Jessica Lee
Co-Founder and CEO
Dr. Jessica Lee is, well, the coolest. In a nerdy kind of way of course. Growing up as an Army brat, she developed an appreciation for international travel, community, and all things camouflage. Now she’s a working mom of three, generally frazzled, but on the whole, does things pretty well and cracks jokes, mostly at the right times.
Jess earned a series of degrees, none of which directly associated with a vocation, that spit her out as a Cultural Anthropologist. Starting at a solid state school, University of Northern Colorado (Go Bears!) where she got her BA in Philosophy, then to Gallaudet University (Go Bison!) where she got an MA in Deaf Studies, and University of Colorado at Boulder (Go Buffs!) where so got another MA (gah) in Anthropology and then a PhD in the same. (Common among all these schools: mascots all start with a B and she never attended a single sporting event. In fact, she cursed them.)
Dr. Lee’s selected work history includes dish washer and hostess,[1] as a sign language interpreter,[2] then a research assistant,[3] an international development consultant,[4] a Fulbright Scholar and National Science Foundation Fellow,[5] first generation member of the Socio-Cultural Research (and) Advisory Team (SCRAT) at CJTF-HOA,[6] leading the qualitative research portfolio for East Africa at AFRICOM,[7] pre-deployment trainer for Civil Affairs and other folks deploying to Africa,[8] research and advising for other government agencies,[9] setting up one of the first Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) efforts for security cooperation at Department of State,[10] running a portfolio of contracts at Department of State and DOD,[11] entrepreneur and small business owner.[12]
Jess knows Swahili (sawa sawa), ASL (HEARING SIGN), and English (native). She’s really into qualitative methods, field research, teaching, and making things happen. She can translate between really different groups of people—especially those existing in the same (US) Government.
[1] Key Lesson(s): line dancing, the importance of washing the grossness off quickly, and any food, no matter how tasty, is gross in mass quantities
[2] Key Lesson(s): language is complex, culture is harder, structural violence and advocacy is even harder
[3] Key Lesson(s): archives are super cool (again, in a nerdy way) and hexes are no joke.
[4] Key Lesson(s): the needs of the World Bank and tiny NGOs are not all that different—just a matter of scale.
[5] Key Lesson(s): First year of marriage in a village? Good. Getting your car hexed by a Mganga? Bad
[6] Key Lesson(s): names matter, AFRICOM was trying to get it right, everyone had a long way to go, I loved this job.
[7] Key Lesson(s): Stuttgart has better housing than Camp Lemonier also: better food (no offense Bob Hope Gally).
[8] Key Lesson(s): While Africa wasn’t new to me, it was new to a lot of people. People want to do better. Tell them how.
[9] Key Lesson(s): You know what I mean.
[10] Key Lesson(s): State and DOD are, in fact, from different planets. Security cooperation needs M&E. It isn’t rocket science.
[10] Key Lesson(s): Leadership and management are the best hardest job. Back of the house work is just as important as front.
[12] Key Lesson(s): Morgan Poyant is an incredible business partner, the world is small, good people need to stick together, looking forward to working with each and every one of you, big things happen when you work a little every. single. day.