PATH announces new managing director for international programs

Dr. Diana Pallais, a Microsoft executive with extensive experience in business strategy, public-private partnerships, and global development, has been named to the newly created position of managing director for PATH's international programs.

"I am pleased that Diana Pallais is joining PATH in the integral role of managing director for PATH's international programs," said Ayo Ajayi, vice president for International Development at PATH. "She has a record of innovative, results-driven leadership in the public and private sectors that will be an asset to PATH's presence in more than 70 countries. This new role will build a bridge between various internal and external stakeholders on a global scale."

In her new position, Pallais will be responsible for leading and overseeing PATH's global network of country programs, providing strategic leadership, performance management, and program support.

Pallais comes to PATH after more than 14 years at the Microsoft Corporation, most recently leading Microsoft's global marketing relationship with one of their most important business partners, Dell. Prior to that, she led sales strategy for the global community of sellers in the division that looks after hardware manufacturers and delivers the most profitable margins for Microsoft.

As managing director of Microsoft's Worldwide Public Sector from 2006 to 2009, she founded the company's initiative for commercially viable public-private partnerships (PPPs), bringing together cross-sector partners in more than 200 successful PPPs worldwide. Her work helped drive innovation in public service delivery and digital access that reached more than seven million people in developing countries. In this capacity, Pallais drove the internal change at Microsoft to pursue a fresh business model, making technology access to underserved citizen segments a vector in economic development goals. She created an engagement model that enabled repeatable PPPs across the world and across different policy areas, such as education, civil service innovation, pension reforms, public health, and small business empowerment.

Pallais has also served in other leadership capacities at Microsoft including product management, geopolitical strategy, and product development.

A contributor to numerous nonprofit and social innovation organizations, Pallais currently serves as a partner at Social Venture Partners and supporting partner of the Initiative for Global Development. She also has served as an executive committee member at Global Washington, board member at Partners in Health, and leading organizer and fundraiser for the Hurricane Mitch Relief Campaign in Seattle.

Pallais has served as an instructor in the Department of Political Science and the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington and as a policy analyst and diplomatic negotiator in Nicaraguan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is a fellow with the University of Washington's Center for Communications and Civic Engagement. Pallais holds a PhD in political science with a specialty in economic development from the University of Washington. She is originally from Nicaragua and is fluent in Spanish and English.

Posted December 12, 2013.