After devastating aid cuts, Mercy Corps keeps fighting, with Tjada D’Oyen McKenna

Masters of Scale

WaitWhat

Entrepreneurship, Business, Management, Reid Hoffman, Mindset, Diversity & Inclusion, Jeff Berman, Bob Safian, Startups

4.6 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For an organization built around responding to crises around the globe, Mercy Corps now finds itself at the center of its own trauma. Following the Trump administration’s aid cuts, two-thirds of Mercy Corps’ US-funded programs have been rescinded. CEO Tjada D’Oyen McKenna joins Rapid Response to share how she’s leading her team amid immense pressure—scrambling to find new ways to help those in need, even as she resorts to layoffs to keep the business afloat. McKenna reveals what she’s hearing from her team of aid workers on the ground in Gaza, and why she isn’t running away from burnout but embracing it. Like many business leaders experiencing political or economic volatility right now, McKenna is faced with a complex conundrum: fight, flight, or freeze.

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Transcript

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1:05.4	IBM. There's this like unprecedented need in the world right now, 300 million people across 70 countries who classify as being in need of humanitarian assistance. That number is more than double what it was six
1:12.0	years ago. The original set of executive orders telling us to halt work happened on a Friday
1:17.8	afternoon. So it was right after inauguration. We're not going to get back to the size we were in terms of
1:23.7	dollars, but how do we still like maintain an impact level? There's this opportunity
1:30.0	for all of us to reinvent ourselves while we make the case again to remind people why this
1:34.9	work was critical.
1:53.5	That's Jada McKenna, CEO of Mercy Corps, which provides aid relief in the world's most perilous places to the world's most at-risk people.
1:59.5	Two-thirds of Mercy Corps' programs have been rescinded this year due to Trump administration aid cuts.
2:04.9	Jada has been under intense pressure, scrambling to find new ways to help those in need,
2:08.6	even as she resorts to layoffs to keep Mercy Corps afloat.
2:13.8	She's leading a team of aid workers in Gaza who are literally starving on the ground,
2:18.6	yet as she puts it, she isn't running away from burnout, but embracing the stress. For an organization built around responding to crises elsewhere, Mercy Corps now is at the
	...

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