Rachel Cardone is a Program Officer at the The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, working in the Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Program (as part of Global Development). Prior to her work at the Foundation, she was an international consultant, focusing on water economics and policy as it relates to sustainable development, largely in a developing country context. She has 12 years’ experience in the water sector (working in and with the public, private, and NGO sectors), along with two years' experience as a financial analyst in an investment bank, and several years working at and with NGOs on community development issues. More recently she has worked on issues relating to the intersection between poverty reduction and sustainable economic development, from a systems perspective. This includes policy research and economic analysis as well as designing and facilitating workshops and activities with a range of public, private, and NGO stakeholders.