Principal, Program Development

Kathleen (Katya) Doherty has more than 20 years of international development experience in agribusiness marketing, agricultural development, and food security programming. As principal, Program Development, Doherty plays a key role in supporting CNFA’s business development and implementation efforts as well as designing and strengthening CNFA’s agricultural market systems activities. She is also a member of the International Advisory Board for the USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Horticulture, managed by UC Davis. 

Doherty has an extensive history with CNFA. From 2005-2015, she led and advised successful business development initiatives for programs funded by USAID, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and other non-U.S. government donors. Her achievements included expanding CNFA’s input supply and agrodealer programs to eight countries across Africa (Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria) with support from AGRA and USAID, and leading technical design and proposal development efforts that facilitated CNFA’s first projects in Georgia, Pakistan, and Haiti. 

Since 2015, Doherty has been working for CNFA as a consultant, providing technical support to the USAID Agriculture Program in Georgia, the USAID Private Sector Activity in Azerbaijan, the USAID Resilient Communities Program in Georgia, and the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer Program, specifically in Moldova. During these assignments, Doherty focused on developing high-value agriculture value chain assessments, supporting program development efforts, and contributing to work planning and reporting. 

Earlier in her career, Doherty worked for the Pragma Corporation, first managing teams of local consultants in Central Asia to provide business advisory services to small and medium enterprises on the USAID Enterprise Development Project, and later working as an agribusiness trade and marketing specialist in Azerbaijan on the USAID Rural Enterprise Competitiveness Program. 

Doherty holds a Bachelor of Arts from Colgate University and a Master of Business Administration from Pennsylvania State University. She spent 12 years living and working in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Russia and is proficient in Russian, with a basic knowledge of Portuguese and Spanish.