Layusa Isa-Odidi is a Partner at Dalberg Advisors, leading the firm’s presence in Australia, working across Asia-Pacific on strategies for private sector engagement in promoting inclusive growth. As a gender and social inclusion practitioner with experience in measurement and evaluation, she brings a multidisciplinary approach to her work.  

Layusa has long been passionate about the role of the private sector in driving sustainability and thriving economies, spending the earlier years of her career across graduate degrees in international development and business and consulting roles at the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Company. She supports corporates on both core operations (e.g., developing sustainable sourcing strategies targeting female farmers for Mars, Incorporated) and social impact (e.g., translating strategy into metrics and tools for implementation for a leading Indonesian mining company). She has advised UN teams on private sector engagement and World Bank Group teams on the link between social and economic inequalities, such as the impact of gender-based violence on economic participation.  

Layusa has contributed to designing multiple bilateral programs, ranging from $50 million to $750 million, aimed at catalyzing finance into agriculture, infrastructure, and tourism. She co-led Dalberg’s work on the African Development Bank’s $2 billion agriculture strategy, which similarly sought to catalyze private investment through innovative mechanisms. Additionally, she supported the Global Partnership for Education in developing a financing framework that included innovative mechanisms to facilitate co-investment with DFIs, the private sector, and foundations.  

Layusa holds a Master’s in Public Administration in International Development (MPA-ID) from Harvard Kennedy School, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.

Learn more about Layusa’s work:

Building Family-Friendly Workplaces: A Toolkit for Business

Measuring the “S” in ESG: Why It Matters and How to Get Started

How Can Private Finance and Humanitarian Funding Speak the Same Language?

Asia in Focus: Biodiversity and the Business and Human Rights Agenda

What Works to Increase Smallholder Farmers’ Income?