“Sometimes you’re the first Jamaican someone has ever met,” she says. “You become a cultural ambassador without realizing it.”
That identity has become her compass. Whether briefing stakeholders at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington, DC, or launching a scholarship for Caribbean girls back home in Kingston, Daly’s throughline has always been clear: transformation.
But not the kind dressed in corporate buzzwords. Daly is building something more personal — a model of womanhood that doesn’t compromise between brilliance and authenticity, between ambition and culture. Her fluency spans languages, industries, and continents, but it all began in a classroom in Kingston.
“My belief that I could hold my own in any room started at St Andrew High,” she recalls. “We were taught to lead with dignity, purpose, and restraint. That mindset shaped everything.”
It’s that mindset that drove her to carve out a scholarship for young women studying Spanish at CAPE. It wasn’t just an act of generosity — it was a strategy to dismantle invisibility.
“I know what it’s like to be brilliant but unseen. I’m building bridges where I once had to leap.”
Daly’s journey spans continents, but her edge is distinctively Caribbean. From mastering business Spanish to salsa dancing across the Americas, she blends intellectual precision with a zest for experience.
“I’m a lover of the moment. Museums, concerts, late-night conversations in new cities — those are fuel. They feed the creativity behind the strategy.”
Professionally, Daly is helping steer digital transformation in Latin America and the Caribbean. At the IDB, she contributes to projects in artificial intelligence, digital literacy, and institutional innovation — the very tools reshaping global development. But her focus remains human.
“It’s not about technology alone. It’s about the people who can think, adapt, and build with it. That’s what drives real transformation.”
Her career began amidst uncertainty — during the turbulence of the 2020 pandemic. With few open doors, she created her own. She immersed herself in books, built relationships at embassy functions, and studied global systems from the outside in. Slowly, the edges sharpened.
“There were moments I wasn’t sure the vision would materialize. But I kept building proximity to the world I wanted to be in.”
That proximity eventually turned into presence. Today, Daly stands at the frontier of regional innovation, helping shape IDBImpact+ — a framework advancing inclusive tech across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Yet the résumé doesn’t define her. Her drive is quiet, her growth intentional. Her strength lies not in volume, but in clarity. Her style isn’t to dominate rooms — it’s to rewire them.
“Leadership is more than presence. It’s precision, poise, and the courage to stay in it long enough for people to finally understand what you saw from the beginning.”
Daly’s advice to young women is clear: stay curious, build global fluency, and do not wait for validation.
“You’re not just preparing for a career. You’re preparing to transform systems. The real work is in believing before the world does — and moving anyway.”
From Kingston’s classrooms to Washington’s corridors of power, Sarah-Ann Daly is reshaping what Caribbean leadership looks like in the 21st century. And she’s not just writing her own story — she’s creating space for thousands more.
