With strong program operations, Pact’s Christine de Guzman ensures impact for communities around the world

In the realm of global development, program operations isn’t always thought of as an area of technical expertise in the way that health, education, or governance are, for example.  

Christine de Guzman, who has managed programs at Pact for 12 years, rejects that notion. And her career shows that quality program operations are indeed an indispensable part of global development requiring deep skills and experience.  

“We ensure coordination among departments and project teams that essentially transform proposed activities and ideas into action by breaking it down to tangible and actionable tasks. We love our work plans and our lists!” says de Guzman, whose time at Pact has focused mostly on programming in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. 

“I’ve always imagined that strong operations is that quiet engine driving the impactful technical work being implemented. No matter how thoughtful a program design is, it can only succeed when the operational foundation beneath it is steady and responsive – but also anticipatory. Working across Asia, Europe, and Latin America has shown me repeatedly that operations is where vision turns into reality.” 

De Guzman grew up in the Washington, DC area. For college, she moved to the Philippines, where her parents were raised, and earned a degree in International Affairs. She imagined she would eventually return to the Washington area to pursue a career with the State Department as a diplomat.  

She spent seven years in various roles in international development before taking a position with the State Department’s Educational and Cultural Bureau, managing the South and Central Asia Fulbright program. After about a year on the job, she says, she knew what her heart wanted.  

“I yearned for hands-on implementation work. The year-plus experience working for State was a check on a box from my younger self’s career goals. It validated that while diplomacy was at my core, I was not drawn to bureaucracy and almost linear thinking. I sought innovation and creativity, and found that in soft diplomacy – in development,” de Guzman says. 

By then, she was aware of Pact’s work and hoped it was where she could land.  

“I was intrigued by how Pact valued community-driven development and its approach to capacity building,” de Guzman explains. “Having experience working on institutional capacity building, participatory training, and student exchange projects in Pakistan and Iraq, I intentionally kept tabs on job openings at Pact, hoping that soon after I completed graduate school I was going to work here.” 

Her first role at Pact was as a Program Officer supporting Asia and Europe.  

“I was assigned several countries right away – Cambodia, Vietnam, and Nepal, along with Belarus and Ukraine. It felt like an incredible opportunity – the two continents that I am most passionate about: Asia for my roots and Europe for my academic wandering. And I would be able to leverage my experience in the world of operations. I was so eager to meet development challenges from the operational perspective: How will a program work? Is it practical? Is it culturally responsive? Do we have enough budget? What should we do first? Let’s break it down into a work plan.” 

Twelve years later, de Guzman serves as a core part of Pact, as a director of program operations.   

A significant part of her contribution has been building and strengthening the operational infrastructure that supports Pact’s programs. She has helped refine and codify tools, policies, and processes that once lived informally – or did not exist at all – capturing them so that they are accessible across regions and the organization.  

Sometimes her job was as simple as getting various teams organized through a shared filing system. Other times it was guiding a program as it adapted to an outbreak of war.  

De Guzman has found deep meaning in it all. “A great example is the amount of coordination that operations leads in setting up a new country office or starting a new project. This process of converting ideas to tangible actions is not always straightforward, and this is where our technical teams rely on the operations team. We are the plan holders.” 

She fondly remembers meeting members of women’s savings group in Nepal who lifted themselves out of poverty with Pact’s support; watching local partners in Cambodia and Ukraine navigate complex reporting and compliance requirements; and launching a groundbreaking regional climate finance initiative in Southeast Asia that helped companies and investors to unlock investment into sustainable agriculture and forestry to reduce carbon emissions. 

“Kicking off a multi-country project required everything to click into place quickly, particularly because it was a contract – procurement, subcontract structures, hiring, financial workflows, and risk mitigation. It was a professional test for me,” de Guzman recalls.  

She has seen that effectively closing out a project can be just as crucial. “Operations protect relationships and reputations long after activities end,” she says. “Across all of these experiences, I’ve come to believe that development work is ultimately built on trust: with communities, donors, and partners – but most of all trust within teams.” 

De Guzman says the travel was exhilarating and demanding. A mom of two, she recalls that she missed a lot of time with her son the year he was two. “I look back at that year as a bellwether to how passionate I am about my role and contributions to Pact. Thankfully, Pact was very supportive of me as a new mother. It was my choice to travel that much, and the flexibility of having time with my family when I was back was also a testament to the organization’s culture and values.” 

Looking ahead, de Guzman hopes that her lasting impact at Pact will stem from her style of engagement in all that she does. “I strive for quality service and responsiveness to the needs of our project teams,” she says.  

“Ultimately, strong operations is an expression of my role and responsibility – to our partners, our donors, and most importantly to the communities we serve. I hope my contributions have helped ensure that the resources entrusted to Pact are managed with care, integrity, and purpose.”