Dagmawit Girmaye Berhane studied business and accounting at Addis Ababa University and received a master’s from the same school in planning and management in 2003 and a master’s in sports management from Lausanne in 2004. She became director of DKT International in Ethiopia, a non-profit promoting family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention in the developing world.

In sports administration Berhane started with the Ethiopian Martial Art Federation in 1998 and eventually became President of the Ethiopian National Olympic Committee from 2004-08. She also worked in the sport of badminton, becoming President of the Ethiopian Badminton Federation from 2000-16 and President of the Badminton Confederation of Africa from 2011-13. She was an Executive Board member of the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) from 2006-17 and an Executive Council Member of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) from 2009-16.

Berhane was co-opted onto theInternational Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2010 in her role as NOC President, but in 2013 she was named as a full individual Member of the IOC. On the IOC she has served on the following commissions: Coordination for the 2nd Summer Youth Olympic Games Nanjing 2014 (2010-14), Women and Sport (2010-15), Nominations (2014-15), IOC Members Election (2015-), Women in Sport (2015-20), Finance (2015-), Audit (2021-), Coordination for the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad Paris 2024 (2017-), and the Coordination Commission for the Games of the XXXV Olympiad Brisbane 2032 (2021-).