Mr. Christopher Wyrod is NDI’s senior country director for Myanmar (Burma).  He brings over 25 years of experience in democratic governance supporting civil society and government institutions in fragile and post-conflict countries in Africa and Asia. Prior to joining NDI, he led country programs in Myanmar, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Timor-Leste for PACT, The Asia Foundation (TAF), Internews, and the International Republican Institute (IRI).  He also spent six years at USAID leading Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) programs in Asia and Africa, including setting up OTI’s first program in Myanmar and supporting reopening of the USAID/Burma mission.  In Washington DC, he oversaw the West Africa portfolio at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and supported research programs at the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) and the United States Committee for Refugees.  

Mr. Wyrod has managed large, diverse teams and hundreds of civil society partners to support democratic resilience, mitigate conflict, defend human rights, and strengthen independent media.  He has received meritorious honor awards from the U.S. State Department and USAID for his work in Burma and Sri Lanka. He has participated in numerous election observation missions, including with TAF in South Korea, NDI in Mauritania, IRI in Mongolia and Bangladesh, NED in Nigeria and Liberia, CAFFE in Sri Lanka, and the U.S. Embassy in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar. He has served as team leader of Asia Pacific Democracy Partnership election observation missions.

Mr. Wyrod has presented briefings and research papers at the International Forum for Democratic Studies, V-Dem and other conferences, as  well as before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His writings have appeared in The Journal for Democracy, International Affairs Review, The Historian, and The International Journal for the Sociology of Language among other publications. He has also contributed book chapters to Democratization in Africa: Progress and Retreat, Writing Systems, and Southeast Asia: Transition and Transformation. He also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea.  

Mr. Wyrod has a M.A. in International Development Studies from the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan’s Honor College. He also received certificates in Refugee Studies from York University in Toronto, Canada and in Indonesian from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Hailing from Michigan, he is fluent in English, proficient in French, Japanese, and Bahasa Indonesia, and has basic to intermediate understanding of Malinke, Pulaar, Tetum, and Burmese.