As CareerWise’s Development Manager, Mandana works to grow the organization’s resources through compelling storytelling, incisive research, and collaboration with partners who share an urgent mission to engage the private sector in redefining career pathways and enabling economic mobility for young people. She also supports CareerWise’s efforts to systematically learn from data and insights and use evidence to improve its program model.

Mandana brings to this role a background in international economic development, and in business development, research and monitoring and evaluation. Prior to joining CareerWise, Mandana lived for six years in Washington, DC, where she was most recently a consultant to large multinational donors and implementers, like USAID, the World Bank and DAI. Her work centered on providing research and technical assistance around leveraging the financial services sector to catalyze positive economic development outcomes across sub-Saharan Africa. Her career has been guided by an intense interest in understanding and dismantling the economic and social determinants of poverty and in alternatives to growth-based definitions of economic vitality.

Mandana holds a BA in political science from Vassar College and an MA in development economics from The Fletcher School at Tufts University. A native of the Sonoran Desert town of Tucson, Mandana finally moved back to the Mountain West after twelve years on the East Coast. In Colorado, she and her husband enjoy multi-modal recreation in the mountains, attempting to grow food in their community garden plot, and sampling Denver’s excellent, local coffee roasters.