James Stein began his career as a Foreign Service Officer in 1987, joining USAID as an International Development Intern. Prior to his assignment as Mission Director to Macedonia, he was Deputy Mission Director in USAID/Afghanistan from May 2012 to May 2013. He was Director of the Strategy and Program Office in the Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC/SPO) from October 2010 until his departure for Afghanistan. He has also served in Serbia, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, and Ecuador.

Mr. Stein has directed USAID offices and projects in the areas of economic policy reform, private sector competitiveness, small enterprise development, financial and capital market development, public finance, urban water and sanitation, low-income housing, microfinance, environmental management, and agriculture and rural development policy. As the Director of LAC/SPO, he supervised the Bureau’s annual program budget formulation and execution processes, program operations reporting, and country program strategy formulation and approvals.

Mr. Stein earned a B.A. in economics from Stanford University (1977) and an M.A. in regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1982). He completed doctoral coursework in development economics and urban studies and planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1985). From 1977-1979, he volunteered at the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction in the Philippines, with Volunteers in Asia, a non-governmental volunteer organization based in Stanford, California. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Mr. Stein is married and has two children.