On January 27, 2009, Fulgham was appointed by President Barack Obama as Acting Administrator of USAID, replacing Henrietta Fore. Prior to this appointment, from 2006 to 2009 served as Chief Operating Officer of USAID. Most notably during his tenure at USAID, Fulgham became the first ever African-American Acting Administrator in the agency's history; was the first ever named Chief Operating Officer and was the first African-American to run the largest bilateral program in Afghanistan during the war. Following his departure from USAID he served as Vice President to International Relief and Development. IRD is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization responsible for implementing relief stabilization and development programs worldwide. During his tenure at IRD, Fulgham was responsible for execution and strategic business initiatives that cut across IRD's operations, program development and emerging business services areas. Fulgham serves as a Director at Palladium International, a global advisory and development firm. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an International Advisory Board member of the Carnegie Mellon UniversityCenter for International Relations and Politics, and a board member of the American Academy of Diplomacy. In July 2012, Fulgham was named Senior Vice President for Strategy and Sustainable International Development at CH2M HILL. While there, Fulgham was responsible for advancing the firms business interests in energy, infrastructure, water and environmental development with strategic partners in the Asia-Pacific and African regions. Fulgham served in this capacity until late 2015. He continued to work with the CH2M organization as a consultant for several months thereafter. In mid-2016, Alonzo Fulgham was named President of the Dutch firm Galileo Energy Partners, BV. Galileo Energy Partners, BV, is an integrated development and investment company focused on the energy and mining sectors in Africa. GEP, along with its affiliated companies and joint venture partners, is a trader in crude oil and refined products; a developer of large scaleelectrical power projects, and an investor in oil, gas, mining and power assets throughout Africa. After three and a half years with Galileo, Fulgham departed in late 2019 to resume full-time consulting with the private consultancy he founded in 2012, TJM International Consultants. TJM is a dynamic consultancy offering the unique expertise of an international development, policy, planning and operations executive. TJM consults on global development policy & humanitarian assistance, as well as on leading organizational change for effective results. Through past practice and in this role, Alonzo Fulgham has emerged as a thought leader on diversity and inclusion practices in international relations and global management practice. Alonzo Fulgham lives in the Northern Virginia area with his wife and three children.
