Jodi Nelson, director of Impact Planning & Improvement (IPI), leads a central team that creates the guidelines and standards for strategy and measurement at the foundation. IPI works across the foundation’s three program areas (Global Health, Global Development and U.S. Programs) to manage a strategy process that helps program teams and leadership execute on the foundation’s goals. IPI also spearheads the foundation’s commitment to improve measurement and evaluation as a means for learning, decision-making and feedback on the foundation’s performance. As a cross foundation team, IPI supports best practice in strategy and measurement by facilitating learning across teams and from outside the foundation.
Prior to joining the foundation, Jodi spent eight years at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), where she led an initiative to bridge the gap between academics and aid workers to strengthen the quality of data used to effect and measure change in post-conflict countries. She founded the IRC’s department of Research, Evaluation and Learning. Prior to that, Jodi worked with the Asia Society, the Committee for Economic Development, the World Resources Institute, and the Society for International Development. She has a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University, and has taught at Princeton and New York University.