Mark Castellino serves as the Senior Vice President of Government Services at Opportunity International. In this role, Mark leads Opportunity’s government business line, which is responsible for key government relationships, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and other multilateral institutions.
Mark has more than 20 years of experience collaborating with public sector clients. Prior to joining Opportunity, he led the business development team at Fintrac, a consulting firm that provides agricultural development services and technical assistance to the USAID Bureau for Resilience & Food Security and USAID missions around the world. Mark also led business development efforts at the global non-profit ADRA International, winning funding from USAID and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for food security, economic growth and emergency response activities across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Also, Mark worked with ADRA in the U.K., managing funding from the U.K. government and the European Commission.
Mark started out his career in international development implementing food security and economic growth projects in Azerbaijan. Also, he worked on agriculture and food security policy issues in Washington D.C., including advocating for the successful enactment of the 2016 Global Food Security Act, a landmark piece of legislation that funds and directs the U.S. government’s work in food security.
His area of expertise is agriculture and food security, and he also has extensive experience in a broad range of technical areas, including emergency management, economic growth, public health, and education.
Mark’s international assignments include stints in some of the most significant humanitarian crises of the past two decades, including the Kosovo War, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, Sudanese Civil War, the Cyclone Nargis response in Myanmar, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
A longtime member of SID-US, Mark served as co-chair of the Food Security and Agriculture Workgroups from 2018 to 2021, organizing events on finance, agtech innovation, resilience, gender, youth and COVID-19. Mark has also spoken at SID-US annual conferences in 2020 and 2024.
He earned a master’s degree in Agricultural Economics from University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, and received his bachelor’s degree from Newbold College.