Lea Claye

Background

About Lea Claye

My career is rooted in the domestic and international public sector with almost 15 years of experience. I started as a civil servant with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and then my love of international public health led to me the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). I’ve experienced the wonders of 42 countries across North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East through my travels. I'm a USAID Foreign Service Officer where I've managed high profile portfolios for government direct financing, HIV, and infectious diseases. At the heart of USAID’s development work is the core belief that each country must lead its own development journey. I, too, hold this belief as I lead cross-functional offices to advance government capacity to implement and manage their quality health programming. Most recently, as the Health Team Lead for USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, I manage a team of twenty humanitarian health professionals, that provided health technical oversight for humanitarian awards worth over $1 billion in previous fiscal years. As a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) advocate within USAID, I’ve made contributions to USAID’s first DEIA strategy and helped set the groundwork for recruiting and retaining a more inclusive and representative Foreign Service workforce in USAID.