NeedsList Welcomes Jennifer Atala as Director of Strategic Partnerships
Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve hired Jennifer Atala as our new Director of Strategic Partnerships. Jennifer brings over 16 years of experience in partnership building, sustainable economic development, strategic business advisory, and technology with private, public, multi-lateral, and non-profit organizations around the globe, skills which she’ll be using to expand and deepen our connections with corporate partners across the globe.
“I am thrilled to be joining Tasha and Amanda at this exciting moment to continue building NeedsList,” Jennifer says. “ I have dedicated my career to exploring ways to achieve a SMART aid approach to development challenges, both on the ground and with government and multi-lateral institutions. A technologist at heart, I believe in the NeedsList approach and its potential to create even larger impact for both the end beneficiaries whose needs are met and the individuals and companies that partner with us along the way.”
Jennifer’s background, skills, and passion make her a dream hire for our company. She joins NeedsList from the Middle East, where she led a global consulting practice supporting startups, private sector institutions, international governments and non-profits in partnership building, business development, and strategic advisory. Her work included launching an eBay-backed accelerator in Israel, establishing a new project in Jordan to catalyze growth across the technology and creative industries in collaboration with local initiatives, instituting local and global partnerships for her clients, and serving as an advisor to the Swiss government. Prior, she led export market and private sector development initiatives in the Palestinian Territories across seven industries with an international firm on a USAID-funded project. In this role, she accomplished the first pilot deal between a Gazan garment company and an international company based in Tel Aviv since the political closure in 2007.
Based in Washington, DC between 2008 and 2014, she led award-winning investment process transformation initiatives with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Financial Institutions Group, managed a USAID stabilization program in Afghanistan, represented the international development community in inter-Agency M&E and data integration discussions, participated in the State Department Libya Task Force and USAID Youth Policy development, and led big data-driven social network analysis projects with consulting firms for DoD. Between MENA and DC since 2002, she also led country-wide microfinance loan product improvement and social impact performance initiatives across a dozen MFIs in Egypt and represented Palestinian citizens of Israel on the international stage to advocate for socio-economic, political, legal and media equality.
Jennifer has spent the last 20 years actively engaged in volunteering within her communities. Most recently, she has served as a mentor and judge for a number of startup acceleration programs based in Israel and Palestine and sits on the Board of BuildPalestine, the first Palestinian organization dedicated to solving local challenges through crowdsolving. An RYT-200 certified yoga instructor focused on trauma-affected communities, she has been leading classes and workshops since 2013. Jennifer has an M.A. from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), a B.A. from the University of Chicago, and is a 2017 Truman National Security Fellow.
In addition to speaking three languages (Arabic, Hebrew, and English), Jennifer was born into a family who became refugees in Palestine in the 1940s, and says of her background, “ I am grateful for the opportunity to apply my experience to support those in need at this critical moment in our collective history.”
Welcome, Jennifer!
