Gloria Steele is an independent consultant who currently sits on various international development boards, including serving as the Chairperson of DevelopMetrics, a social business at the forefront of applying artificial intelligence and data science to improve global development impacts. She served for more than four decades at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she focused on food security, global health, economic development, governance, and climate change.
In January 2021, she was appointed by President Biden to serve as acting USAID Administrator until the Senate confirmation of Samantha Power in May 2021. While at USAID, she also served as acting Assistant Administrator for the Asia Bureau for close to four years. Other prior assignments included serving as Senior Deputy Administrator of two other USAID bureaus--the Europe and Eurasia Bureau and the Global Health Bureau. She spent five years as USAID’s Mission Director for the Philippines, twelve Pacific Island nations, and Mongolia.
After her service at USAID, she served the Chief Operating Officer at CARE USA, a non-profit international development and humanitarian organization. She is a two-time recipient of the Presidential Distinguished Executive Award, which is the highest annual award given by the U.S. President to the career Senior Executive Service (SES) corps, and the Presidential Meritorious Executive Award, the second-highest award for the SES corps.
At the end of her USAID assignment in the Philippines, she was awarded by the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, the Order of Sikatuna, a Presidential award given to nationals of foreign states in recognition of their exceptional and meritorious service to the country. She received a master’s degree in agricultural economics from Kansas State University.