Emily Varga serves as Vice President of Regional Innovation at the Greater Baltimore Committee, where she leads the Regional Innovation Office in leveraging GBC’s partner base to mobilize federal investment into the Baltimore Region. Working in close coordination with GBC’s Game Changers Steering Committee, she helps forecast, prioritize, and pursue federal opportunities aligned with the organization’s goals and the region’s highest economic development potential. She also supports the operational infrastructure needed to position GBC for success in attracting and managing federal awards.
Varga brings more than 15 years of experience in brokering strategic partnerships, mobilizing resources, and managing federal portfolios. Prior to joining GBC, she served as a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where she led the design, solicitation, and implementation of a $90 million federal portfolio that created sustainable income and improved services for more than 10 million people across 30 countries in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. She also mobilized more than $50 million from public- and private-sector partners to support economic development programming, research, and infrastructure that improved livelihoods for more than 8 million people across 17 countries.
At USAID, Varga also led the creation and implementation of an external engagement and communications strategy that expanded the partner base from 10 to 120 stakeholders and grew the audience from 3,000 to 3 million in a single year. Her work reflects deep expertise in cooperative development, human-centered design, federal engagement and procurement, coalition building, and organizational change management.
Varga has also contributed thought leadership through speaking and publishing engagements, including an article in RE Magazine on the sustainability of rural electric cooperatives, remarks at Strathmore University’s commencement on public policy making, and presentations at the Coop IMPACT Conference and the International Cooperative Alliance Forum. Her career reflects a consistent focus on building partnerships, shaping systems, and translating strategy into measurable impact.
Emily Varga received her Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Boston University and has a Master’s of Business Administration from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.