ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you, Paloma, for kicking us off. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone around the world joining us to witness today’s truly historic swearing-in ceremony of Neneh Diallo as USAID’s first Chief Diversity Officer.
Before I speak more about Neneh, I’d like to take some time to thank her loved ones who are joining us virtually, including her husband, Abdoul, her son, Frank, her father, Aliou, and her sister-in-law, Dalanda. Thanks as well to her children, Salima, Yasmine and Tejan, and her brother, Thierno, who are able to be with Neneh in person on this special day.
I also want to acknowledge the tireless Erin Brown for her tremendous leadership and service to this agency as Acting Chief Diversity Officer. Erin, I am deeply grateful for your continued dedication to improving our policies to better reflect our values and advocating for USAID’s underrepresented staff.
Additionally, I want to give a huge thanks to members of the Executive Diversity Council and colleagues across our agency, without whom I wouldn’t have been able to sign USAID’s DEIA strategy and hit the ground running on my first day as Administrator. You are the reason for the important progress we’ve made in under a year and why we are able to have this swearing-in ceremony today.
In the span of USAID’s 60 years of global development work, today is long, long overdue. As I’ve said before: If we want an Agency that reflects the best of what America has to offer—all our dynamism, all our fresh perspectives, all our best thinking—then we must prioritize the hiring and retention of staff that look like America.
But creating our Agency’s first ever Chief Diversity Officer, elevating this role to the front office, uniting all our disparate diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts behind one leader isn’t just about changing what this Agency looks like. It’s about changing how it feels to work here, elevating a far more inclusive array of voices and making sure they have seats at the table, and grappling with the legacies of racism and sexism that plague all institutions in this country. It’s about overcoming a history of gatekeeping that prevents underrepresented groups both in the United States and abroad from having a meaningful say in our humanitarian and development work.
At USAID, we know that we can do better. And with this new structure, and Neneh’s rich experience, perspective, and leadership, I believe we will. Born and raised in New York City, Neneh is the proud daughter of immigrants—her father, Aliou, is from Guinea and her late mother, Salimatu Khan, was from Sierra Leone. Like other appointees in the Biden-Harris Administration, Neneh’s story is a manifestation of the dreams immigrant parents often have for their first-generation children. Neneh has spoken of herself, her brother, and her half-sister being raised in a household in Queens, New York, where they learned anything was possible in this world through hard work and the help of a loving community.
I can only imagine how proud Neneh’s father must be of his daughter—and how proud her late mother would be—especially given their own legacy of service to others. Neneh’s father worked as the United Nations Resident Representative for the UN Development Program, overseeing programming in Cameroon, Niger, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And her mother worked as a public affairs lead for the Organization of Africa Unity, the forerunner of the African Union, and a political affairs officer with UN Peacekeeping operations in Somalia and Ethiopia.
Both of her parents engaged boldly in their roles, sometimes facing great personal risk in the midst of violent conflict. Yet their dedication to the expansion of freedom and improvement of quality of life for people across the African continent was unwavering. Neneh’s parents showed her the global impact that could be achieved if people, despite their differences, came together for a common cause.
And that was reinforced throughout her upbringing. As a child, Neneh attended the United Nations International School, which my son Declan also attended when I served as UN ambassador. It was there, she says, that she met classmates and lifelong friends who hailed from Jamaica to India, Egypt to the Philippines, Ukraine to Pakistan. Exposure to such a diverse group showed her the personal impact of connecting, learning, and collaborating with people from all backgrounds.
To this day, Neneh carries on that legacy of global and personal impact in her own career, one that reveals a proven track record of fighting for more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible work settings. After earning her bachelors in political science at Rutgers, Neneh sought professional opportunities that brought diverse groups together and amplified underrepresented voices to inspire action.
Take her work during International Women’s Day in 2011, while she was working for the Millennium Challenge Corporation. That year, Neneh helped two young girls from Burkina Faso travel to DC for a reception celebrating the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, hosted by former First Lady Michelle Obama. One of the girls, Aissatou Diallo—no relation—gave a speech to a packed room in the White House that day, thanking MCC for an education program that gave her the chance to learn and pursue her dream of becoming a doctor.
According to Neneh, this was one of the highlights of her career. Not because she met Mrs. Obama—though honestly that would make just about anybody’s year. But because of the opportunity to show the world the difference the U.S. government can make when they invest in the empowerment of women and girls abroad. To help translate the story of a girl who, just a few years earlier, could not have imagined attending school, much less flying for the first time, never mind speaking at the White House.
When she undertook the role of MCC’s Director of Diversity and Inclusion in 2014, Neneh became a federal government trailblazer as she developed the agency’s five-year diversity and inclusion plan and worked to strengthen training and policies, including hiring practices and pay equity.
As many of you know, well and apart from her work at MCC, Neneh is no stranger to USAID’s mission. While out of government, she produced high-level conferences on USAID’s Ebola Recovery program in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, bringing together experts from the public and private sectors to share lessons in preparation for the next pandemic.
And of course, she brings with her fresh ideas and experience from the private sector as well. Her previous role was that of Senior Vice President for Marketing and Communications at pocstock, a Black-owned media platform with global reach. Pocstock’s goal is to help organizations create more authentic content by replacing the stock images that leave no representation for people outside of the majority, or worse yet, perpetuate negative stereotypes about people of color. Neneh developed the company’s national campaign to diversify the images we see in everyday news stories, advertisements, and work training presentations, as well as the pool of photographers who capture them.
This is quite a track record. But here’s what you should also know about Neneh, in the words of her closest family and friends: She is, at her core, a person known for her kindness and generosity with her time. She is the dedicated soccer and football mom, driving her kids to games and cheering them on from the sidelines. She is the “cool aunty,” starting discussions with nieces and nephews about new music, fashion, or television shows while also giving valuable advice about school or careers. She is the friend who, according to her best friend, “tells it like it is, offering a perspective I would have never seen.” Someone you can always come to without fear of judgment. And according to her cousin, she is: “Tenacious as she is calm, adventurous as she is cautious, amusing and good natured as she is focused, and serious in all her undertakings.”
Bethany Aquilina Brez, a former MCC colleague of Neneh, says: “Whether with staff in DC, or in communities in MCC countries like Sierra Leone, Neneh knows how to…use their experience and expertise to change peoples' lives." As she undertakes this new role, Neneh will tap into this Agency’s existing experience and expertise to build on the steps we have taken thus far. Thanks in large part to Erin’s leadership and the efforts of staff throughout the world, missions, bureaus, and offices have established DEIA councils to have critical conversations about making aid more accessible. They are engaging in internal trainings and campaigns to make our work culture more welcoming to all employees regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, disability, gender, or sexual orientation. And they are drawing up MOUs with minority-serving institutions to increase the number of applicants from Black, Indigenous, Latino, Asian-American, and other underrepresented communities for jobs, internships, fellowships, and development and research funding opportunities.
Looking ahead, we’re excited to cultivate with Neneh an Agency-wide culture that encourages every last one of us to be change-makers and treat equity as core to our roles. A culture that expands the number of paid internships and makes our workplace more welcoming and inclusive, allowing us to retain and cultivate USAID’s leaders of tomorrow. A culture that engages authentically with the local communities we support. A culture that holds USAID’s leadership at all levels accountable, and that very much includes me. Neneh, I fully expect and welcome your candor as we identify where we are ahead and where we fall short, making the decisions we need to make this Agency the welcoming, diverse, nurturing place it deserves to be.
Now Neneh, you’ve said before that our children will judge us by what we dare to do in our lifetimes. That we need to find ourselves on the right side of change that advances opportunity for all. I agree completely. But we need your help. We need the boldness your parents instilled in you. We need your willingness to push for change at both global and the personal scale. We need your tenacity, your good nature, and your seriousness of purpose. And we need your belief that a more just, more inclusive world is possible, if we are willing to build it. I want to thank you for returning to public service to help us do just that.