Dr. Ana Pantelic is an international development professional with fifteen years of experience in policy and practice, who has guided and grown social impact organizations working at the confluence of systems change, inclusive innovation, and economic opportunity. Ana is the Executive Director of MIT D-Lab, which works with people around the world to develop and advance collaborative approaches and practical solutions to global poverty challenges through interdisciplinary courses, research in collaboration with global partners, technology development, and community initiatives. Over the course of her career, she has:• Increased the economic resilience of low-income urban and rural communities around the world by designing and leading large scale financial and economic inclusion initiatives for women and girls and strengthening national social policies in Latin America, East Africa, and the Balkans;• Spearheaded the launch of Uganda's first-ever urban social protection program for adolescent girls, and adapted the implementation and monitoring of the cash-plus intervention during the pandemic;• Led an international social enterprise as a C-Level executive, shaping the organization's strategy, and overseeing impact across Latin America and Africa, as well as garnering international recognition through awards from the Skoll and Schwab Foundations, Ashoka and USAID, among others;• Founded and directed an award-winning digital start-up called LISTA, proven to increase the financial health of women in poverty, reaching nearly a million low-income people across more than a dozen countries on three continents;• Researched poverty reduction through the lens of finance and systems strengthening, and used evidence to inform the design of scalable, sustainable, hybrid solutions that leverage the public, private, and civil society sectors to improve socio-economic outcomes for individuals and strengthen social and environmental systems;• Published academic and policy research in academic and popular outlets in three languages (English, Spanish and Serbian), which include peer-reviewed articles, chapters, as well as the book "Disrupting Poverty in Developing Countries";• Presented at conferences and universities in 20+ countries on topics ranging from women's economic empowerment to designing digital solutions for low resource environments.
Listed skills include Research, Editing, Strategic Communications, Qualitative Research, and 10 others.
