Leiloni Stainsby assumed the role of Deputy Associate Administrator (A) for the Office of Response and Recovery (ORR) in May 2024, providing oversight and leadership to FEMA’s response, recovery, logistics, field leadership, and field operations nationwide.
Ms. Stainsby has served FEMA for 13 years and joined the Senior Executive Service in 2019. Since 2022, she has served as the Assistant Administrator for ORR’s Field Operations Directorate (FOD). In this role, Ms. Stainsby oversaw FOD’s work to build, develop, deploy, and support FEMA’s incident workforce by helping the Agency to develop a comprehensive readiness framework, training and qualifying the incident workforce, and helping communities respond to and recover from disasters. Prior to this role, Ms. Stainsby served as FOD’s Deputy Assistant Administrator and was also responsible for the development and deployment of all Federal Coordinating Officers and FEMA’s Incident Management Assistance Teams.
Ms. Stainsby previously served as the Division Director of the National Preparedness Assessment Division (NPAD) at FEMA and oversaw implementation of nationwide risk and capability assessments, grant effectiveness programs, and the Continuous Improvement Program. She has a proven track record of working with stakeholders at all levels of government, the non-profit sector, international partners, and the private sector.
Prior to joining executive service, Ms. Stainsby served as the Branch Chief for the Assessments and Analytics Branch of the NPAD. In that role, she was responsible for establishing assessment methodologies, streamlining data collection and analysis efforts, and supervising the development of policies, guidance, and grant metrics. Ms. Stainsby also served as the Program Manager for FEMA’s lessons learned and continuous improvement program, working to ensure that lessons learned from FEMA’s real-world incident activation and preparedness exercises are incorporated into plans, policies, and directives.
Before joining FEMA, Ms. Stainsby spent ten years in the private sector leading assessment and analytical efforts for government clients, supervising knowledge management programs, and managing information technology systems. Ms. Stainsby developed, managed, and led preparedness exercise and evaluation support, lessons learned and continuous improvement programs, and served as a program manager focusing on FEMA’s Catastrophic Planning efforts. During her career, Ms. Stainsby has developed extensive management competencies, including people management, contract management, client management, financial management, and business process improvement. Ms. Stainsby began her professional career as a legislative assistant at Van Ness Feldman, a DC-based law firm, assisting in the development and implementation of policy and strategy initiatives for corporate and coalition clients.
Ms. Stainsby holds a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, a bachelor’s degree from Millikin University, and a certificate from the American University Key Executive Leadership Program.