The Country Office in Kuwait is her seventh assignment with UNDP. Hideko started UNDP career as Programme Officer for two Governance portfolios for policy support and public administration based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Later, she served in UNDP Iraq to work on institutional capacity development for the national mine action authority and beyond.

From 2007, Hideko moved to the Headquarters in New York to work as the Manager for UN Development Group (UNDG) Policy Network for Millennium Development Goals (MDG). In this capacity, she promoted inter-agency coherence in policy advisory support and led the team to initiate, collect, analyze and publish the UNDG MDG Good Practice in time for the 2010 MDG Review Summit. Hideko also oversaw some of the most subscribed knowledge networks at that time, called MDG-Net.

In Bhutan, she served as the Deputy Resident Representative, worked closely with the government for application and promotion of Happiness and Wellbeing through Gross National Happiness; post-2015 national consultation processes; and 12^thRound Table Meeting,  drawing delegations from more than 60 development partners, both bilateral and multilateral.

From 2014 to 2017, she was Management Advisor at the Office of Assistant Secretary-General, the Bureau for Management Services, Headquarters in NY, where she reviewed nearly 300 corporate policies, and supported the ASG’s work, including UNDP’s participation in the UN High Level Committee for Management (HLCM).

Hideko served in UNDP Sudan as Deputy Country Director overseeing programmes ranging from stabilization, local governance, energy and environment, gender and humanitarian-development peace nexus with close to $90M a year portfolio. Big data and behavioral insights   were applied in support of public governance. Working closely with UNAMID (UN-AU hybrid peacekeeping mission), the government and UN Country Team, she also contributed to implementation of UNAMID gradual withdrawal and transition to local capacity development.  

Hideko obtained her Master's degree in Public Administration from Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She also completed executive leadership certificate training from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Twitter: @HidekoUNDP