Bio
Maura K. Leary is our Director of Communications. She is responsible for media relations, internal, policy, and digital communications, and thought leadership activities.
Maura has 10 years of experience working at the World Bank, most recently as Senior External Affairs Officer in Eastern and Southern Africa. In 2020 she was Acting Manager for the World Bank’s Africa External Affairs team, responsible for implementing a dynamic communications and engagement strategy around the institution’s work in Sub-Saharan Africa and leading a team of professionals across the African continent and in Washington, DC.
She was previously the Communications Lead for the World Bank Group’s Office of the Chief Executive Officer, and before that she managed strategic communications and outreach on poverty reduction, equity, and inequality as the Communications Lead for the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Global Practice. She began her career at the World Bank as a partnerships and communications specialist on the Gender and Development team, and prior to joining the Bank in March 2011, she worked at George Washington University and Tufts University managing academic programs in the United States and France for high school, university, graduate, and adult students.
Fluent in English and French, she holds a master’s degree in International Affairs from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, and a B.A. in French from Connecticut College.