Daniel Langfitt

Focus Areas: Sustainable economic growth, market systems development, private-sector partnerships, supply chains, emerging markets, team leadership in fragile and post-conflict contexts, sense-making in complex socioeconomic and biophysical systems

Daniel Langfitt is an economic development consultant with fifteen years of international experience building competitive and efficient economies that are sustainable, inclusive, and resilient. He has previously worked for small non-profit organizations as well as large contractors (including a twelve-year career with DAI) in areas as diverse as community-led agroforestry, municipal procurement reform, emerging pandemic threats, and innovation programming. A respected practitioner in the field of market systems development, Daniel currently specializes in resilient food systems, sustainable agricultural value chains, facilitation of complex system change, and leadership of diverse teams—especially teams using novel technical approaches in post-conflict settings and extremely thin markets. As a consultant, he has conducted value-chain or market-systems studies for clients like the European Commission and the U.S. Agency for International Development, and he trains bilateral donor missions and the private sector alike on using systems thinking for more effective enterprise development and supply-chain upgrading. An expert in both grant and non-grant partnership design and management, he has personally overseen dozens of engagements with the private sector, aligning long-term commercial success with social and environmental priorities.

Daniel balances his short-term consulting skill set and theoretical knowledge of institutional economics and international development practice with over half a career—more than 20 years—living and managing teams day-to-day in some of the world’s most challenging operating environments. He began his career in Haiti’s Artibonite Valley reforesting its upland watershed with a combination of restoration ecology and household nutrition and income improvements. He later designed and managed the partnership facility of a flagship market systems development project, working with the private sector in northern Mozambique. More recently, Daniel lived in Bunia, DR Congo, where he co-led a resilience activity that used inclusive economic growth as a lever for peace, helping Ituri Province to emerge from a cycle of crises and humanitarian aid. He has also served as the subject-matter expert or project manager, ensuring the technical performance and administrative compliance of a portfolio of grants and contracts up to $150 million in total value, and he is a seasoned proposal-writer specializing in federal contracting and international bilateral donors. Daniel’s academic background is in modern European and colonial history as well as economics. He has pursued studies in Vermont, France, and Russia, and his professional working languages have included English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Haitian Creole.

Education

• BA, International Studies, Middlebury College