Ann Mei Chang, USAID
Former Chief Innovation Officer
Ann Mei Chang Biography
Ann Mei Chang is a leading advocate for social innovation and author of LEAN IMPACT: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good (Wiley, Nov. 6, 2018). As Chief Innovation Officer at USAID, she served as the first Executive Director of the U.S. Global Development Lab, engaging the best practices for accelerating impact and scale from Silicon Valley for the world's most intractable challenges. Previously, Ann Mei was the Chief Innovation Officer at Mercy Corps, and served the U.S. Department of State as Senior Advisor for Women and Technology in the Office of Global Women’s Issues.
Prior to her pivot to the public sector, Ann Mei had more than 20 years’ experience as a technology executive at such leading companies as Google, Apple and Intuit, as well as a range of startups. As Senior Engineering Director at Google, she led worldwide engineering for mobile applications and services, delivering 20x growth to $1 billion in annual revenues in just three years.
Ann Mei currently serves on the boards of BRAC USA and IREX, is a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution, and is a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Stanford University, is a member of the Aspen Institute’s Henry Crown Fellows’ class of 2011, and was recognized as one of the “Women In the World: 125 Women of Impact” by Newsweek/The Daily Beast in 2013.
Ann Mei is a keynote speaker who has been featured at TEDx MidAtlantic, SxSW, Social Good Summit, SOCAP, Lean Startup Week. Skoll World Forum, as well as numerous nonprofits, foundations, and government agencies.