Michael Kocher

Vice President, International Programs

Michael Kocher oversees the IRC’s operational programs in over 40 countries, which directly aided more than 15 million displaced and conflict-affected people in 2011. The IRC’s international programs budget for 2012 is approximately $300 million, with a total staff of nearly 10,000.  
 
Mr. Kocher’s international management experience is extensive. He was on the first IRC emergency team to enter Iraq from Kuwait during the 2003 war and then served as the IRC Iraq country director. Other IRC posts include senior advisor in Afghanistan and regional director for the organization’s $27 million response to the 2005 tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia. Mr. Kocher joined the IRC in 1993 in the Balkans during the war as director of United States refugee resettlement, later heading up resettlement operations in Austria and Macedonia.
 
A graduate of Kalamazoo College and the University of Notre Dame Law School, Mr. Kocher has been quoted extensively in print, television, radio and Online media, including: The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, BBC, NPR, International Herald Tribune, CBC, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, NewsHour, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, Reuters, PBS, USA Today, Bloomberg News, XM Radio, and The Guardian.