Sara Brandsema

Associate Director, Global Corporate Partnerships, International Rescue Committee (IRC

Sara has been with the IRC since January 2015 and serves as an Associate Director for Global Corporate Partnerships. With over ten years of private sector engagement experience, she has worked with companies in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, technology, finance, and retail sectors. Currently, Sara oversees the IRC’s health partnerships team, providing strategic direction for and managing the organization’s multifaceted, high-value relationships with corporations in the health and pharma industry. Those partnerships she has built in the global health and humanitarian space have reached tens of thousands of people in more than 20 countries with health services including immunization, maternal and child health care, nutrition, clean water and sanitation, and the treatment and prevention of chronic and infectious diseases.

Prior to the IRC, Sara was on the corporate engagement team at one of the nation’s largest domestic health nonprofits. Before that, she was an English teacher in Thailand and traveled extensively throughout southeast Asia. Sara holds an MS in Global Affairs from Rutgers University, and a BA from Loyola University Maryland. She is a proud New Jersey native and currently resides in Jersey City with her husband and two young children.