Lydia Nylander is Deputy Chief of Staff for Management and Resources at USAID. She was previously the Director in the Enterprise Risk Management and Internal Controls Division in USAID’s Management Bureau’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer, leading a multidisciplinary team of fifteen providing technical advice and policy guidance throughout USAID on risk management and supporting the monitoring of critical risks and operational challenges at the Agency level.
Ms. Nylander started at USAID supporting Government to Government risk management, contributing to engagements in Liberia, Côte D’Ivoire, Uganda, Egypt and Jordan as well as leading training and technical assistance initiatives on risk reaching over 50 countries. Prior to her tenure at USAID, Ms. Nylander served in senior legal and program development roles at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and at the Community Oriented Policing Service (COPS) at the US Department of Justice. Ms. Nylander is the former Director of Partnerships at the National Association of Consumer Advocates – the nation’s leading consumer advocacy organization. In this capacity, she oversaw the Institute for Foreclosure Legal Assistance, a $15 million dollar foreclosure defense project which provided legal representation to families facing foreclosure due to abusive subprime mortgages. As a former DC resident, Ms. Nylander served as Commissioner for the Mayoral Committee on Women for the District of Columbia and Chair for the Mayor’s Commission on African Affairs, advocating for the needs of the diaspora community living and working in the District of Columbia. Ms. Nylander gained her Bachelors of Law at the University of London, and has a Masters in International and Comparative Law from the George Washington University Law School and is a 2023 Graduate of the Costello School of Business Executive Chief Risk Officer Program at George Mason University.
Ms Nylander is a proud 2018 Fellow of the International Career Advancement Program, sponsored by the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and the Aspen Institute. She was one of twelve federal employees selected for a 2021 NextGen Public Service Award and was selected for the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) 2022 US National Security and Foreign Affairs Leadership List, a bipartisan coalition highlighting unique and notable contributions in the national security and foreign affairs arena.