Dr. Liesbet Steer
President and CEO, Education Development Center
Dr. Liesbet Steer is the President and CEO of the Education Development Center, where she leads a team of 1,400 professionals working on learning, health, and youth and workforce development, helping to drive the organization’s strategy, growth, diversification, and impact in the United States and around the globe.
Prior to this, Dr. Steer served as the Director of the Education Comission, where she oversaw the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations, including the design of the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd), the introduction of reform and results based approaches in Pioneer Countries, a new Education Workforce Initiative and the development of global accountability measures.
She has more than 20 years of experience in international development research and policy. Dr. Steer was a Fellow at the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution and Director of the Overseas Development Institute’s (ODI) flagship program on Development Progress, financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
As a fellow of ODI’s Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure, she also worked on issues of development finance, aid effectiveness, and the production and use of impact evaluations. Between 1997 and 2007, Liesbet lived and worked in Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos and Cambodia. She directed the economic reform program for the Asia Foundation in Indonesia, a technical assistance and research program on local economic development and growth. She also worked with the World Bank and IFC on private sector reform and the design and evaluation of SME development programs in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
