Carrie Hessler-Radelet

Carrie Hessler-Radelet is the President & CEO of Global Communities, an international non-profit organization dedicated to bringing together local ingenuity and global insights to save lives, advance equity and secure strong futures.

Prior to Global Communities, Carrie served as the President & CEO of Project Concern International (PCI), which merged into Global Communities on April 6, 2020. Prior to that, Carrie served as the Acting and then Confirmed Director of the Peace Corps (2012-2017) and Deputy Director (2012-2015), leading America’s iconic international volunteer service organization with programs in over 65 countries. At Peace Corps she and her team led historic reforms to modernize and strengthen the agency to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.

Before being appointed to the Peace Corps by President Obama, Carrie worked as the Vice President and Director of the Washington D.C. office of John Snow, Inc. (JSI), overseeing the management of public health programs in 85 countries around the world. Her decades of global health work also included serving as the lead consultant on the first Five-Year Global HIV/AIDS Strategy for the President George W. Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), working with USAID in Indonesia on maternal and child health and HIV programming, founding the Special Olympics in The Gambia, and serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer with her husband in Western Samoa.

Carrie is passionate about empowering communities to discover their own sustainable, innovative solutions to ensuring positive health and wellbeing and reducing poverty. She holds a Master of Science in Health Policy and Management from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics from Boston University.