MCC CEO Danilovich Announces New Addition to Management Team

Washington, D.C. – Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) CEO Ambassador John Danilovich announced the appointment of Stephen P. Groff to the newly created position of Deputy Vice President for Operations. He will report to the Vice President for Operations, John Hewko, and will join MCC's senior executive management team.

As Deputy Vice President for Operations, Mr. Groff oversees a broad range of MCC interactions with eligible countries including: proposal development, proposal due diligence, compact negotiation and compact implementation. He will also be responsible for advising the CEO on development issues, strategy and policy. He will also play a central role in ensuring quality, technical excellence and development impact in MCC operations.

Mr. Groff has extensive international development expertise having spent the last 20 years working and living in over 20 developing countries around the world. Most recently he served as MCC's Managing Director for Eastern Europe, Asia and the Pacific.

“This appointment brings additional development expertise to the senior management team” said Ambassador Danilovich. “I am pleased that Steve has agreed to take on this challenging role and look forward to working with him on implementing our mission of reducing poverty through sustainable economic growth.”

Prior to joining MCC, Mr. Groff was a senior advisor at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila, Philippines and was extensively engaged in ADB's operational work in East, Southeast, and Central Asia and in the Pacific, as well as across a wide range of the major strategic and policy issues confronting all major development institutions today.

Previously, Mr. Groff served as an economist and mission leader at ADB where he built a successful track record in project and program conceptualization, design, and implementation. Prior to his tenure at ADB, Mr. Groff was the deputy director and chief economist on a large USAID project designed to encourage private sector development in the southern Philippines, a Program Director for the U.S. Refugee Program, and as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer. Mr. Groff holds a two-year MPA from the Kennedy School at Harvard University and a B.S. from Yale College.

Since its inception in 2004, MCC has approved Compacts totaling over $1.5 billion with eight countries: Madagascar, Cape Verde, Honduras, Nicaragua, Georgia, Armenia, Vanuatu, and Benin. MCC is also actively engaging with other eligible countries to assist them in Compact development.

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Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. government corporation designed to work with some of the poorest countries in the world, is based on the principle that aid is most effective when it reinforces good governance, economic freedom, and investments in people that promote economic growth and elimination of extreme poverty.