Steve Kenney is an international finance executive who is currently working and living in the Middle East. He grew up in Orono, Maine, where he also completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Maine. After earning his CPA designation and working in Maine for one of the “Big 8” accounting firms and as an auditor for the University of Maine System throughout the 1980s, he began his international finance and development career in 1991. For a majority of the past two decades he has served in various finance and management posts throughout Central & Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and, more recently, the Middle East. His time in the Middle East included a year in Iraq during “the surge.” In 2002 he entered the Maine gubernatorial race with a goal of becoming the first Independent candidate to qualify for public funding under the Maine Clean Elections Act. His “Penny for Kenney” clean campaign walk from Fort Kent to Kittery failed to garner the required support.