Derek Santos joined the USAID Office of Inspector General (OIG) as General Counsel in October 2024. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, Mr. Santos leads and directs the delivery of legal services for all OIG business units in their oversight of USAID’s foreign assistance and development efforts worldwide. This includes providing legal advice to OIG senior leadership as well as OIG foreign service officers, criminal investigators, auditors, and all other staff assigned to Washington, DC, and foreign posts.
Prior to his role as General Counsel, Mr. Santos served as Deputy General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force, leading the delivery of legal services in anticorruption and acquisition integrity. He was the Suspension and Debarment Official for the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Space Force, evaluating the business integrity of contractors and research grantees, and served as the Defense Department liaison to the defense industry on ethics and compliance. Altogether, Mr. Santos was assigned to the Pentagon for 15 years. Before his work in the Pentagon, he was a deployed civilian legal counsel in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Department of the Army, assisting overseas with the infrastructure development and security missions of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, and served as chief counsel of the U.S. Army Transatlantic Programs Center.
Mr. Santos received his JD from the University of Pennsylvania and his BA from Williams College.