Deborah Healy, program director for Thailand, has more than 15 years experience related to political party strengthening and electoral processes. Ms. Healy has been the program director for Thailand since 2007 and was responsible for NDI's program to support citizen participation in political reform processes under Thailand's transition to civilian rule. Currently, she manages the NDI Thailand office and oversees NDI programs that focus on promoting political party strengthening and supporting citizen participation in political processes.

From 2003-2008, Ms. Healy served as senior program manager with NDI in Bangladesh focusing on political party programs. She was in charge of the design and implementation of technical assistance programs for political parties in Bangladesh, working with party leaders on approaches to strengthen political parties, including the development of constituency outreach systems. She led trainings to prepare political party poll agents and conducted campaign trainings for women political leaders. Ms. Healy has coordinated with political parties, key government bodies and program stakeholders on the design and implementation of NDI's programs, and managed relationships with program donors.

Ms. Healy has extensive electoral expertise. She has handled monitoring programs for national and local government elections in Bangladesh and was part of the management team for an international long-term election observation mission for the 2006/2007 national elections. She has also conducted election monitoring missions for previous parliamentary by-elections and local government elections.

A native of Ireland, Ms. Healy has been involved in Irish domestic politics since 1988. She has worked on several presidential, parliamentary and local campaigns. She was the personal administrator for David Andrews, a member of the Irish parliament who held a number of senior ministerial positions including the defense and foreign ministry portfolio. For many years, she managed the parliamentarian's constituency (district) office and served as chief liaison between the minister and government departments. She also directed voter and media relations during electoral campaigns, trained canvassers and organized canvassing operations.