John Floretta has been the Global Deputy Executive Director of J-PAL since 2020. He works with J-PAL’s Executive Director to set J-PAL’s strategic vision and collaborates closely with the leadership of the seven regional offices. He directs the Evidence to Scale vertical to accelerate J-PAL’s efforts in catalyzing the scale up of evidence-informed policies to reduce poverty. He also works closely with J-PAL policy and training leadership. He is a board member of J-PAL and Teaching at the Right Level Africa and a member of the Scaling Up Community of Practice executive committee.
John began his career at in J-PAL at the South Asia Regional Office. He started in Delhi in 2011 and was Deputy Director during 2012–2015 where he helped run J-PAL’s largest office. His work in India focused on disseminating insights from research and catalyzing scaling up of particular evidence-backed interventions. He was also involved with building monitoring and evaluation capacity of government and civil society partners, including helping to establish and direct the South Asia Center for Learning on Evaluation and Results (CLEAR), a World Bank initiative.
His career before J-PAL focused on international development programme management and analysis. He worked with the United Nations Development Program and United Nations World Food Program in China for five years. He lived and worked in Asia for over 12 years. John holds a Master’s of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University with concentrations in development economics and human security.
