MSI is pleased to announce the promotion of Michelle Adams-Matson to the role of Senior Vice President for Programs. Adams-Matson has served in MSI leadership roles for more than 20 years, most recently as its practice area leader for Strategy, Evaluation, and Analysis (SEA). SEA is MSI’s largest practice and includes 28 current monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) projects in Washington, D.C. and across the globe. She also served as a technical director for USAID MEL platforms in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Pakistan (USAID’s largest MEL platform at the time).

Adams-Matson will serve as a member of MSI’s leadership team and oversee its expanding MEL portfolio, as well as mission support, education, and leadership and organizational development (LOD). She will manage a team of forty-four practitioners to drive results for clients.

She is an experienced strategic planning expert, and has led the development of high-profile inter-agency strategies. Adams-Matson has worked with the U.S. government, host country institutions and small local organizations to help them plan and implement programs in highly challenging and rapidly evolving environments. For instance, in Mozambique, she worked with USAID to reimagine scenario-based planning to integrate more adaptive approaches into strategic planning.

Adams-Matson also initiated and led SEA’s Innovations Team to identify and share the most innovative approaches across MEL platforms. She served as a senior collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) expert for USAID in South Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. She led the design of a complex CLA platform designed to build resilience by collaborating with local communities and coordinating across implementing partners to layer, sequence and integrate interventions.

Andy Griminger, MSI’s president said: “Michelle’s passion, keen focus on results, and belief in strengthening local institutions is the right combination not only for our times, but for MSI’s support for the global development agenda. As a proven leader of people and an exceptional strategic thinker, I believe Michelle will be integral to MSI being a great company to work for, and with, in a dynamic world.”

Similarly, Adams-Matson added that “solving the most complex development problems requires working with local actors to achieve collective impact and long-term sustainability. Localization is not just about consultation; it is about truly valuing local leadership, insights, and expertise in the work we do.”

Adams-Matson previously served as a senior program analyst for USAID and led country strategic planning and MEL for two of USAID’s regional bureaus. She authored the first Agency-wide policies to improve strategic planning; and since then, has designed, taught, and facilitated more than one hundred workshops and training courses on strategic planning, MEL, and organizational development. Her work has resulted in more effective and results-oriented management systems.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a master’s degree in international development and U.S. foreign policy from American University in Washington, D.C.

MSI has implemented more than 50 MEL projects over the last 15 years, including critical programs for USAID, and the U.S. Departments of State and Defense. Today, it implements projects across the world, in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and the Middle East. MSI was recently awarded the U.S. State Department’s three-year Monitoring, Evaluation and Audit Services for Ukraine Reporting (MEASURE) to support the Office of the U.S. Assistance Coordinator for Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia to oversee billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Ukraine and helping to ensure that foreign assistance goes the intended foreign policy and foreign assistance objectives.

For 45 years, MSI has worked with public and private sector clients, non-profits, international organizations, and foreign governments in more than eighty countries to increase productivity, manage transitions, build capacity, and improve overall performance.