Lesley Richards Email & Phone Number

Leadership and Civic Engagement: Oversee 50 staff and 11 direct reports, provide technical direction to 8 regional offices, and lead initiatives that drive political party development. Promote more policy-focused parties and greater political participation through civic organizing. Global Governance, Project Management, and Budget Monitoring: Manage USAID and FCDO projects. Oversee $14M budget and conduct project assessments.Program Management, Training, and Process Improvement: Direct leadership, mentoring, and training programs. Assessed all training, determined its efficacy, and improved modules.Relationship Building, Political Strategy, and Stakeholder Engagement: Build relationships with diverse stakeholders. Work collaboratively to design methodologies that open up the political space; improve inclusion; increase participation; enhance political dialogue; and build responsive political parties.Regulatory Compliance and Political Analysis: Drive adherence to all donor regulations. Develop monthly political and electoral monitoring reports, providing analyses and diagnostics on electoral processes.Executive Leadership and Donor Relations: Served as chief of party for 6 months, representing organization in internal/external contexts. Delivered presentations to executive-level donors. Diplomacy and Elections: Advised the U.S. ambassador on high-level political players with whom to discuss threatened elections. Organized high-level meetings with grassroots political leaders for the British deputy high commissioner and prepared talking points.Proposal Writing: Collaborated with team to write proposal, securing 2.5-year, $9.5M funding extension from USAID and $5M funding extension from FCDO.Project Evaluation: Authored report on Democracy International’s Strengthening the Political Landscape in Bangladesh project, succinctly capturing 5 years of project successes. This report led to an A+ rating from the project’s donor, FCDO.

Strategic Partnerships, Electoral Politics, Team Coordination, and Financial Management: Partnered with governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders to advance strategies and programs for building inclusive electoral system. Directed 4 staff, oversaw security, and provided overall administrative leadership for the project, including financial management and coordination with 9 election information centers.Professional Communication: Served as chief of party over a 9-month period, representing organization at donor and steering committee meetings.Strategic Planning: Developed the annual work plan, adapting activities based on political developments and local needs.Diplomacy and Stakeholder Relations: Held high-level talks on development of national dialogue with a diverse cross-section of stakeholders.Capacity Assessment, Transparency, and Sustainability: Assessed existing electoral system to determine capacity for independently managing elections. Authored concrete recommendations for improving impartiality, transparency, competence, inclusivity, and sustainability.Solution Implementation, Women’s Rights, and Democracy Promotion: Designed and implemented a complaint registry line to document cases of gender electoral violence during the electoral cycle. Data collected from this initiative led the Haitian Election Management Body (EMB) to partner with an outside organization to assist and protect women who encountered electoral violence.Technical Assistance and Diversity & Inclusion: Delivered technical advice to Haitian EMB on electoral planning, persons with disabilities inclusion, and civic education.

Morocco/Algeria/ Jordan

Evaluations and Compliance Monitoring: Evaluated emerging frameworks for parliamentary and presidential elections in Morocco, Algeria, and Jordan, ensuring appropriate governance, autonomy, transparency, and compliance with international standards.Policy Analysis, Reporting, and Strategic Insights: Analyzed and reported on policies, political systems, EMBs, and the electoral legal framework, providing insights into the evolving landscape, power dynamics, and incentives that drove stakeholder behavior.Data Collection, Interviewing, Risk Assessment, and Consulting: Gathered and interpreted information from diverse sources—such as legislation and interviews with legal, political, and election officials—to determine risks in current processes and propose solutions.

Haiti

Coordinate and supervise the provision of technical assistance and advice to the Provisional Electoral Council, national counterparts and their institutions in: procurement, logistics, and procedures; external relations; public information; outreach and media relations; civic and voter education. Provide support to media, political parties and civil society, gender mainstreaming, capacity-building, and institutional reform and development. Provide project and program management; including budget management and monitoring, and reporting of results to USAID. Establish effective communication mechanisms, regularly brief HQ, partners, donors, counterparts as well as other key stakeholders on the electoral process and provide regular reports. Monitor the impact of domestic and international norms and processes on female participation and provide advice to the Electoral Management Body on appropriate corrective measures.

International Politics, Political Parties, and Program Design: Performed comprehensive analysis of Haitian political parties, preparing documentation that included data on the current political context, party/leader profiles, and guidance on programming design for headquarters.Profile Creation and Problem Solving: Co-drafted up-to-date, detailed country profile that helped inform areas and types of projects to fund.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

Portfolio Management, Rule Of Law, Networking, and Civil Society Development: Managed $50M portfolio of rule-of-law projects for Guatemala, Mexico, Egypt, and Colombia, networking and partnering with local civil society organizations to improve capacity of government institutions and support democracy.Capacity Development and Social Justice: Designed capacity development projects in collaboration with stakeholders. These projects strengthened governance, promoted governmental transparency, protected human rights, and improved the effectiveness, efficiency, and accessibility of justice systems.M&E, Performance Measurement, and Streamlining Process: Established a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework that measured program/project performance, linked results with donor objectives, and streamlined data collection.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

Project Implementation, Election Monitoring, and Human Rights: Managed programs, projects, and initiatives in Haiti that advocated for fair and transparent election processes, promoted judicial independence, and increased knowledge about the needs of survivors of organized violence.Assessment and Consulting: Led a pre-electoral assessment to determine the political will of the Haitian government to hold elections. Produced findings that led USAID to commit $31M in funding toward the electoral process.

M.A, International Administration

B.A, International Relations