Bobby Jefferson is DAI’s first-ever Global Head of Diversity, Equity, Engagement, and Inclusion. He was previously Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for DAI Global Health, helping establish DAI’s successful digital and global health teams. Bobby is steeped in the issues of racial and social justice. He has reflected on those issues for decades as a professional in the global development industry and beyond, and over the past 18 months in particular he has lent his insights to DAI’s Racial and Social Justice Initiative (RSJI), serving on the RSJI Steering Committee since its inception.

In 2020, he joined the Board of Directors of the Society for International Development-Washington, D.C. Chapter, a position to which he was re-elected in 2021. As a member of SID-Washington’s Executive Committee, Bobby has been instrumental in shaping the organization’s strategic thinking on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): chairing the DEI Committee, establishing the Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity Workgroup, and setting in motion the DEI Strategic Plan. Bobby is also co-chair of the Council of International Development Companies’ new DEI Committee and participates in British Expertise International’s Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Working Group.

Before joining DAI in 2016, he served as Vice President and Director of the Center for Development Informatics at Palladium (formerly Futures Group), where he built a practice focused on ICT for global health and adjacent sectors, leading a staff of 120 in 10 countries.

He serves as a board member and advisor for enterprises including THINKMD, ClickMedix, DataElevates, Covelocity.Health, SimPrints, the Mentor Capital Network, and the gBeta MedTech Black Founders Accelerator program, where he mentors Black entrepreneurs and their startups.

• B.S., computer science, American University
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee Chair, SID Washington