Amanda Fernandez

Amanda Fernández is a Director at Palladium, providing strategic direction to economic growth programs globally, including USAID’s Financing Ghanaian Agriculture Project, and the Peru Cocoa Alliance, for which she serves as Project Director. Ms. Fernandez has been in the economic growth field for more than 25 years as a donor, a development project implementer, and a private consultant. She has directly managed donor projects throughout Latin America, the Balkans and in Africa, overseeing investment facilitation, financial services, small business development, refugee assistance and agricultural development work. She served as USAID’s Regional Economic Advisor for West Africa overseeing the U.S. government’s trade, finance, and small enterprise development programming, and as a Program Officer for the US-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, where she made grants throughout the U.S. in support of financial innovation and inclusion and community economic development. Ms. Fernandez has led the creation of financial service entities throughout the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucuses and in Latin America, principally in post-conflict and transition countries. She has authored several publications for Palladium and USAID on issues of development finance and investment.