For over a decade, Jestina worked for donors in planning, designing, executing, and monitoring programs and projects in various sectors ranging from Education, Nutrition, WASH, Reproductive and maternal Health, Agriculture, Conservation, and Natural resources Management. She joins Maliasili from USAID, where she first worked as the Budget Specialist in the Economic Growth office, managing over $270M annual budget, and later as the Project Management Specialist in the Environment & NRM portfolio, overseeing the implementation of conservation and NRM projects with an accumulated budget of $52M over five years by International and local NGOs. She also co-led the climate change working group whose mandate was to enforce and monitor the implementation of USAID’s whole Agency climate change strategy across all sectors.

Jestina is passionate about local NGOs development in becoming self reliant and having the capacity to deliver what is expected in their communities. One of Jestina’s great achievements was summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro in October 2022.