Mark Ward is a committed humanitarian who leads teams to provide critical help when a natural or man-made disaster strikes. He saved lives and restored hope to communities affected by many disasters over two decades including the 2004 Tsunami and the civil war in Syria. He left Afghanistan in June 2021, where he led a humanitarian organization for two years. President George H. W. Bush nicknamed him “Mr. Disaster” after their Tsunami work in 2005.

Highlights of a fascinating career:

Fall 2023 – helped resettle Afghan refugees living in Albania.

Summer 2022 - helped resettle thousands of Afghan refugees living at the Emirates Humanitarian City in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Winter 2021-22 – helped resettle Afghan evacuees living temporarily at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

2019-21 Country Director for the International Medical Corps in Afghanistan. Led a team of Afghan professionals helping communities in twelve provinces cope with COVID-19, poverty, natural disasters and one of the longest conflicts in history.

2016-17 Co-chaired a 25-nation task force with Russia in Geneva to deliver more aid to communities cut off by the war in Syria. By leveraging Russia’s support for the Syrian Government and US support for the opposition, the task force increased deliveries 10X from 2015 to 2016, to help more than 300,000 Syrians. Also helped negotiate several ceasefire agreements with the Russian Federation.

2012-16 Led a 25-person US Government team near the Syrian border in Turkey to coordinate and deliver more than $1 billion in aid to Syrian communities and Syrian refugees, and keep basic services working in opposition-held towns.

2010-11 Headed the 100-person Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) at USAID. Helped launch, oversee and publicize the US Government’s response to the worst floods in Pakistan’s history; the cholera outbreak in Haiti after the earthquake; and the beginning of the Japan earthquake and tsunami.

2005-6 Advised former Presidents Bush and Clinton on projects to be funded from the Bush-Clinton Tsunami Fund. Knowledge of the needs in the Tsunami- affected countries and the nonprofits working in those countries proved extremely useful to the former Presidents; allowing them to disburse more than $20,000,000 from private donors quickly and efficiently with almost no overhead.

Retired as a Career Minister in the Foreign Service of the United States.

2006 winner of the Service to America Medal for his work on the 2004-5 Tsunami.

Instructor at the University of Washington’s Jackson School in Seattle in 2018 - 2022.

Chairman of the Board of Directors of PARSA-Afghanistan, a small Kabul-based nonprofit teaching leadership skills to Afghan adolescents for nearly 20 years (in 2022).

Mark is a native of San Francisco, and received his BA and JD from the University of California at Berkeley. He was Headmaster of a girl's high school in rural Kenya, and practiced law in Washington, DC for four years before joining the Foreign Service.