Senior Director of Communications and Policy
Eddy Acevedo serves as the Senior Director of Communications and Policy at the McCain Institute for International Leadership where he serves as the principal advisor on national security and foreign policy while leading the Institute’s policy development strategy and external engagement, including Congressional affairs, communications, and digital media.
Acevedo has spent over 15 years in government service at the intersection of domestic and foreign policy and has championed democratic values both home and abroad while advocating on behalf of U.S. national security objectives and international cooperation. Prior to joining the McCain Institute, from 2017 to 2020, he served in multiple senior management positions at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). As the Agency’s National Security Advisor and principal liaison with the National Security Council, he helped manage a global workforce of 13,000 employees with a budget of over $24 billion. As the Acting Assistant Administrator in the Bureau of Legislative and Public Affairs, he streamlined coordination and broke down silos among the Public Affairs, Press, Legislative Affairs, and Internal Communications divisions to achieve greater unity of messaging. Lastly, as the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator and Chief Legislative Strategist in the Bureau of Legislative and Public Affairs, he garnered critical Agency funding for critical initiatives abroad and shepherded over 2,000 Congressional engagements resulting in tangible improvements to the Agency’s bipartisan relations on Capitol Hill.
From 2011 to 2017, Acevedo, served as the Senior Professional Staff Member overseeing the Western Hemisphere portfolio for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and later became the Senior Foreign Policy Advisor and Subcommittee Staff Director for the Subcommittee on Middle East and North Africa for Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) where he enacted several bills into law, including matters relating to Israel, Jordan, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. From 2008 to 2011, he served as the Federal Affairs Coordinator for Miami-Dade County’s Washington, D.C. office, where he developed and executed federal legislative strategies to support the eighth largest county in the U.S. From 2005 to 2008, Acevedo worked in the personal office of Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen where he crafted legislation and strategies regarding the Congresswoman’s domestic and international policies.
Acevedo holds a Master’s degree from the School of Foreign Service from Georgetown University and dual Bachelors of Science in Psychology and Political Science from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. Born and raised in Miami, FL and as a child of Nicaraguan immigrants, Acevedo is fluent in English and Spanish.
