Jessica Kiessel

Jessica Kiessel is Senior Manager at the Omidyar Network. She was formerly the Director of Country Programs at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). As the Director of Country Programs, Jessica was responsible for overseeing the fulfillment of IPA’s strategic plan and provides management oversight to all of IPA’s Country Programs. She is also a researcher with Annie Duflo on the TCAI Evaluation, an impact evaluation of a government-run remedial education project in Ghana.

Previously, Jessica was the IPA Ghana Country Director, where she directed the office during a period of significant growth and oversaw approximately 20 rigorous impact evaluations in a variety of sectors, including agriculture, education, finance and health. She also led scale up work related to agricultural insurance in Ghana. Before joining IPA, Jessica supported USAID education projects in Egypt, Zambia, Namibia and Pakistan for the American Institutes for Research. Jessica served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Samoa and holds a Masters of Public Administration from New York University and a Bachelors of Arts in Anthropology and Sociology from Kalamazoo College.