Meet Sasha Bennett-Roomipoor
Sasha Bennett-Roomipoor is a senior governance and executive operations leader with more than 15 years of experience strengthening decision-making, accountability, and execution across complex humanitarian and development organizations. She has served in senior leadership roles at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she most recently led enterprise risk management for over $12 billion in global humanitarian programming in the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance.
A trusted advisor to executive leadership, Sasha has deep expertise in governance, donor compliance, and operational risk in high-accountability and sanctioned environments. She has established executive-level governance bodies, reporting systems, and accountability mechanisms that enable leadership teams to translate strategic priorities into disciplined implementation across global portfolios. Her work has included close collaboration with the U.S. Treasury and Department of State on sanctions and financial policy affecting humanitarian operations, providing policy guidance on regulatory exposure in high-risk operating environments, including Gaza and Yemen, and leading management responses to USAID Office of Inspector General audits, evaluations and inspections. In addition, Sasha led cross-sector partnerships with CSIS and ODI/HPG to assess how donor policy, financial regulations, and institutional banking practices affect access to humanitarian funding in highly sanctioned jurisdictions.
Sasha has built and led multidisciplinary teams through periods of rapid organizational growth and policy transition, while advancing cross-bureau governance structures that integrate legal, financial, policy, and operational considerations into senior-level decision-making. Earlier in her USAID career, she managed more than $200 million in humanitarian assistance to international organizations (e.g. United Nations and the World Bank) and non-government organizations. She supported U.S. government leadership during major international humanitarian responses, including the West Africa Ebola outbreak, complex emergency in the Lake Chad Basin, and Syria crisis.
Prior to joining USAID, she managed IT for development projects at SRA International; supported the UN High Commissioner for Refugees as a Resettlement Expert, analyzing, researching and advocating for durable solutions for refugees living in India; and coordinated Congressional outreach and advocacy on immigration issues, including the implications of the U.S. Material Support Statutes on U.S. refugee operations at the Refugee Council USA.
Sasha holds a Master of Science in Peace Operations Policy from George Mason University, and served in the U.S. Peace Corps as a Community Water Sanitation and Health Education Volunteer in northern Ghana.