For Media Producers: Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, Chief Executive Officer of Mercy Corps

As Chief Executive Officer of Mercy Corps, Tjada D’Oyen McKenna leads a global team of nearly 4,300 humanitarians working in more than 35 countries. Under her leadership, Mercy Corps provides immediate relief to save lives and livelihoods while partnering with local communities and governments, philanthropic funders, forward-thinking companies and entrepreneurs to co-create and drive long-term solutions that build resilience in the face of conflict and climate change. 

With a career spanning the private sector, government, and global nonprofits, Tjada brings a unique perspective on how the humanitarian and development sector must evolve to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. She can speak to the future of a sector in flux—how climate change, conflict, mass displacement, and shrinking foreign assistance are reshaping the way international organizations must operate. 

Tjada can provide expertise and commentary on: 

• Humanitarian crises including Gaza, Sudan, and conflict and climate-driven crises across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.
• The impact of declining U.S. foreign assistance and shifting global political and funder dynamics.
• Climate change as the defining threat multiplier driving and amplifying conflict, hunger, and migration.
• The transformation of aid—local leadership, decolonizing development, and challenging white saviorism.
• Food security, global food systems and hunger, where she is a recognized authority.
• Leadership and representation, as the only African American woman currently leading a major international aid organization. 

Tjada has been featured in media including CNN, ABC, NBC, BBC and other global news outlets and is available for interviews virtually or in-studio in Washington, DC. 

To book Tjada as an interview guest, please contact Lynn Hector at lhector@mercycorps.org. 

Click here for Tjada’s full bio and connect with her on LinkedIn. 

“There is unimaginable suffering happening in Sudan. The amount of displacement to other countries in the region, violence against women and children, sexual violence, and now a relentless grip of hunger. It’s baffling that the world has been letting this go on.”

- Tjada on BBC Newsday
 

“The challenges we face are immense, but we can rise to them, together. The true lesson of the 21st century must be that in a world that is so interconnected, our future is bound together with people we have never met. In a world of pandemics, climate change, global hunger, supply chain shocks, wars and grinding conflicts, there is no ‘us’ and ‘them’. There is only us. We can prevail if we face these challenges together, with urgency, and determined to leave no one behind as we work for a shared humanity and toward an inclusive, resilient future where everyone can thrive. "

- Tjada delivering the annual Jodidi Lecture at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (October 2024)