I am currently in my 7th year of working with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which is a small, independent agency of the US government (USG). I am based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire where I serve as the interim Team Leader for the development of a $300 million regional compact focused on the energy sector. I relocated to Abidjan in October 2022 after the previous project I was working on for MCC in Burkina Faso (also in the energy sector) had to be abandoned following the January 2022 coup d’état there, leading to the disqualification of the country for USG foreign assistance.