenpas worked in Afghanistan on a range of governance and community development interventions. Prior to launching her career in international development, Erica worked in non-fiction media production for socially oriented documentaries and museum based multi-media installations. Ms. Berkenpas earned a Bachelor of Science, Summa Cum Laude, in Culture and Communication from New York University. She holds a Master's of Liberal Arts in International Relations and a certificate in Social Justice from Harvard University.