Heidi McAnnally-Linz joins the BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI) as its new Global Lead for Policy and Partnerships. Heidi joins the team with significant global organization leadership experience, expertise in moving evidence-to-impact at scale, building teams and coalitions, and mobilizing resources.
She was most recently Deputy Director at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, focusing on promoting and teaching research on all aspects of international affairs, societies, and cultures around the world. Prior to that, Heidi served as Director of Policy and External Relations at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).
In her new role with BRAC UPGI, Heidi will lead the initiative’s policy work, external communications strategy, and stakeholder engagement and partnerships.
“We are excited to have Heidi join the team and bring her extensive knowledge of directing programmatic operations, managing policy and external relations, and developing organizational strategy to UPGI,” said Managing Director, Greg Chen.
Heidi has led several small nonprofits and was a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, working with indigenous groups throughout Latin America. She has also led coalitions scaling up programs informed by research across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, including serving as the NORM Scaling Advisor during the pandemic, in collaboration with BRAC Bangladesh.
She serves on several boards and holds an MPA in International Policy and Management from New York University and a BA in Political Science from Haverford College.