Cynthia Romero joined the International Budget Partnership as Director of Communications in 2020. Previously, she led communications for various reproductive rights nonprofits working domestically and abroad.
During the Obama administration, she served as a presidential appointee at USAID. As strategic communications advisor to the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, she spearheaded messaging for a bureau spanning nine offices with over 800 staff overseeing more than $4 billion dollars in annual assistance. She was the speechwriter on a dozen Congressional testimonies on major flashpoints—from the Ebola epidemic in West Africa to the crises in Syria and South Sudan.
Previously at Freedom House, Cynthia managed programs to support free expression and civic participation in some the world’s most repressive countries— Cuba, Venezuela and Iran. She also held positions at the Atlantic Council, where she authored a provocative report calling for reforms in Georgia in advance of the country’s first democratic transfer of power; at the National Democratic Institute, where she coordinated advocacy for one of the largest civic movements inside Cuba; and in the office of the late Senator Ted Kennedy.
Cynthia has been a frequent contributor on CNN en Español, Fox News, The Washington Post and other Spanish and English-language outlets. She received her MA from Queens University Belfast, where she was a George J. Mitchell Scholar and a BA magna cum laude from Princeton University