Administrator Samantha Power at Swearing-In Ceremony for Sonali Korde as Assistant to the Administrator for the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance

ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you so much, Isobel. I think my predecessor in this job is here - there he is. Mark Green, thank you so much for coming. One of many tributes to Sonali is the incredible turnout here. Grateful so much to Ambassador Herzog, for coming, and for the work that you have been doing with USAID, as we try to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza. The great Ron Klain, who's here, former Chief of Staff to the president, former close colleague of Sonali, which I'll come back to. Sonali's friends and family, so many colleagues, as well from the Hill, with whom Sonali has hatched much mischief and magic over the years. I can't thank you all by name but I'm so grateful.

I'm above all grateful to Chris, Sonali's husband, and their three children, Jahnvi, Uma and Sid. Your support for Sonali, your sacrifice to make it possible for your mom, and your life partner, to do what she does the way she does it - it would be impossible for Sonali to be Sonali without you in her corner. So thank you so, so much. I view Sonali, and I think this packed house speaks to this for so many here, but Sonali is really a gift to us all. And because we get to see a lot of her, in time, and a lot of her many qualities, which I will dwell on. I was thinking this morning, I was trying to imagine knowing the Sonali that I know, but knowing I only know parts of Sonali. lots of parts, but only so many. I was thinking, what would she be like as a mom and as a wife, and as a partner? And when I think about that, it makes me even more thankful to you all, because I can only imagine what you're missing when she's off in the world, trying to strengthen civilian protection or bring medicine to somebody in a time of need. So you must miss her a lot, but we are incredibly grateful to you.

We have some very special people joining virtually as well: we have Sanat and Lenah, Sonali's parents, Indian immigrants. They gave Sonali an incredible upbringing that endowed her with a deep appreciation for a world outside of their Cranford, New Jersey home. They took frequent trips back to India where Sonali saw a tale of two countries, such incredible dynamism and burgeoning intellect, culture, but also such extreme poverty which persists in many parts of the country - even with all of the success lifting so many hundreds of millions of people out of poverty - but seeing people with and people without, I think for Sonali just contributed to what her parents had instilled in her, which is a strong sense of justice and a desire to address inequity and unfairness.

Sonali's little sister Neha reflects, "She was rebellious, but in a good way. She was fearless." And this is now my new favorite Sonali story: at eight years old, aghast to learn that her neighbors intended to put their dog down, Sonali painted "SAVE THE ANIMALS" in bold letters on the side of the family home. Let that sink in. Which was particularly memorable for Sonali's immigrant parents who had to replace the siding. In high school, she developed some familiarity with something she does so well, to this day, which is putting herself in the shoes of others, working at the Model UN and playing the role of countries with whom she vehemently disagreed. And she tested out those debating skills, I gather, as well at the dinner table.

She studied economics and international business at NYU, initially, and then got a master's from Yale, landing a job at the Federal Reserve in New York City. As her time at the Fed wound down, Sonali met Chris - at a Yankee game - a charming and funny fellow twenty-something working at the Fed. They clicked, I guess, at the Yankee game. The romance blossomed. Before long, the two were engaged, and several years later on their anniversary, Chris presented Sonali with a framed picture of the Yankee game ticket, which is a very thoughtful husband thing to do. And Sonali opened it and just said, "What's this?" Spoken like a true sports fan.

After getting her master's, Sonali spent a summer serving at a rural development center in northern India, alongside Kshama Metri, a community doctor and leader who would become a lifelong mentor. And one thing you'll hear about Sonali, she picks up mentors wherever she goes because people want to be with Sonali and see her be an even bigger version of herself. Alongside Dr. Metri, Sonali worked with women entrepreneurs, helping them expand their access to credit, and training them in micro enterprise. And in turn, the women taught Sonali how to plant rice, milk cows, raise baby chickens, and make a mean dahl.

When the summer was over, Sonali took a consulting job in New York and just three years later, Chris and Sonali's lives - and American history of course - would be irreversibly altered when two planes struck the World Trade Center on September 11. After a harrowing few hours in the aftermath of the attack, Chris and Sonali managed to be reunited in Brooklyn, as the news rolled in of friends, colleagues and classmates killed in the attacks. They each reevaluated their lives, their careers, and their purpose in the world. Inspired by Dr. Metri's work to build healthier communities in India, Sonali decided to forego management consulting and pivot to global health. And the couple relocated here to Washington, DC. Shortly thereafter - and we will soon have to have another celebration for the 20 year anniversary of Sonali joining USAID - but shortly thereafter, she signed on the dotted line and quickly distinguished herself at this Agency two decades ago, as someone who, as Isobel said, as so many of you know, could just get things done, found a way to get things done. She, within days, seemed to have acquired a black belt in bureaucracy. She was a master diplomat, one of the most persuasive people any of us have ever worked with. And all of that was harnessed in pursuit of USAID's goals in the world, which was fundamentally to promote individual dignity.

Her friend and former colleague, Barbara Addy, who I think is here already - Barbara, hi - recalls a time when Sonali encountered an issue in Uganda: a shortage of a new but critical malaria fighting drug known as ACT. Issues with supply had halted USAID's delivery of ACTs to the people of Uganda and many communities were going without effective malaria treatments as a result. Sonali refused to accept this outcome. She made call after call to get to the bottom of what was impeding, what was disrupting the supply chain. And of course, a consummate problem solver, found a way to help USAID resume the steady supply of ACTs to Uganda. Not long after, while stationed overseas, Barbara adopted a four month old girl, Eva, from Uganda. She learned, Barbara learned, that in just four months of life, Eva had contracted malaria not once, but twice, and both times she had been treated with ACT. Barbara believes - do not keep doing such good things in the world that make me cry, that's my problem, my line of sight - Barbara believes that that life-saving treatment was only possible because of Sonali's persistence and resolve. And the number of things we could say that kind of thing about is literally countless.

In 2013, Sonali took a fellowship with the Congresswoman Nita Lowey, gaining an initial bout of expertise in legislative affairs and budgeting. And all of us know, again, that so much of Sonali's effectiveness comes with just knowing how to work with the Congress on behalf of what we care about here.

From the Hill, she moved to the White House as Director of Global Health and Development on the National Security Council, under the incomparable Gayle Smith. And just weeks after she started, the most aggressive Ebola crisis in recent history - in history - erupted in West Africa, spreading like wildfire across the region, at a rate that seemed literally impossible to contain. Working alongside some of the most impactful and agile American leaders, especially under Ron Klain, the leader of the U.S. Ebola response, Sonali became a key National Security Council player, organizing policy and budget efforts across multiple departments and agencies. Sonali, it has to be said, and Ron and the whole team who worked there in the most stressful conditions imaginable, tending to the domestic, the risk of a domestic spread of Ebola as well as putting the fire out for communities in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. They were part of really what is one of the most successful chapters in American foreign policy history: ending an epidemic that looked destined to take hundreds of thousands of lives, harnessing the science, building the airplane as they flew it, mobilizing the world and in so doing, protecting the people of Africa and in so doing, protecting the American people.

The work was exhausting and unceasing, the hours punishing and the crisis, really from start to finish, very, very grim. And lest everyone think that Sonali is merely a martyr and has no feelings and is impervious - she has lots of feelings - but cares so much about the world that she's impervious to the toll it takes on her, she actually was overwhelmed at one point and at one point thought, "I can't do this anymore. This is just too hard. This is too dark and I can't do this." She suggested this to a friend of a friend. She took a night off from the office to go to a friend's birthday party. A friend of a friend took her aside, heard her, which you would describe as her self pity, and said, "What are you talking about? Get your sh-t together, Sonali, do your duty to your country, do your duty, your country needs you." And that was that. Years into the future her sister and Sonali apparently harken back to this conversation many times whenever either of them is tempted to give up urging each other, "Remember the general," because this friend of a friend was a general. "Remember the general!"

When Ebola resurfaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo while Sonali was back at USAID in 2019, she not only detailed to the Ebola DART to provide on the ground support in the DRC, but she also enrolled herself in the National Institute of Health's experimental trial of the Ebola vaccine, to help confirm that the vaccine was safe and effective, not wanting to be responsible for putting shots in arms without herself putting herself in that position first.

Following the 2016 election, Sonali became the Director of USAID Office of Legislative Affairs during a tumultuous transition period, when it was unclear whether the bipartisan support that the Agency had enjoyed would continue. But as I have learned, and as I know, Administrator Green benefited from, Sonali, she is impossible to say no to. She listens incredibly well. She makes all of her interlocutors feel heard, even those who are skeptical of USAID's agenda at a given time, and she tailors what she wants - or what she feels USAID and our country need - to resonate with her interlocutors. The relationships she has built on Capitol Hill over the years are forged in mutual respect. And on issue after issue, she has been successful in making the case that USAID's work was invaluable to living our country's ideals, to advancing stability, and to safeguarding our national security. She was a bridge builder. As longtime Senate Appropriations staffer and foreign policy adviser, Tim Rieser, recently reflected, "Sonali has all the qualities: the intellect, the energy, the enthusiasm, the passion, the determination to help the world's neediest people. Whether you were to ask Republicans or Democrats," Tim says, "they would have the same opinion of her." And indeed on the other side of the political aisle, long serving Senate Appropriations clerk, Paul Grove, also joining us, reflected, "When I think of Sonali, I think of service to one's country. I think of someone who knows and understands and appreciates what our democracy is, and what our democracy is supposed to be."

Sonali built strong relationships across her teams as well, always there to offer a listening ear. One team member remembers how at the end of almost every day, a gaggle of teammates would come sit in her office, "digesting," as he put it, and processing the day. Sonali was famous for her space heater - which was not technically allowed, but her various bosses looked the other way - and she was famous for her whiteboards, filled with quotes from her team members, which are added anytime somebody said something funny or memorable. Her team was inspired not only by Sonali's kindness to them, but also really by her raw, sort of simple decency, and even pure desire to support people in need. Sonali manages to be wise and even wizened, but not ever cynical. One of her team members put it simply, "Sonali is a person who cares about people."

When Missions in my time began imploring the Front Office to find a way to fund economic growth in their countries, Sonali, who by then had become Deputy Chief of Staff, here in the Front Office, Sonali was the mastermind dreaming up a new initiative here, at USAID, that we hope lives for decades into the future: the so-called Economic Growth Initiative, Economic Resilience Initiative now, a multifaceted plan to free up, finally, dedicated funding for economic growth. And it was Sonali who evangelized this issue at the Hill and helped us build a broad coalition that I hope will help take this forward. Sonali's deep legislative expertise equipped her to navigate congressional relations and her programmatic experience and her hunger to master the details, even as the terrain that she covered spread, very, very broad. Her mastery of the details allowed, allows her to defend programs better than anyone I know. We've also, in our time here in the Biden administration, had to deal with no shortage of crises.

And there was no one you want at your right hand in a crisis, like Sonali. COVID, of course, starting under Administrator Green, the COVID crisis and everything that meant for the workforce. And then, on my time, of course, trying to get shots in arms and still feeling, again, the drain and the pain in the workforce, as we were able, eventually, to come out of COVID. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and all that meant for our Afghan staff and our implementing partners; there's no one you would want having your back in Washington like Sonali Korde at a time like this, working with our Hill partners trying to create as much room for people, for Afghans to be able to come to the United States as as needed. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In each case, Sonali here in the front office was absolutely instrumental. She championed something called Global VAX, which, luckily, we have the luxury of kind of almost forgetting about now, but it was the initiative to actually get the 700 million vaccines that the United States donated to get those shots into arms, and to focus on the delivery and to raise money accordingly. She helped push the Ukraine supplementals, and also, really importantly, the expansive framing of the Ukraine supplementals, which allowed us to meet an unprecedented food security crisis, and also respond to humanitarian needs much further afield than than Ukraine itself.

We really didn't want to let Sonali leave the front office, I will say. I was not my best self, in arguing with myself: Me, Sonali, me, Sonali. How can I let her go? How can I let her go? But the world needs Sonali where she is. Sonali went to the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance and made an immediate impact, as you've heard. The words "invaluable" and "indispensable" really are - we need new words for what Sonali brings to any place she situates herself - and her indispensability for our first few years here as the Biden administration, there's just no way to overstate, again, the range of impact and the knowledge that you brought, as well, to our Front Office team.

Now, with the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, a Bureau that has been overstretched for so long, that has really difficult human workforce challenges, by virtue of hiring mechanisms and by virtue of just the toll it takes to work on crisis after crisis - Sonali has made an immediate impact. And there is just no one more perfect to go from having briefly been the Deputy Assistant Administrator to taking on the role that we are here to celebrate. In the DAA job already, covering the Middle East and North Africa region, quiet regions, in the very short time she has been in her role, she faced crisis after crisis: a devastating earthquake in Morocco, followed by massive flooding in Libya. According to our Deputy Chief of Staff Nikole Buroughs, as - I love this quote - "she saw the steep learning curve and sprinted up it." When she was asked to deploy to Tel Aviv as Special Envoy David Satterfield's Deputy to help lead the U.S. government's response just days after the harrowing October 7 attacks, my Chief of Staff Dennis Vega remembers, "She did not hesitate. It was an immediate yes."

And again, thank you to her incredible family, for loaning Sonali to us and to the people of the region who are going through such a difficult humanitarian crisis. Even in the tense environment on the ground, Sonali forged strong relationships with Israelis, with Egyptians, with Palestinians, and with aid workers, to facilitate critical life-saving humanitarian work. She quickly became known for her ability to get through to people. Scott Turner, her fellow Deputy under Ambassador Satterfield, noted, "They answer her when they don't always answer us. It's really a testament to her professionalism, and her connectivity, the way she can build those relationships and make them so strong, so quickly." Sonali's ability to connect became instrumental in coordinating the evacuation of our partners on the ground, negotiating humanitarian access to address dire needs in Gaza, and advocating at every possible turn to protect civilians and get them access to food, water, medicine, and shelter.

Those skills, of course, are going to be absolutely critical as she takes the helm of the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance.

The United States is the world's leading donor of humanitarian assistance, providing nearly $15 billion in Fiscal Year 2023. More than 65 percent of this funding comes from the Bureau that Sonali is going to lead. The Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance is USAID's largest bureau, and again, its team steps up at a moment's notice to go to the world's most difficult and dangerous places, from global health emergencies to natural disasters, to violent conflicts. To give some sense of scale of what Sonali will now be managing. BHA responded to 76 crises in 64 countries last year. Tens of millions of people benefit from this work. And of course, in order to do this work, we have to defend it. And we have no better and more persuasive advocator, and advocate, and connector than Sonali up on the Hill as our resources hang in the balance.

Leading the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance is one of the toughest jobs at USAID. It's a time of peak global conflict, climate driven disasters, and displacement, and we all know the demand for aid is dramatically outpacing our ability to provide it. BHA needs a leader who can deftly navigate bureaucracy to mount efficient responses, who has the personal skills, the Congressional connections and the budgeting experience, to be a powerful advocate for people in need, the people that she never forgets when she comes to the office every day. And someone who can cultivate, nurture, and empower teams to step up and meet the moment. That describes Sonali: uniquely Sonali, unique Sonali.

So, Sonali, "remember the general," when in times of doubt and stress: your country needs you, your country and this Agency, and all of us here, we feel so lucky to have you.

Thank you so much for taking this on. And thanks to all of you.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.