United States

Anna Shireen Wadia

Program Officer New York

Anna Wadia works on job quality issues in the United States. Her grant making focuses on expanding access to unemployment insurance and ensuring that all workers earn a family-supporting wage and have access to paid sick days and paid family leave.

Before rejoining the Ford Foundation in 2009, Anna worked as a consultant for the Annie E. Casey and Ms. foundations, and the National Council for Research on Women and MDRC. Her practice focused on analyzing, implementing and assessing strategies to improve low-wage jobs and increase opportunities for low-income women and families; providing technical assistance to grantees; and analyzing effective grant-making strategies.

Prior to launching her consulting business, Anna managed community and economic development programming for the Ms. Foundation for Women in the United States, and for the Ford Foundation and Catholic Relief Services in Africa.

Anna co-authored "Kitchen Table Entrepreneurs: How Eleven Women Escaped Poverty and Became Their Own Bosses," (Westview Press, 2002), as well as several reports on best practices in women's economic empowerment. She holds a master's degree in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and a bachelor's degree from Yale University.