Alexandra Miller

I have been working in the field of international development for a little over 7 years, with over 2 years in my current position as a program manager. I work primarily with teams based in East Africa on global health projects spanning HIV, women's health, reproductive health, and sanitation. My typical day starts early, around 7 or 8 AM, with hours on the phone with country teams. We hold standing project meetings to check in on progress against work plans, conduct financial reviews of project spend against budgets, and strategize on how to present cases to donors when we need approvals. We also do extensive fundraising work, identifying opportunities we could be a good fit for and exploring partnerships that could synergize skills for particular proposals or bids. One of my most notable professional achievements was leading the operationalization of our social enterprise in Ethiopia. This involved getting everything set up from the organizational compliance standpoint, legal registrations, standard books of accounts, and figuring out how transfer of funds would work. That business has grown to become one of the NGO's largest revenue-generating sources. We sell water purification products, reproductive health products, and menstrual pads, and all of the revenue earned goes back into the overall nonprofit, which creates a nice cycle.