Published: September 16, 2026
When Ciata Stevens d’Almeida was in about fifth grade, her mother, a civil servant, came home with news that didn’t add up. The government had paid workers three months of salary around July 26, but her mother’s check had gone missing at the Ministry of Finance.
“I had always wanted to work for government. From the time I was little, I wanted to work for government just to find out what happened to my mom’s check,” d’Almeida said.
That curiosity carried her through the University of Liberia, into the Foreign Ministry and diplomatic service abroad, and, in April 2022, back to the President’s Young Professionals Program as its first female executive director. Both of her predecessors were men.
“Occupying this role was a change for me because working for government is different from working with government,” she said.
The climb ran through unpaid errands, a university rejection, the death of her father and years of learning how government works from the bottom up.
“People just look at where you are. They don’t look at the long journey to here,” she said.
From errands to the corner office
D’Almeida studied political science with an emphasis in international relations, and a minor in English, at the University of Liberia. In her junior year, a professor introduced her to a senior Foreign Ministry official. That introduction led to an unpaid internship, and much of the work was buying food for staff and carrying documents between offices.
“They would send me to photocopy papers around the ministry,” she said.
After another internship at the Ministry of State, she graduated, applied for PYPP’s third cohort and joined the program in 2011. By her account, she became the first fellow to serve a fellowship in New York.
“I was the first PYP to do my fellowship in New York, where I served at the Liberian Mission to the United Nations on issues around the post-2015 development agenda, which is now the SDGs,” she said.
She had wanted to attend New York University, but it rejected her in 2010.
“People told me I was not qualified, and I felt so devastated that January. I still remember,” she said.
By 2011 and 2012, she was working in New York anyway. She later reapplied and was accepted, but she declined and went to Washington to work.
After the fellowship, she earned a master’s degree in development studies in Europe, focusing on children and youth. She returned to the Foreign Ministry as special assistant to two foreign ministers, one in Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s government and one in George Weah’s. She then served Liberia abroad in the Foreign Service.
“Everybody only saw the corner office. But they did not see the signs that I was present and getting the work done, understanding how the ministry operates,” she said.
Coming back home
The founding executive director of PYPP had recruited her as a fellow. His successor, a first-cohort fellow, led the program for about nine years. D’Almeida’s first contract ran for one year and came with a list of deliverables. She also had to establish her authority with a team that did not know her.
“Usually people are skeptical about receiving new leaders, and people are also skeptical, especially about a female. Is she able to do this work? Everybody had their own questions,” she said.
She added: “It’s like you have to constantly prove that you are able to do the job.”
Her style took adjustment on all sides.
“I’m a diplomat by training, so I operate differently from everybody else because of my socialization and who I am,” she said. “You bring all your cards to the table.”
More than four years in, she believes her record has settled the question.
“They know that the records are there, and I’ve proven the records here as well. It’s been good. It’s been great bringing together not just the current fellows, but recruiting several cohorts and also bringing the alumni together to work toward something,” she said.
The weight of the chair
“Sometimes when you’re a leader, you are lonely. You have to make tough decisions. You have to think for everybody else,” she said.
From her first week, she sent her team notes every week. She kept that up for about four years, then stopped this year so the team could manage more on its own.
She leans on mentors, including her PYPP predecessors, and on friends she trusts. Her husband is part of that circle, and she calls her family her biggest cheerleader.
The lunchbox system
D’Almeida has two sons, ages 6 and 4. The younger was a baby when she took the job. She does not claim to have mastered the balance, but she has a system.
“I usually cook before I come to work. It’s something I’ve been doing for many years. I already know what’s going to be in the lunchbox from Monday to Friday,” she said.
“I prepare the lunch from scratch,” she said. “I can make my own food for my children.”
A chart on her wall at home lists the plan for each weekday. On Saturdays, she shops and preps the weekend’s food, and on some mornings she cooks palm butter before leaving for the office. She makes time for friends and goes to church on Sundays.
One day a week, she does not work. People who call anyway and apologize for the timing get a fixed answer: “No, sorry, you’ve got to wait for Monday.”
“You cannot spend all of your time just working, working, working,” she said. “I have set boundaries that I feel like people cannot cross.”
Present in the fire
The idea she returns to most is presence.
“Being present means living the now and not waiting for the future,” she said. “So what you have now, be consistent, be persistent, be disciplined.”
She learned that the hard way. As a student, she sometimes hid in the bathroom so she would not be sent out of school over unpaid fees. Her father died during her first semester at the university. She kept going.
“It is in those bad moments that you learn,” she said.
Her summary is simpler: “Everything that you see shining now started in the fire.”
To anyone being underestimated, she offers this: “Don’t let nobody just come and downplay you.”
The next chapter
“I feel more fulfilled working in this role because I deal with young people every day,” she said.
That work has shifted her plans away from a doctorate in organizational leadership and toward a degree in education. She worries that too many students choose university courses without a plan.
“If we can change the curriculum to encourage our young people to be intentional about what they study and what they do afterwards, it’s going to help,” she said.
At PYPP, her priority is reducing the program’s dependence on international donors. She pointed to Swedish support winding down and to the closure of USAID, which she said sponsored close to 88 of the program’s professionals.
“We need to look at local domestic resource mobilization,” she said.
She also wants to pair PYPP fellows with young civil servants who are outside the program.
“Some of them are just lost. They just go to work, sit down, play and leave,” she said. “We want it to be more intentional.”
Her advice to them is the standard she sets for herself.
“Do your best in everything. Do your best, that’s all. Your best may not be like somebody else’s best, but it’s your best,” she said.
It is the advice of someone who climbed every step: the girl asking about a missing check, the intern carrying photocopies, the applicant told she was not qualified, and now the executive director reaching back to those still at the bottom of the stairs.
“If you just fly up, you will not understand the stairs that led you up there,” she said.
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