Dynamic Southeast Asia - New Pathways, Partners and Models for Development
The development landscape in Southeast Asia is shaped by persistent development challenges but also opportunities for new directions in development policy and practice. These opportunities include capitalizing on the dynamic private sector, leveraging the wide-spread use of social media and digital technology, and engaging emerging partners in the region.
Featuring: 
Ms. Monica Kerrigan serves as Jhpiego’s Vice President for Innovations, identifing solutions and harnessing the power of innovations to prevent needless deaths among the world’s most vulnerable women, girls and their families. Prior to joining Jhpiego, she worked at the Gates Foundation, serving as Deputy Director of Family Planning. At the Gates Foundation, Ms. Kerrigan launched the London Summit on Family Planning and developed partnerships for family planning, which resulted in the Urban Reproductive Health Initiative, the Ouagadougou Partnership for Francophone Africa and the first Implant Volume Guarantee. Prior to joining the Gates Foundation, Ms. Kerrigan served as Team Leader for Maternal and Newborn Health at UNICEF in Indonesia and Senior Technical Advisor in the Office of Family Planning/Reproductive Health. In her early career, Ms. Kerrigan led Jhpiego’s Africa Office and served in Peace Corps Mali as a primary health care trainer. She holds a M.A. of Public Health in maternal and child health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ms. Gloria Steele is currently the Acting Assistant Administrator for Asia at USAID. Most recently before that, Ms. Steele served as Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for Asia and USAID Mission Director for the Philippines and the Pacific Islands. Ms. Steele also served as the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Global Health and Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Europe and Eurasia. She worked for seven years in the Bureau for Africa as an agricultural economist, and seven years in the Bureau for Science and Technology. Ms. Steele served one year in the Bureau for Policy and Program Coordination, where she led the development of policies related to food security. Earlier in her career, Ms. Steele served as a management consultant to the Philippines' secretary of agriculture, and taught business economics at Letran Graduate School for Business in Manila. Ms. Steele holds a M.A. in agricultural economics from Kansas State University and a B.A in business administration from Maryknoll College in the Philippines.
Mr. Matt Love is the Co-Founder and Director of Love Frankie, a Bangkok-based creative agency responding to challenging social and development issues affecting people across the Asia Pacific through the production of innovative communication and engagement strategies. Before Love Frankie, Mr. Love was Director of MTV EXIT, a mass media educational campaign that has produced award-winning media content and live events to raise awareness and increase prevention of human trafficking globally. As the Director of the Foundation, Mr. Love led the implementation of an innovative public-private partnership between USAID and AusAID regionally across Asia. Previously, Mr. Love was an Associate at Watson, Farley & Williams in Bangkok, a Producer at Capital Television Thailand and a Business Development Manager at Antares Consulting Thailand. Mr. Love holds a L.L.B. in internatonal law from Macquarie University.
Ms. Achara Chaiyasan serves as a Counsellor in the Development Cooperation Bureau at the Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA), a department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand. At TICA, she plays an active role in sharing and implementing Thailand’s own sustainable development approach, or Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP), in partnership with the international community towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – “SEP for SDGs Partnership”.
Prior to joining TICA, Ms. Chaiyasan served her first overseas assignment as a First Secretary (Economics and Development Affairs) at the Royal Thai Embassy in Seoul, Republic of Korea. She also served as a Second Secretary responsible for socio-economic relations between Thailand and Myanmar at the Department of East Asian Affairs, and as a Third Secretary responsible for development issues in the Mekong Sub-region at the Department of International Economic Affairs. Before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand in 2007, Ms. Chaiyasan worked as a public relations specialist at a top communications firm in Bangkok. She holds an M.A. in International Studies and Diplomacy from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the University of London, and a B.A. in Economics from Chulalongkorn University.
Dr. Amy Searight serves as senior adviser and director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Dr. Searight has a wealth of experience on Asia policy—spanning defense, diplomacy, development, and economics — in both government and academia. Most recently, she served in the Department of Defense (DOD) as deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia, from 2014 to 2016. Prior to that appointment, she served as principal director for East Asian security at DOD and as senior adviser for Asia in the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). She has also served on the policy planning staff and as special adviser for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in the State Department as a Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow. Before entering government, Dr. Searight was an assistant professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, where she taught international relations of Asia and directed the mid-career master’s program in international policy and practice. She was also an assistant professor at Northwestern University and a postdoctoral fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. She holds a Ph.D. in political science and an M.A. in East Asian studies from Stanford University, and she graduated magna cum laude from Williams College with a B.A. in political economy.