James Schmitt

Area of Expertise:

• Administration, Management, Finance/Accounting, Procurement
• Agriculture, Livelihoods, Microfinance, Rural
• Capacity Building, Training, Advocacy
• Environment, Climate, Energy, Water, Sanitation
• Trade, Finance, Economics, Cooperation, Global

Professional Experience:

I seek to expand my international development career with a focus in program or portfolio management. I am an experienced manager successfully leading domestic and international field and headquarters staff. I have direct experience hiring and building high performance teams. I bring technical programmatic experience in community economic development with a focus on gendered agriculture development and cash for work programming. I’ve worked closely with small scale coffee farmers, cooperatives and unions to bring quality coffee to export market in Ethiopia and developing and capitalizing high-value fruit and vegetable producers in Central Asia. I bring a strong back ground in civil engineering design in the domestic US markets, which lends knowledge to best practices in water system and irrigation design, including sustainable community utility operation.

I have successfully managed livelihood projects from GiZ (German Agency for International Development), DFiD (Department for International Development – British), USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and Oxfam Great Britain. My focus has been in East Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.