 At the Harvard and Duke Universities, she took some short courses.Mends joined the Finance Ministry as a national service person in 1991 and since then she has served in various capacities including, Head of The Americas Desk in 1998, Head of Budget Development in 2006 and Group Head of Public Financial Management reforms in 2013. in May 2017, she was appointed director of budget at the Ministry of Finance, a position she held until January 2019.She is known to have led major reforms that include gender responsive budgeting, Programme Based Budgeting and the development of the new Public Financial Management Act.