Kaci Kennedy McDade is a senior advisor at GHV. She supports the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Policy and Advocacy Division on the Gender Equality Program Advocacy and Communications team. Kaci’s global development experience spans philanthropy, academia, and international organizations.  

Before joining GHV in 2024, she was an associate economic affairs officer at the United Nations Secretariat in the Financing for Sustainable Development Office. She provided development financing expertise for UN leaders and supported intergovernmental processes related to financing for development.

Previously, Kaci was an academic researcher at Duke University, where she wrote more than 60 published works on global health policy and financing, engaged with policymakers in low- and middle-income countries, and managed research partnerships in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Kaci holds a MPA in international development from Tsinghua University in Beijing and a BA from the College of William & Mary. During her academic training, she was an intern with the US State Department, the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, and the US Defense Intelligence Agency.

She lives in New York City with her husband, two daughters, and pup.

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Areas of Expertise:

• Strategic planning and management

• Qualitative and quantitative research

• Issue areas: development policy and finance, gender equality, global health, health financing, international relations, and Chinese foreign policy