Jeremy Konyndyk - Refugees International

Jeremy Konyndyk is president of Refugees International. A committed humanitarian advocate and seasoned emergency operator, he has served in senior appointments in two U.S. administrations and in a range of U.S. and overseas NGO leadership positions.

Prior to joining Refugees International, Jeremy served in the Biden administration as USAID’s lead official for COVID-19. He oversaw USAID’s multi-billion-dollar COVID-19 assistance portfolio, led the design and implementation of the administration’s Global VAX initiative, and coordinated the U.S. government’s global donations of hundreds of millions of vaccine doses. He later served as the administration’s lead official for the global MPox response. He also served on the Biden-Harris transition teams for the Departments of State and Health and Human Services.

From 2013–2017, Jeremy served in the Obama administration as the director of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), where he led the U.S. government’s response to international disasters. He managed a large global team with annual resources of more than $1.4 billion, responding to crises including the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the 2016 Ethiopia drought, conflict in Northern Nigeria, the Nepal earthquake, the Iraq crisis, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, resurgent conflict in South Sudan, and the war in Syria, among other crises. He also led the Agency’s preparations for the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit.

Between his administration appointments, Jeremy worked from 2017–2020 as a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, focusing on humanitarian response and pandemic preparedness research. He developed and led CGD’s “Rethinking Humanitarian Reform” initiative, exploring how the humanitarian system could meaningfully shift power and influence toward crisis-affected populations – and why it has traditionally failed in its commitments to do so.

Jeremy has worked extensively in the humanitarian NGO sector, serving as a country director in West Africa and East Africa with American Refugee Committee (now Alight), and as a policy director in Washington, DC with Mercy Corps. He began his career in the Balkans, working on the response to the 1999 war in Kosovo. He also worked with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.

He is currently a member of the World Health Organization’s high level Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee, which oversees the agency’s Health Emergencies Programme and advises the WHO Director-General. He has served as the U.S. representative to the board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and as the U.S. representative and chair of the OCHA Donor Support Group (ODSG).

He lives in Takoma Park, Maryland with his wife, two sons, and dog, and enjoys baking, traveling, and triathlons.