Maura O'Neill

Maura O'Neill is the chief innovation officer and senior counselor to the administrator at USAID. In the public, private and academic sectors, she has created entrepreneurial and public policy solutions for some of the toughest problems in the fields of energy, education, infrastructure financing and business development.

Before coming to USAID, she served as chief of staff and senior adviser for energy and climate at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and before that as chief of staff for Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). O’Neill has started four companies in the field of energy, digital education and high technology. In 1989, she was named the Greater Seattle Business Person of the Year.

O’Neill has master's degrees in business administration from Columbia University and the University of California at Berkeley, and currently serves on the faculty of the latter's Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She earned her PhD at the University of Washington, where her research focused on narrow-mindedness and the errors it leads to in science, medicine, business and political decision making.