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June 23, 2025

Our People and Operations

Abt Global is a mission-driven company – how we run our company is as mission and values focused as the work that we do. Our founder, Clark Abt, established a foundation for responsible business practices and that legacy continues today. Whether we are coupling innovation and ethics, supporting the wellness of our staff, or doubling down on the efficiency of our operations, we do so with a focus on mission impact.


Ethics and Governance

Leaders at All Levels

Our mission and core values are our compass. And our leaders at all levels play an important role in strengthening our organizational ethos.

OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS: SETTING CLEAR DIRECTION TOWARDS OUR MISSION

Abt Global’s Board of Directors is an inspiring group of women and men who bring expansive expertise from a variety of disciplines and unique insights to collectively maximize Abt’s impact around the world. In 2024, our Board was made up of 12 Directors, including seats held by the Chairman of the Board and Abt’s CEO. All directors but the CEO are independent of Abt.

With expertise spanning diplomacy, healthcare policy, global emerging markets, finance and business transformation, this team of luminaries guides the company’s strategic direction and accountability in addressing the most challenging issues of our time.

In 2024, we welcomed two new Board members and prepared to say farewell to three others in 2025.

Welcomes

Sallie B. Bailey serves on the Finance & Audit and Nominating & Governance Committees. A previous Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, she has deep audit, governance, and finance expertise in consulting, aerospace, and manufacturing. Sallie is an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University’s Owen School of Management, where she co-teaches the Impact Investing Field Study class, and is a member of the Vanderbilt School of Nursing Dean’s Advisory Council. She is active in nonprofit and civic leadership and board service.

I was attracted to the Abt Global Board because Abt is a data driven organization working to make a positive impact with actionable insights. This first year on the Board has shown me that the Abt culture is focused on the double bottom line of financial health and mission impact.

– Sallie Bailey

 

Lakshmi Shyam-Sunder serves on the Finance & Audit and Human Capital & Compensation Committees. She has supported organizational financial sustainability and operational resilience priorities across many organizations, including as Vice President and World Bank Group Chief Risk Officer and Chief Financial Officer at the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). Lakshmi was a faculty member of the MIT Sloan School of Business and is active on numerous financial institutions’ board finance and risk committees.

I’ve quickly discovered that Abt is an understated gem. It has great people, an excellent track record of high-quality analytical work, and is also adapting rapidly and embracing new challenges at both the strategic and technical levels. I look forward to an exciting and impactful time at Abt.

– Lakshmi Shyam-Sunder

And farewells

In 2025, we offer gratitude to three Directors as they retire from Abt’s Board of Directors. Sheila Burke, Cinnamon Dornsife, and Anne-Marie Slaughter are leaders who made a difference. These dedicated Directors collectively provided nearly 40 years of leadership to Abt, leveraging decades of expertise and experience to help us drive our mission. Their influence is lasting.

Abt has been so lucky to have the deep expertise of Cinnamon, Anne-Marie, and Sheila in the areas of global development and healthcare over the last 15 years. These have been critically important parts of the company’s portfolio. We have also benefited from their experience leading complex organizations and we are a better organization because of their contributions.

– Kathleen Flanagan

OUR INTERNS: PAVING THE WAY FOR OUR FUTURE

The summer of 2024 marked the 10-year anniversary of our powerful internship program. Each summer, we welcome Abterns to join us for a 10-week internship experience. Last year, we hired 28 interns from a pool of nearly 6,600 applicants. Our Abterns—undergraduate and graduate students—deftly apply their technical, management, operational and financial skills to client-facing projects and internal operations. Working with and mentored by Abt leaders and experts, many interns continue beyond the summer program; nearly half of our intern cohort extended their engagement last year.  

We are proud that the remainder of this highlight was extracted from a longer piece written by our 2024 Internal Communications Abtern, Abbie Reams!

“Bright and early on Monday, June 3, 28 Abterns logged into a Teams meeting from various places across the US to begin the first day of their 10-week-long internship at Abt Global. Over the summer, these Abterns will use their skills to work on purpose-driven and client-centered projects in fields ranging from healthcare to cybersecurity to human resources––all while collaborating with Abt industry experts and gaining hands-on experience. Alongside their Abternship projects, our Abterns will also receive professional development programming in topics like project management and government contracting to equip them with vital knowledge for future success. 

These 2024 Abterns are as varied in their academic and professional backgrounds as they are rich in talent. During orientation introductions, we learned that our Abterns are pursuing degrees (in some cases multiple at once) from the undergraduate to Ph.D.-level in fields like public health, anthropology, communications and data science. Yet, behind the academic degrees and corporate titles, our Abterns are also fascinating individuals; they are gym rats, foodies, world travelers and songwriters.

These emerging professionals take full advantage of their time at Abt to contribute to projects that seek to build stronger systems, economies, and infrastructures to improve the lives of people worldwide.”


Modernizing through Responsible AI

Harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) is more and more an integral component of our solutions – whether we are enhancing our internal processes and systems or advancing innovation for our clients. At Abt, Responsible AI is a must to balance AI’s promise with necessary data protection, security, and ethical use.

Our AI solutions reflect our values, achieving the highest standards of ethics, quality, and trustworthiness. From modeling for decision simulation to machine learning, cognitive computing, and GenAI virtual assistants, we know how to use AI to address crucial questions and expand impact. Our innovative approaches to Responsible AI governance and deployment methodologies prioritize the perspectives of those impacted by our work and the clients we serve.

Our Responsible AI framework has three main principles:

  • Get the Data Right: Ensure the data used to train AI models is high-quality, accurate, representative, transparent, and secure.
  • Get the Process Right: Deploy solutions aligned to governance frameworks at the agency and solution level, build AI solutions using pre-approved AI services and technologies, and put in place ongoing testing, evaluation, and independent verification and validation procedures.
  • Stay Vigilant: Continuously monitor AI deployments and solutions and adhere to agency-defined standards of responsible AI with considerations for model integrity, reliability, and ethical use throughout the lifecycle. 

Abt’s AI Governance Board oversees this framework to evaluate tools for compliance and ethical use, review new use cases, understand AI utilization across the company, and identify training priorities. Our tools to manage AI use include an automated AI intake system to track and measure AI utilization as well as AI governance tools to manage and mitigate risks across project life cycles.

We see AI’s broad potential to expand our impact, executed responsibly.


Leading on Research, Ethics, Data Security and Privacy

Institutional review boards (IRBs) are ethics committees that protect the rights, safety, and personal information of people who volunteer to participate in research and evaluation studies. To uphold our promise to conduct research ethically, Abt Global has maintained its own IRB for over 30 years. We’ve also invested in a company-wide Technology and Information Risk Management program led by Abt Global’s Chief Information Security Officer, also a voting member of our IRB.

Our IRB reinforces our high standards for quality and scientific integrity across the organization. We ensure our studies comply with applicable regulations and ethical principles by prospectively reviewing study procedures and detailed data security plans that ensure secure approaches across the entire data lifecycle—covering data capture, transfer, analysis, storage, and retention.  Our IRB collaborates with internal safeguarding and security experts to develop safety plans and follow trauma-informed best practices for studies with vulnerable populations. We require all relevant staff to be trained in research integrity and protection of human research participants every three years, and complete role-based training on privacy laws, open data policies, and ethical issues. 

We also share our experiences with others. Abt’s IRB is a leader in training other IRBs at national conferences, covering topics like the protection of personal information, compliance with changing regulations, emerging best practices, and risk mitigation. Last year, we presented at the 2024 Public Responsibility in Medicine & Research conference about how to prevent and respond to bot attacks that try to exploit online survey incentives.

Thanks to our strong oversight, clients and community partners trust Abt to conduct ethical and compliant studies.


Employee Wellness

The wellness of our staff is a top priority for Abt. We offer robust benefits—comprehensive health insurance, generous paid time off, commuting and telework support, retirement assistance—and complementary benefits to support overall wellbeing. We believe we can make a difference when we offer resources to support healthier and happier lives.

In 2024, after surveying our staff to better understand wellbeing priorities, we launched a new Abt Global Wellness program for U.S.-based staff to enhance employee financial, emotional and physical well-being.

We partnered with SoHookd, an emerging and innovative employee wellness and rewards platform to expand our preventive and self-care offerings. When the program first launched in early 2024, all staff received special perks, including a digital wellness gift card, access to free online resources, and challenge trackers. Throughout the year, staff joined webinars and movement challenges, with the opportunity to win rewards. Employees who attended webinars—either live or by watching on-demand recordings—were entered into raffles for $50 gift cards for SoHookd’s Wellness Marketplace, and those that participated in Movement Challenges could be randomly selected for $100 gift cards. Abt distributed more than $90,000 in wellness rewards to participants in 2024.

Under the new Abt Wellness Program, we also partnered with CAPTRUST, an independent financial advisory firm, to provide personalized financial planning and investment assistance. Staff financial needs vary—from tackling student loans, to changing investment strategies during evolving economic environments, to planning retirement. Abt staff can now meet confidentially with CAPTRUST financial advisors to ask questions and receive insights to create individualized roadmaps for attainable financial plans and secure retirements. Since this program launched, nearly 130 staff have signed up for one-on-one support. Staff want to know “Am I on track?”, which this new benefit helps them answer.


Environmental Responsibility

Smarter Spaces, Smarter Business

Flexibility remains a priority for our teams in the U.S. and globally. To make sure everyone has what they need to do their best work, we’re making efficient changes to our physical office space.

More staff are working in remote or hybrid roles, so our office space needs have dropped while our online collaboration needs grow. We’ve reimagined our footprint to reduce costs, enhance flexibility, and support ecofriendly goals.

In 2024, we finalized a multi-year transition of our Abt Global U.S.-based satellite office space, moving our Durham, NC office from a traditional office lease to a co-working space in downtown Durham. This was our fifth and final satellite office to complete this transition, joining Boulder, Chicago, New York and Atlanta. Last year, we also reduced our square footage at our headquarters in Rockville, MD and flagship in Cambridge, MA.

In today’s business landscape, these transformations are not simply facility decisions, they are strategic ones. We're modernizing with agile spaces to boost efficiency, cut costs, and shrink our environmental footprint. Less space, less energy, more impact.

Featured in our 2025 Mission Impact Report