Ertharin Cousin (born 1957) is an American lawyer who served as the twelfth executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme from 2012 to 2017.

Before that, she worked in a variety of public and private sector positions, first as a Democratic Party official, later specializing in the food industry and related charities from the late 1990s on.

In 1997, Cousin received a White House appointment for a four-year term to the board for International Food and Agricultural Development.

While working for Albertsons, she also served as president and chair of the company's corporate foundation, managing the organization's philanthropic activities.

In 2002, Cousin joined the board of America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest domestic hunger organization, and in 2004 she became its executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Among her achievements during this period was leading the organization's response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, an effort which resulted in the distribution of more than 62 million pounds of food to those in need across the Gulf Coast region of the United States.

Cousin left America's Second Harvest in 2006 and founded and served as president of the Polk Street Group, a national public affairs consulting firm located in Chicago.

In January 2012, the U.S. State Department announced that Cousin would become executive director of the UN World Food Programme, succeeding Josette Sheeran when the latter's term expired in April 2012.

I am confident that she will continue to be a powerful voice in the global fight against hunger and lend her energy, optimism and experience to the World Food Programme."

During her time in office, WFP support focused on the Philippines in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, Syria with its civil war and the Sahel region of Africa.

[7] Since 2019, Cousin has been serving on the Center for Strategic & International Studies' (CSIS) Task Force on Humanitarian Access, co-chaired by Cory Booker and Todd Young.