Dirk Dijkerman currently serves at the OECD as a Special Advisor on OECD Development Strategy, helping to mainstream development across the organization. Previously, he served as the U.S. Government Delegate to the Development Assistance Committee (DAC). In this capacity, he co-led an international effort to increase the use and quality of country systems by donors and partner countries. In USAID/Washington, he has served as acting Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, Chief Operating Officer in the Office of the Director of United States Foreign Assistance, and Deputy Assistant Administrator in USAID’s former bureaus for policy and planning and for Asia and Near East affairs. Overseas, he has served as Mission Director in the Republic of South Africa, Rwanda, and REDSO/ESA, where he was responsible for technical and administrative support to bilateral USAID programs in Eastern and Southern Africa. He retired from USAID as a Career Minister in 2012.

Dr. Elizabeth Dunn has over 20 years of experience designing evaluations and leading research on low-income households and factors affecting their participation in market systems. She has worked on projects related to micro- and small enterprise development, smallholder agriculture, inclusive value chain development and microfinance. As a thought leader in the evaluation of inclusive market systems, Dunn uses concepts from complex adaptive systems (CAS) and social network analysis as an analytical framework for evaluating the evidence from inclusive value chain development projects and improving understanding of the factors affecting smallholder participation, value creation and value capture in regional and global market systems. Dunn was a major contributor to USAID’s work on value chain development under the AMAP project. She provided technical leadership for a wide variety of evaluations, including a longitudinal, mixed-method evaluation of the effectiveness of USAID's GMED project in India and served as Technical Director for core impact assessments under USAID's AIMS project.

Allan Best is Managing Partner for InSource, a Vancouver-based health services and population health research group with expertise in knowledge translation and exchange, systems thinking, and communications. InSource serves health systems decision makers at the regional, provincial and national levels, offering innovative “whole systems” research, planning, and evaluation tools to support large-scale organizational change. Mr. Best also is Associate Scientist in the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. His research focuses on systems thinking and organizational change creating the teams, models, structures and tools that foster effective knowledge to action for health policy and programs that improve the health of the population. He was elected Fellow for outstanding research contribution by the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, Canadian Psychological Association, Society of Behavioral Medicine, American Psychological Association, and American Academy for Health Behavior.

Dr. Derick W. Brinkerhoff is Distinguished Fellow in International Public Management with RTI International (Research Triangle Institute) and a specialist in policy implementation, strategic management, democracy and governance, decentralization, civil society and NGOs, post-conflict reconstruction, and organizational change. He has worked with public agencies, NGOs, the US military, and the private sector across a broad range of development sectors in 30 countries and has undertaken long-term and short-term assignments in a number of fragile and conflict-affected states. He was the health governance team leader for USAID's Health Systems 20/20 Project for six years, and is currently health governance advisor for the RTI's Health Financing and Governance project and the Health Policy Project. Previously, he was a Principal Social Scientist at Abt Associates for ten years, where he spearheaded the research program of USAID's Implementing Policy Change Project and worked on health sector reform under USAID's Partners for Health Reform project.

Dr. Ronald Oakerson is professor of political science and former academic vice president and dean at Houghton College. Previously, he was senior research scientist at Indiana University, where he worked with USAID’s Decentralization: Finance and Management (DFM) project, and senior analyst at the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR), where he directed research on metropolitan governance in the U.S. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Indiana University in 1978. Oakerson has consulted extensively for USAID, beginning in 1989 with a series of assignments related to policy reform and economic liberalization in Cameroon. In the mid-90s he was a member of the Working Group of Democracy and Governance organized by USAID/Africa, and a team member of the Benin Governance Assessment (a joint project of USAID and the European Commission). More recently, in 2004-05, he was a team member with the Fragile States Framework Project, organized for USAID by the IRIS Center. Currently, his principal international involvement is as consultant to the Mango Outgrowers Project in Sierra Leone.

John Gillies is the Director of FHI 360's education practice. He has over 35 years of experience in international development, including as a Peace Corps Volunteer, USAID Foreign Service officer, consultant, researcher, and technical specialist. He has been an adviser to donors and national officials in numerous countries on education policy, program design, management, evaluation, and strategic planning. From 2003-2010, he was the director of the USAID Education Quality Improvement Program 2 (EQUIP2) and led a consortium of 15 universities, NGOs, and consulting firms in conducting policy research and advocacy for improving education policy, systems, and management. Prior to his work with FHI 360 and AED, Gillies ran a consulting firm with diverse clients ranging from USAID, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), community development agencies, and various international NGOs. In the early 1980s, he was a Foreign Service Officer and served as Project Development Officer in USAID/Honduras.