Isabella Jean

Isabella Jean is a senior advisor and learning partner to international and local organizations, bilateral donors, private foundations and UN agencies with 25 years of experience. She accompanies organizations, teams and leaders through periods of institutional transition and transformation, including shifts in business models, strategic direction and partnership practices. She facilitates reflection and adaptive strategy processes that help organizations align their structures, incentives and cultures with evolving mandates and external realities.

For the last two decades, Isabella has supported efforts to improve the effectiveness and accountability of aid and philanthropy, and to strengthen equitable partnerships that advance locally led action. Her work centers on documenting and amplifying promising institutional and programmatic practices, and on strengthening capacities for conflict sensitivity, peacebuilding, humanitarian effectiveness and accountability to local communities. Isabella has facilitated multi-year collaborative learning and action research with partners across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Caucasus. She advises policymakers, executives, and programme teams seeking to align their strategies and operations with the priorities of the people and communities they serve.

As Director of Collaborative Learning at CDA, Isabella co-authored Time to Listen: Hearing People on the Receiving End of Aid (2012), a widely cited critique of externally driven aid models. She has taught graduate courses on the strategic design and evaluation of peacebuilding programmes at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, where she also served on the Alumni Board, and was a guest lecturer for five years at the Rotary Peace Program hosted by Duke University and UNC–Chapel Hill. Earlier in her career, Isabella directed training programmes at a Boston community organizing network and conducted evaluation and policy research for the Institute for Responsive Education, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Coexistence International. As a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, she conducted independent research on youth-led coexistence initiatives in Northern Ireland, South Africa and Cyprus.