Anu Rajaraman

Mission Director, USAID, Guatemala

Bio Current as of June 2, 2021

As USAID’s Mission Director in Guatemala, Ms. Anu Rajaraman leads a team  of 120 talented professionals and a diverse suite of projects to achieve a  more secure, prosperous, and well-governed Guatemala while addressing the root causes of irregular migration. In this role, she has built multiple  partnerships with communities, civil society, the private sector, and other  donors to expand opportunities for youth, women, and Indigenous Peoples,  enabling them to live dignified and productive lives in Guatemala. 

Before assuming her current duties, she led implementation of USAID’s  vision of advancing U.S. foreign policy by partnering with countries on their  journey to self-reliance. In that role, she and her team developed USAID’s  first set of metrics that measure countries’ commitment and capacity to  manage and finance their own development.  

Prior to that, she directed a variety of international programs across Latin  America and South Asia in the areas of democracy and governance,  innovation and entrepreneurship, women’s empowerment and education,  and water and sanitation for USAID, the U.S. Global Development Lab, and  the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

Raised on Galveston Island, Texas, Ms. Rajaraman earned her BA in  Government from the University of Texas at Austin and holds an MPA from  the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Ms. Rajaraman is the funnier half of a USAID-Department of State tandem couple.