Gary Linden

As a Director of Global Markets, Gary Linden establishing and executing the vision, strategy, and business development priorities for the Regional Directors to advance the WEConnect International’s global brand and deliver measurable, cost-effective results.

Gary has had a distinguished career at the United States Agency for International Development, where he served in a range of technical, managerial and executive positions in complex international environments in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and the Americas. Gary began his career with USAID managing multi-million-dollar economic assistance projects in Latin America and then in Central Asia. Later, he supervised and mentored entire operating units of project managers—along with associated support staff—in Central Asia, Ukraine, Moldova, Ethiopia and Washington, DC. While serving in USAID’s Bureau for Food Security, Gary oversaw all USAID agricultural programming in over 40 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Gary’s experience spans the full range of economic development areas, including trade and investment, banking and financial sector development, support for small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a wide range of technical assistance to agricultural enterprises, complex economic analytical methods to evaluate potential projects, women’s economic empowerment and many others. He has vast experience supporting efforts to strengthen the capacity of small NGOs and knows the donor assistance instruments used by USAID, other international donors and international financial organizations.

Over the course of his career, Gary has personally witnessed the importance of women’s economic gains as a means to advance women’s empowerment. At USAID Gary was a gender champion, who consistently made the case to the Agency that much more needed to be done to improve gender equality in the countries where it works. His recent article, The Key to Effective U.S. Foreign Assistance is Gender Equality, received strong praise from gender experts and senior officials at USAID and demonstrates his passion for gender equality.

Gary is an inclusive leader who focuses on mentoring and supporting the growth of his teams to empower them to achieve their mission. He is devoted to helping his teamwork smarter by taking advantage of the latest computer and cloud-based technologies to help them meet their goals while maintaining good work-life balance.

Gary received a BA in International Relations from Pomona College, an MA in Latin American Studies and a Ph.D. in Economics from The University of Texas at Austin.