Eileen Pennington has over 16 years of experience designing and supporting gender, human rights, and education programs for the Asia-Pacific region. As Associate Director of The Asia Foundation’s Women’s Empowerment Program (WEP), Ms. Pennington provides strategic guidance and technical assistance to staff across 18 field offices in Asia on efforts to empower women and girls, and integrate gender in programs, including those related to the justice sector, governance, conflict, gender-based violence, education, and human trafficking. Prior to joining the WEP team, Eileen served as Assistant Director in the Foundation’s Washington office, where she identified emerging opportunities for program growth, supported program development and enhanced monitoring and evaluation strategies, and provided analysis to Foundation staff and engaged with policymakers on key developments in U.S. foreign assistance.

Ms. Pennington has a strong background in training and facilitation, including playing a leading role in designing, field-testing, and implementing a Gender Mainstreaming Training Curriculum for Foundation staff; co-designing and facilitating skill-building workshops for staff on key issues including monitoring and evaluation (M&E), human trafficking, gender-sensitive programming, and women’s empowerment programming; and co-designing and leading adult language education training programs in Japan as part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program.