EXCOM Member

As president and chief executive officer (CEO), Dr. Liesbet Steer brings more than two decades of experience in international development, education reform, and finance to her oversight of EDC’s domestic and international work. She leads the management team, which directs EDC’s major programmatic and business activities, and is a member of EDC’s Board of Trustees. 

Liesbet comes to EDC from her role as the executive director of the global Education Commission, an international initiative driving greater progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal for inclusive and equitable quality education and chaired by UN Special Envoy for Global Education and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown.

Prior to her role with the Education Commission, Liesbet served in numerous development, education, and finance roles. She was a fellow at the Brookings Institution, Global Economy and Development, where her work included authoring a flagship report, Financing Education: Opportunities for Global Action, which led to the establishment of the Education Commission. She has held leadership and other roles with organizations including the Overseas Development Institute, The Asia Foundation, and the World Bank. Between 1997 and 2007, she lived in Vietnam and Indonesia where she worked on economic development in the Asia region.

Liesbet serves on the Board of the International Finance Facility for Education and Greater Share, the Global Leadership Council of UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited, the High Level Steering Group of the Education Outcomes Fund, and the World Economic Forum Education 4.0 Alliance.

Liesbet was educated at the Universities of Antwerp and East Anglia and the London School of Economics. She holds a MSc in Quantitative Economics and a PhD in Development Economics. She is fluent in Dutch and English and speaks French and Indonesian conversationally.