Alusine Bangura

Alusine Bangura is a child and youth rights advocate in Sierra Leone. She started advocacy in the Children’s Forum Network (CFN) in 2010. She is the Founder and National Coordinator for the Action For Youth and Children’s Network (AYCN), and is also the first Chairperson for a youth network establish by Defence for Children International with support from Plan International, called Children and Youth Advisory Board (CYAB) for the Western Area. She also currently serves as the Youth Representative in the Steering Committee of the RMNCAH+N-CSO Coalition hosted by Health Alert secretariat, and participated in the preparation of the RMNCAH+N-GFF investment case designed by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation. She also serves as the Youth Representative in the Global Financing Facility (GFF) and also participated in the GFF Civil Society Organization Workshop and Replenishment Conference in Oslo, Norway, in November 2019.

Pauline Anyona

Pauline Bridget Atieno Anyona is 26 year old AYSRHR Programs Officer, and health budget advocate in the campaign for good governance at the Organization of Africa Youth Kenya. She is a Goalkeeper, and currently sits at the FP2020’s Youth Advisory Group and at the secretariat of the Kenya Adolescents and Youth SRHR/ HIV Network. Pauline is passionate about advocacy for improvement in the delivery of adolescents and youth friendly SRH services and policies, their economic empowerment and how both can be made instrumental in the achievement of the global SDGs. She firmly believes that a society in which everybody is able to make informed decisions concerning their sexuality is one that thrives.

Zanele Mabaso

Zanele Mabaso is a Women Deliver Young Leader and works in the Policy Development and Advocacy Unit at Sonke Gender Justice. She is an ardent policy advisor, advocate for women and girls and a social justice writer with a focus on HIV prevention, adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights, and gender-based violence. She leads the country engagement coordination for The Partnership's Adolescent and Youth Constituency, providing expert technical assistance to youth-lead country partner organisations in Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya, India and Cameroon, in implementing the Advocating for Change for Adolescent Toolkit at national and sub-national level.

Preeti Sudan

Preeti Sudan has represented Government of India on the PMNCH Board since October, 2017 as the Board Vice-chair. Preeti is a career civil servant and is an officer of the Indian Administrative Service who joined service in 1983 and has served at various levels both in Federal and State governments in India. At present, she holds the office of the Secretary, Health and Family Welfare in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India and has been instrumental in planning and implementing some of the biggest health initiatives in India.

Helga Fogstad

Helga Fogstad currently heads the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH), which is the world’s largest alliance for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health, combining over 1,000 partner organization from 10 diverse constituencies across 192 countries. Helga has 30 years’ experience in health systems strengthening, public health and reproductive, maternal, newborn child, and adolescent-related issues. Her experience covers health planning and development at facility, district and national levels, as well as at international level within multilateral and bilateral agencies.  She has also chaired and been actively involved in many global processes to forge consensus and increase global mobilization for RMNCAH, including the UN Secretary General’s Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health.

Previously Helga was Director of Global Health, Education and Research at the Norwegian Agency for Development (Norad) where she was central in providing technical guidance on Norway’s health, education, research and development portfolio, both through the bilateral programs, as well as global initiatives and funds supported by Norway.

She is a health economist and has co-authored several publications related to public health.

Abdul-Nashiru Mohammed

Abdul-Nashiru Mohammed (Nash) is the Country Director for WaterAid Ghana. Nash has championed citizens’ empowerment in the water sector across West Africa, including in post-conflict settings in Liberia and Sierra Leone. He has engaged governments and global leaders on WASH issues, and worked with countless women and girls to claim their rights and serve as champions. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in History, a Master’s in Public Administration; and is currently pursuing his PhD in Public Policy and Administration.

Rebecca Fries

Rebecca has 20 years of experience in gender, entrepreneurship, and development and specializes in designing innovative gender and social inclusion strategies and partnerships across sectors such as sustainable energy, agriculture, and finance. Under her leadership, the Value for Women team works globally in a collaborative, multidisciplinary manner to take practical, hands-on approaches to solving business challenges. Rebecca has authored sector-changing research and designed tools that focus on the intersection of gender, entrepreneurship, and economic development.

Leakhena Saroeurn

Leakhena studied Tourism Management at Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and human rights and environment at Earthrights School Mekong in Thailand. A Young Environmental Fellow of the JWH Initiative of Both ENDS, Project Head Advocacy on ClimateEducation, young feminist climate storytelling project for FRIDA, and a Project Manager at the Thrive Program of SHE investments, Leakhena has been working with many projects on climate change resilience/adaptation through agriculture practice, as well as water issues. She is a former Young Parliamentarian of the World Youth Parliament for Water and project coordinator of Y-farm. She is really passionate about water issues, farming, and climate change.

Sheila Oparaocha

Sheila Oparaocha has eighteen years of working experience in the gender and energy sector. She holds a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Veterinary Medicine and a Master’s Degree in Gender and Development Planning. Sheila is the International Coordinator and Programme Manager of ENERGIA and is responsible for managing ENERGIA’s international programmes, planning, monitoring, reporting, and liaising with donors. Sheila co-chairs the SDG 7 Technical Advisory Group, convened by UNDESA to review progress on SDG.

Gabrielle Fitzgerald

Gabrielle Fitzgerald is a global leader who believes that innovative approaches and catalytic coalitions are needed to solve the most challenging issues. She is the founder and CEO of Panorama, an action tank dedicated to helping ambitious leaders solve global problems. For more than two decades, she has led teams and collaborated with partners to spark global change. Prior to founding Panorama, she directed the $100 million Ebola Program at the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, investing in creative approaches to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Gabrielle previously served as the director of Global Program Advocacy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading the team that advanced policy and advocacy agendas for the organization’s global issues.

Sarah Gordon-Gibson

Sarah Gordon-Gibson is the Country Director and Representative of the World Food Programme in Jordan. Ms Gordon-Gibson oversees a programme that provides food assistance, including as cash-based transfers, to both Jordanians and Syrian refugees vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition.  Serving in multiple roles with WFP, immediately prior to Jordan, Ms Gordon-Gibson was the Country Director in Laos.

Jenny Casswell

Jenny is the Senior Insights Manager of GSMA’s Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation programme working to accelerate the delivery and impact of digital humanitarian assistance. She works with mobile network operators and humanitarian actors to explore how mobile technology is impacting the humanitarian sphere, from the digitisation of cash and voucher assistance, to mobile enabled utilities, and digital identity. Jenny has conducted field research across East Africa, focusing on the socio-economic impact of mobile connectivity on refugees. Most recently, her research has quantified the mobile gender gap in mobile ownership and mobile services in several humanitarian contexts. 

Daphne Jayasinghe

Daphne Jayasinghe is the International Rescue Committee’s Chief Policy Adviser, Economic Programmes and Acting Head of Policy. She leads IRC’s work influencing economic policy impacting on displaced populations on themes including jobs, humanitarian cash transfers and women’s economic empowerment. Daphne specialises in gender and women’s rights and is a UK Gender and Development Network board member. Before joining IRC she was Women’s Rights Adviser for ActionAid UK, Amnesty International USA's Advocacy Director for Women's Human Rights in Washington DC and a UK government policy adviser.

Aryan Yaba

Aryan Yaba is passionate about helping others around her understand gender equality, speaking up when she or someone she knows is discriminated against based on their gender, and ensuring that she and her colleagues at Mission East provide equal participation opportunities in all of their programs. Aryan was born and raised in Iraq. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Engineering in Salahadin University in Iraq and studied Social Entrepreneurship and Community Development at Ball State University in the United States. As a Country Office Programme Officer at Mission East Organization, she is responsible for representing Mission East at external forums, and coordinating and communicating the organization’s objectives with partner organizations. Additionally, she is a Peer Educator at the Youth Peer Education Network. As an advocate, she is proud to have implemented a US Embassy-funded program called Iraqi Youth Returnees Development Programme, where she trained 100 internally displaced Iraqi youth on leadership, business and social entrepreneurship, goal-setting, presentation skills, and other skills that young people need to achieve their dreams and participate in rebuilding their cities.

Eva Oberg

Eva Oberg is a Gender Adviser in DFID’s central Gender Equality Team where she leads on gender responsive humanitarian action. She is a trained economist with experience working in Africa and South Asia for NGOs, research consultancies and government. She is passionate about applying feminist approaches to her work and creating rigorous evidence-based policy and programming.

Kaila Mullady

Kaila Mullady is the 2015 & 2018 World Beatbox Champion. Kaila performs all over the world infusing beatboxing, and theater to push the boundaries of creativity and show just what the human instrument is capable of. The most fulfilling part of Kaila's career has been traveling the world teaching workshops promoting expression and leadership through music. Kaila has worked with the U.N. Numerous times. She performed at the 2016 Peace Day Youth Summit and virtually taught beatboxing to Syrian Refugee youth located in Germany. At 2018 SDG Festival in Bonn, Germany she performed and taught workshops centered around activating the youth and giving your messages life by incorporating music and arts.

Yafreici "Fraze" Peralta

Yafreici "Fraze" Peralta is a Dominican-born rapper/actress as well as an advocate for reproductive rights. She is currently working on her EP with award-winning producer Edward Grullon, known in the music world as Napoles. Yafreici's powerful performance skills have brought her to stages such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dixon Place, the Museum of Music, Telecommunications & Media, the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe, the Bowery Poetry Club and Madison Square Garden. She has been featured on Discovery En Espanol's, "Tu Acento" and enjoyed a brief cameo in HBO's "Brave New Voices."

As co-founder of Create2030, Yafreici has brought her visionary talent, her global vision, and her powerful storytelling to numerous audiences. She participated in the Youth and Migration report and was also a part of the UN’s 67th annual DPI/NGO conference performing a poem dedicated to the 17 sustainable development goals entitled “No poverty In Unity” where she urges countries from around the globe to come together to achieve the sustainable development goals. A part of the 2019 United for 2030 Citizens assembly, she is working along side a team of talented individuals to create a solution directly tied to the SDG’s. She was also elected to serve as a student senator at Lehman College during her studies.

Lisa Russell

Lisa Russell, MPH is an Emmy® Award-winning filmmaker and artist who has 15+ years producing films and curating creative events and artistic performances for the social good. An established global speaker and thought leader, she is a two time TEDx speaker, UN/NGO contracted storyteller and arts curator, Fulbright Specialist, speaker, writer and is a regular presenter at film festivals, storytelling summits, leading universities, international conferences and youth leadership programs. Lisa has been the curator of the Women Deliver Film Festival since 2010, helping to elevate the work of filmmakers pushing the conversation on gender equality forward as well as changing the narrative of women and girls in global health. As Founder of Create2030, she is working to build institutional crediblity of artists - to give them a "seat at the table" - and is writing the first Artist Declaration in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.)

Ali Rizvi

Ali is a filmmaker/social entrepreneur from Karachi, Pakistan. He founded Ehsas Films Project in 2015 to advocate for SRHR in Pakistan through short films and street campaigns. Ali’s work is rooted in the politics and discourses on social and developmental issues in Pakistan, focusing particularly on public health and social justice. Ali experiments with different forms and mediums to tell compelling stories, but film remains his primary focus.

Rebecca Calder

Rebecca Calder has spent the best part of 25 years in Asia, Africa and the Pacific designing and leading innovative qualitative research; designing and leading complex formative and process evaluations; training on gender and inclusion, poverty and social analysis; and employing qualitative analytical techniques across programs. Her clients have included UNICEF, DFID, AusAid, DFAT, Australian Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Irish Aid, USAID, PSI, Mercy Corps, Plan, ActionAid, Comic Relief, ODI, Hewlett Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Girl Hub, Nike Foundation, Girl Effect, the Unreasonable Group, and Women Moving Millions. Rebecca has recognized expertise on adolescent girls and young women, women’s and girls’ economic empowerment, sexual and reproductive health, gender and social norms, social protection, and violence against women and girls. Rebecca has a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the School of Oriental and Africa Studies in London.

Rosemary Nazar

Rosemary Nazar works with Population Services International as a Youth Officer for Adolescents 360, a youth-powered sexual and reproductive health (SRH) program that seeks to increase how girls aged 15-19 perceive and voluntarily uptake modern contraception. Through proven approaches grounded in human-centered design, she works alongside young people to identify how to break cultural norms, economic barriers, negative value systems and non-supportive social systems blocking girls’ access to SRH services. Nazar has a Bachelor’s degree in Health Systems Management, and a passion for unlocking young women and girls’ choices so they have control over their bodies and their lives.

Tracy Johnson

Tracy Johnson is a design anthropologist who is passionate about getting to the why behind people’s behavior and using design to change behavior. She has more than 15 years of experience applying a design anthropological perspective to global health and development problems as well as business concerns. She has developed innovative research and design agendas across many areas of global health and development, including maternal and child health, family planning, frontline health worker platforms, complex intervention delivery, as well as education and human rights, and on behalf of Fortune 500 clients. She is a design leader for designforhealth.org and a contributor to the award-winning LEAP Dialogues: Career Pathways in Design for Social Innovation.

Sean Hughes

Sean Hughes leads a global team that is tasked with developing a broad range of solutions including products, software, digital services as well as architectural concepts that are shaping the future of healthcare. Sean engages directly with healthcare delivery organizations, leveraging design thinking to transform care provision in meaningful ways. Over a 25-plus year career across 3 continents and multiple business categories, Sean has built and led multidisciplinary award-winning creative teams that deliver business results while maximizing the role of design as a key element of sustainable competitive advantage.

Sinit Zeru

The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) seeks to make globalization work for the many, not the few. The Policy & Innovations team leads the piloting of new tools within TBI and its Government projects, including spearheading the application of human-centered design. Sinit Zeru joined TBI in 2013 as a Strategic Advisor for the Rwandan Government’s National Capacity Building Secretariat. Previously, Sinit was Country Head (Tanzania) and Senior Consultant (Kenya) for a communications consultancy. Sinit has a B.A. from Oxford University, and an M.A. from University College London.

Rukmini Callimachi

New York Times foreign correspondent and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Rukmini Callimachi is the recipient of the 2018 Peabody Award and the inaugural “Integrity in Journalism” award for her on the ground reporting on ISIS, including their systematic enslavement of Yazidi women. Born in Communist Romania, Callimachi and her family fled the country when she was five years old. Callimachi has covered 20 foreign countries and spent seven years in West Africa for the AP. She recently profiled Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege for their Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for their work to end warzone rape.

Laurel Baig

Laurel Baig is a Canadian litigator with over 18 years of international criminal law experience, including prosecuting cases charging military and political leaders with crimes involving sexual violence in conflict. She is a Senior Appeals Counsel in Office of the Prosecutor of the UN’s International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals and a member of the Justice Rapid Response-UN Women SGBV Justice Experts Roster. Previously, Laurel worked as a prosecutor with the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and advised judges at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Dalia Amin

Born in Karachi, Pakistan to Kurdish refugees fleeing the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, Dalia Amin spent the first decade of her life in resettlement camps before moving with her family to Washington. Now based out of Erbil, Iraq, 29-year-old Dalia is a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Advisor with Save the Children, where she designs and implements gender-sensitive programming to prevent, mitigate and responds to sexual and gender based violence, and collaborates with partners to build community expertise on women and girls’ rights. Dalia is a M.S. graduate of the Centre for Global Affairs at New York University.

Vasfije Krasniqi-Goodman

Vasfije Krasniqi-Goodman is a Kosovo-born survivor of sexual violence in conflict, and an activist with the Kosova Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victimes (KRCT), advocating for the rights of survivors of wartime sexual violence, fighting to bring justice for the 20,00 women who were raped during the Yugoslav Wars. She is the first survivor of sexual violence from the Kosovo War to publicly share her story without hiding her identity, and today is a member of SEMA, the global network of survivors and victims to end wartime rape, facilitated by the Mukwege Foundation. The recipient of the 2019 Kim Bok-dong Peace Prize, Vasfije has provided testimony to the UN Human Rights Council and the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, and has received the Honorable Citizen Award by the president of Kosovo.

Dr. Princess Nothemba (Nono) Simelela

Dr. Simelela, from South Africa, has over 30 years experience as an obstetrician, academic, advocate and government official, and now acts as Special Advisor to the Director-General of the World Health Organization. Before joining WHO, she was Special Advisor to the Vice President of the Republic of South Africa on Social Policy, supporting the multisectoral response to HIV. Previous roles include CEO of the South African National AIDS Council and Director of Technical Knowledge and Support for the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Dr. Simelela has presented and published widely on women’s health and contributed to guidelines including the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Sheila Tlou

Prof. Sheila Tlou is Co-Chair of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition and the Nursing Now Global Campaign. She is former UNAIDS Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, and former Minister of Health of Botswana. She is also former Professor of Nursing at the University of Botswana and Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing and Midwifery Development in Primary Health Care for Anglophone Africa.

As Minister of Health, she led a successful HIV prevention, treatment, care and support program whose achievements are still some of the best in Africa. She provided leadership in the adoption of the SADC HIV/AIDS Plan of Action and Maputo Plan of Action on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. She represented Eastern and Southern Africa in the Board of the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Prof. Tlou has a Ph.D in Nursing Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has Membership of the American Academy of Nursing and the US National Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Sharron Hinchliff

Dr Sharron Hinchliff leads a programme of research on ageing, gender, sexual health, and sexual well-being, which examines the psychological, social, and cultural factors that influence health and healthcare. Her work tackles stigma, prejudice, and discrimination to promote and support the sexual rights of older adults. Sharron is Reader in Psychology and Health at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Sheffield, UK. Her latest book ‘Addressing the sexual rights of older people: Theory, practice and policy’ was published in 2018. For further details, see Sharron’s website: www.sharronhinchliff.com

Dr. Sameera Al Tuwaijri

Sameera M. Al Tuwaijri is a Lead Health Specialist and Global Solutions Lead for the Population and Development at the Health, Nutrition and Population Global practice, the World Bank since June 2016. She is a board-certified medical doctor (OB/GYN). She also has a master’s degree (Harvard) and a Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins) in Public Health, focusing on health systems development. Prior to the World Bank and after concluding her public health studies, she worked in the United Nations system for ten years.

Muluba Habanyama

Muluba Habanyama is a Zambian activist, organizer and educator from Toronto, Canada. She has been living with HIV since birth. She serves on the boards of the Ontario HIV Treatment Network, Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development and The Teresa Group. She has written work published in Huffington Post Canada, Flare, MTV and more. She is the Ontario provincial positive youth transition coordinator at the AIDS Committee of Durham Region. Her most valuable title is that of aunt to Amaja, Judah and Ezekiel.

Michelle Bachelet

On September 1, 2018 Michelle Bachelet assumed her functions as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Established in 1993, Ms. Bachelet is its seventh Commissioner. Ms. Bachelet was elected President of Chile on two occasions (2006-2010 and 2014-2018) and was the first female president of Chile. During her presidential tenures, she promoted the rights of all, but particularly those of the most vulnerable. Among her many achievements include education and tax reforms, the creation of the National Institute for Human Rights, the establishment of the Ministry of Women and Gender Equality, the adoption of quotas to increase women’s political participation, and the approval of Civil Union Act legislation which granted rights to same sex couples. In 2011, she was named the first Director of UN Women, an organization dedicated to fighting for the rights of women and girls internationally. As Co-Chair of the High-Level Steering Group for Every Woman Every Child, Ms. Bachelet launched Every Woman Every Child Latin America and the Caribbean, the first platform for tailored, regional implementation of the EWEC Global Strategy. Michelle Bachelet has a Medical Degree in Surgery, with a specialization in Pediatrics and Public Health. She also studied military strategy at Chile's National Academy of Strategy and Policy and at the Inter-American Defense College in the United States.

Brian Heilman

Brian Heilman's work focuses on eliminating harmful masculine norms, preventing all forms of gender-based violence, and achieving broader social justice in the United States and around the world. As Senior Research Officer at Promundo, Brian has co-authored the 2017 and 2019 editions of the State of the World’s Fathers, and continues to travel extensively to lead new research and programs on masculinities and violence.

Mabel Bianco

Mabel Bianco is a feminist and the founder, in 1989, and president of Fundacion para Estudio e Investigación de la Mujer, in Argentina, an NGO with ECOSOC status. Bianco is Co-Chair of the NGO Committee for the Commission on the Status of Women Latin America and Caribbean and elected OP of the Women's Major Group for Latin America and the Caribbean. Additionally, Bianco serves as Coordinator of the global campaign Women Won't Wait End HIV and Violence NOW!, a member of the Advisory Board of the  Latin America and Caribbean Women's Health Network (LACWHN) since 2000, Board Member from 1992 till 2000. She is the author of 8 books and 150 articles.

Jama Jack

Jama Jack is a Women Deliver Young Leader and the Communications Manager at Think Young Women (TYW), a youth-led organization based in The Gambia. She is passionate about teaching girls and young women about women’s rights and using communication as a tool for social change. At TYW, Jama is responsible for leading communication processes and creating effective advocacy and community engagement strategies for the organization. Through her work, she positioned effective communication on her organization’s work, leading to more partnerships Jama inspires and mentors a new generation of youth advocates effectively using new media to communicate and engage with peers and communities on issues of interest, including women’s rights.

Lyric Thompson

Lyric Thompson is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). In this capacity she leads the institution’s formulation of evidence-based policy recommendations and manages ICRW’s advocacy efforts with the U.S. Government and internationally. She is an adjunct professor at the George Washington University, where she teaches a graduate level course on women’s rights advocacy.Lyric is on the board of North Carolina Women United and leads or is a member of a number of advocacy coalitions on women’s rights issues, including Girls Not Brides USA, the Coalition for Women’s Economic Empowerment and Equality, the Coalition to End Gender-Based Violence Globally, the U.S. Civil Society Working Group on Women, Peace and Security and the Coalition for Adolescent Girls. She is on the Editorial Board of Apolitical, and writes regularly on gender and foreign policy for such outlets as Ms., Huffington Post, Devex, The Hill, Thomson-Reuters Foundation and Foreign Policy.

Lopa Banerjee

Lopa Banerjee is the Director of the Civil Society Division at UN Women. She leads UN Women’s work on partnering with, supporting and strengthening women’s rights groups and civil society networks as well as their contribution, participation and influence in policy discussion at global, regional and national levels. Lopa’s work focuses on partnership development with civil society organizations to influence global action on gender equality, in particular related to standard setting, policy discussion and stakeholder accountability.A gender and human rights thematic expert with substantive experience in social policy and governance issues across Asia and Africa, Lopa has worked for over 3 decades on international development, policy advocacy, communication and partnership building, across the UN and in the private sector in different countries. Lopa’s areas of specialization include feminist policy advocacy and analysis, and inclusive partnership development and engagement. She lives in New York City.

HRH Princess Dina Mired

HRH Princess Dina Mired, is a mother of a cancer survivor and is a well-known and respected advocate for Cancer Control and Non-Communicable Diseases. HRH Princess Dina was elected as President of the Union International for Cancer Control (UICC) in 2018-the largest cancer fighting organization. Testament to her outstanding leadership, she was the first Arab to have been elected in in such a prestigious global post. HRH Princess Dina established and led the King Hussein Cancer Foundation (KHCF) from 2002 till June 2016. Princess Dina transformed the non-profit into the most successful fundraiser for cancer control efforts in Jordan and an internationally known brand and leader not only in Jordan but also in the global movement for people affected by cancer. KHCF work focuses on fundraising and development, global advocacy, public awareness about early detection and prevention, cancer coverage, and patient support. Globally, Princess Dina is a well-known and respected advocate for Cancer Control and Non-Communicable Diseases. 

Miga Chultem

Miga Chultem began her professional career in international development, and worked with the United Nations Population Fund in Mongolia for five years. In her current position, she engages in complex issues related to international regulatory cooperation and provides strategic advice to senior management. She joined Health Canada in 2004, focusing on gender equality and women's health issues. Since 2006, Miga has worked on regulatory cooperation with international partners including the World Health Organization (WHO) and Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO). She truly believes in the possibility of improving the health of the world population by learning from the best practices of different countries.

Amy Little

Amy Little leads the Alzheimer’s Society’s international advocacy and is based in London. Graduating from the University of Manchester in 2001 she initially worked in non-profit social research before developing a career as a civil society campaigner. Amy has driven global and national campaigns, working with iNGOs, the UN and governments. She has campaign-managed NGO coalitions including the Global Alzheimer’s & Dementia Action Alliance (GADAA) and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines & Cluster Munition Coalition. Through GADAA’s work, Amy has led work to recognise dementia as a global women’s health and rights issue that cannot be ignored.

Dr. Veronica Magar

Veronica Magar (Dr. Ph, MPH, MA) leads WHO’s work on Gender, Equity and Human Rights (GER). She heads an organization-wide mainstreaming initiative to ensure a coherent, systematic and sustainable approach for integrating these critical dimensions across WHO’s technical programmes at the headquarters, regional offices and country level. To support member states with implementation of the GER Criteria, WHO offers a country package, training and support to build capacity supported by her team. Since 2000, she has worked with UN agencies, NGOs, and governments in more than 30 countries across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to address gender inequality and human rights. Prior to that Dr. Magar worked at international NGOs including CARE where she led work on gender mainstreaming, violence against women, research and community-based evaluations. Dr Magar earned her MPH and MA at UCLA and DR PH the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Dr. Hema Divakar

Dr. Hema Divakar is a leading medical professional of India with a vision to improve the healthcare services ecosystem for the welfare of women. She has over the last three decades, been a game changer in healthcare, establishing new benchmarks, standards and touching  women’s lives in the process. An accomplished specialist in the field of OBGYN care, she is the medical director at the Divakars Specialty hospital in Bangalore, a centre of excellence for women’s healthcare and centre for Skill Enhancement. In the year 2013, she was the President of FOGSI Federation of Obstetric & Gynecological Societies of India (FOGSI),with 32,000 specialists on roll as the members. She now holds an exhaustive list of important positions of great responsibility within India, as well as in Asia.

Bruno Carrattini

Bruno Carrattini is a young advocate from Uruguay, graduated as a nutritionist specializing in noncommunicable diseases and pursuing a master's degree in public health. Since he was a teenager, he has lived with an NCD and has dedicated all his efforts to helping other members of the community. He works in a nongovernmental organization as a professor and as an advocate, as well as in a hospital as a health professional. He has participated and created programs both nationally and internationally and has a great passion in the fight for health policies that achieve equality in all aspects related to health rights. He has been a mentor for many young people affected by NCDs in the country and in the region, as well as participating in different decision-making processes at the political level as a representative of the community. He is working on education for the affected population in rural areas, strategies and strategic alliances to achieve commitments for the care of the rural community that suffers NCDs and to respond their needs.

Karen Walker

A/Professor Karen Walker is Program Manager for Global Women's Health at the George Institute for Global Health. She is clinical academic passionate about improving health outcomes for women across the lifespan through equitable access to universal health care, education, empowerment and mentorship. She combines her passion for women's health, advocacy and policy with her role as President-elect of the Council of International Neonatal Nurses where she focuses on improving globally maternal and neonatal survival. With more than 70 journal articles and book chapters, she is an invited national and international speaker with more than 100 national and international presentations. 

Husna Ahmad

Dr Husna Ahmad OBE is the CEO of Global One 2015 which is a faith based International NGO focused on women. With a PhD in International Environmental Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies, [SOAS] London University, Dr. Ahmad is the former Group CEO of Faith Regen Foundation which is a multi-faith UK charity. She is currently a Board member of BOND, Faith In Water, and Palmers Green Mosque (the MCEC). She is a member of the UN Inter-agency Task Force on Religion and Development’s Faith based Advisory Council.Dr Ahmad sits on the Steering Committee of The World Bank’s Moral Imperative Initiative. She is the Secretary General of the World Muslim Leadership Forum and the Coordinator for the Alliance of NGOs and CSOs for South-South Cooperation. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year’s Honours list in 2010 for her services to disadvantaged people for work promoting social justice with disadvantaged communities. She is an honorary fellow of the Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public understanding of Religion, Birmingham University.

Jayshree Balachander

Jayshree is Director of the Green Pilgrimage Network, India, which facilitates the work of several faith based NGOs working to make places of pilgrimage a model of care for the environment and helping pilgrims leave a positive footprint on earth.  She was responsible for a variety of regulatory and developmental activities of the Government of India from 1979-92, after which she served at the World Bank till 2007 in various capacities in Human Development. She relocated to India where she is serving several non-governmental organizations. Jayshree has a Masters degree in Public Policy from Princeton University.

Kristie Urich

Kristie Urich has worked with World Vision’s WASH team for six years, and has served with World Vision for almost 13 years. Besides knowledge management, she helps lead World Vision’s efforts in scaling up its work in menstrual hygiene, and she is a trainer in the Designing for Behaviour Change approach. Her development career began as a Peace Corps Volunteer, serving for two years in Cameroon as a health, water and sanitation volunteer in Cameroon. She has a post-graduate certificate in Global Health and WASH and is a Certified Knowledge Manager. 

Catriona Addleton

Catriona Addleton is the Program Officer at the NGO Islamic Relief Canada, managing the Africa and Asia project portfolios. Catriona is Islamic Relief Canada’s focal point for the Call to Action on Protection from Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies, incorporating and reporting on programming commitments.

Shamilah Batte

Shamilah Batte is the co-founder of OGERA. OGERA promotes health and human rights of women LBQ and urban refugee sex workers living and working in Uganda. She is a female sex worker, Lesbian, Rwandese by origin and a Ugandan by naturalization. She is passionate to ensure that sex workers are treated with dignity and humanity regardless of their different sexual orientations, nature of work, origin or nationality. She has coordinated the sex worker movement in Uganda since 2015 to mid-2018 through Uganda Network for sex worker-led organizations (UNESO) which is a recognized umbrella for sex worker led organizations in Uganda.

Shena Cavallo

Shena is a Program Officer with the International Women's Health Coalition where she provides funding and support to grantee partners in Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and Eastern Europe. Prior to joining IWHC, Shena worked on immigrant rights. She has an MA in International Development from the University of Pittsburgh and a BA in International Affairs and Political Science from Duquesne University.

Natalia Moreno Rodriguez

Natlia is an activist, feminist, dramatist, researcher, and artist from Colombia, Natalia has advocated for the inclusion and rights of people with disabilities. She is a co-creator and coordinator of the collective of women with disabilities and diverse functionality, known as Colectiva Polimorfas. Natalia participated on the Colombian delegation for the implementation of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and participated in a thematic hearing on sexual and reproductive rights’ violations of persons with disabilities before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Luisa Cabal

Luisa Cabal is a Colombian human rights lawyer, leading the Human Rights and Gender team in UNAIDS. Until 2014, she oversaw the Center for Reproductive Rights' legal and advocacy efforts in the United States and globally as the Vice President of Programs, where she worked for over 15 years. She led human rights fact-finding reporting, litigated landmark cases and oversaw advocacy strategies that advanced legal and policy protections at global, regional and national levels including in the areas of HIV, maternal health, adolescent rights, contraception, abortion, and assisted reproductive technologies. From 2011 through 2014 she was a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia University School of Law, where she taught comparative and international reproductive rights law. She is currently a member of the Lancet Commission on Global Health and the Law and she served as co-chair of the World Health Organization's Reproductive Health Department's Gender Advisory Panel. Ms. Cabal graduated from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She received her Master of Laws from Columbia University School of Law.

Ishani Ida Cordeiro

Ishani is a lawyer and has been working on issues of human rights for 10 years now. She has been a researcher and trainer before taking on the role of an advocacy officer at CREA. Ishani’s work focuses on bridging the divide between the local and the global. She works with international human rights mechanisms and endeavors to not only ensure global south voices are heard within these mechanisms but also strategizes on using these mechanisms as national level tools for advocacy.

Michele Goodwin

Michele Goodwin holds the Chancellor’s Professorship at the University of California, Irvine with appointments at the School of Law, School of Public Health, and Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies. She is the founder and director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy and its Reproductive Justice Initiative. She researches and writes about legal concerns with regard to the human body. She is an acclaimed bioethicist and prolific author. Professor Goodwin has published with Forbes, Salon.com, the L.A. Times, Chicago Sun Times, Houston Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, and the NY Times among others. She is the author of several highly acclaimed books, including the much anticipated, Policing The Womb, which chronicles how women’s reproduction has become the political scapegoat in Congress and legislatures across the U.S., resulting in the rise of personhood measures, practices that force women to undergo cesarean births under threat of court order, abuse of prosecutorial discretion that results in the criminalization and punishment of pregnant women for falling down steps, refusing bed rest or attempting suicide, and policies that dramatically erode reproductive liberty. Professor Goodwin’s scholarly work appears in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Northwestern Law Review, California Law Review and many other esteemed journals. Her media appearances include documentary films, such as Birthright, and featured appearances on episodes of Vice, To The Contrary, Point Taken, and various newscasts on NPR, PBS, NBC, CBS, and others. She is the recipient of numerous awards recognizing excellence in teaching, scholarship, and human rights advocacy.

Aklima Jesmin

Aklima Jesmin is a human rights professional with more than 10 years in diverse work experiences that directly connects to the well-being of women and girls. However, she loves to introduce herself as a life-time advocate for adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights (ASRHR). One of her recent achievements has been to contribute in the formation of the ASRHiE Task Force in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, along with many other ASRH initiatives to improve the SRHR status for Rohingya adolescents girls. She is a firm believer that adolescent responsive SRHR programs are not negotiable in any circumstances.

Amani Kanjo

Amani works as Gender-Based Violence Program Manager for Syria Relief and Development, that serves affected women and girls in Syria crisis. She co-leads the Youth and Adolescence Taskforce and is a member of Adolescence Reproductive Health Working Group in Northern Syria. Amani is leading the Young Mother’s Clubs initiative in collaboration with CARE and UNFPA to meet the needs of pregnant adolescents and first time mothers. She contributed to the development of the UNFPA Whole of Syria Adolescence Strategy and GBV Standard operation procedures for Syria in 2018-2019. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Bioengineering from Aleppo University and a Master's in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Gaziantep University, Turkey, after she was chased by the Syrian Government as an opposition-activist.

Ibrahim Balami

Ibrahim Balami is a young professional who was born in Maiduguri, Nigeria. He joined the IRC Nigeria in 2017 as the Comprehensive Women Centre (CWC) Integration Officer, where he successfully coordinated integration of reproductive health (RH), gender-based violence and empowerment services. A year later, he became the Senior RH Officer, and is committed to removing facility- and community-level barriers to adolescent sexual and reproduction health (ASRH), increasing adolescent and community meaningful participation in project design and implementation, and supporting quality SRH for displaced adolescents in crisis-affected northeast Nigeria. He is also a gender equality champion, passionate about advancing positive behavior change towards ASRH in Nigeria.

Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli

Dr. Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli works on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) in the World Health Organization’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research (which includes the UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Human Reproductive Programme). His work includes building the evidence base on ASRH, and supporting countries to translate this evidence into action through well-conceived and well-managed policies and programs. His experience in generating knowledge and taking knowledge to action is global in scope and spans over 30 years. Drawing upon these experiences, he has presented in scores of global, regional and national conferences, and authored/co-authored books, book chapters, newsletter articles, blog pieces and over 85 peer-reviewed journal articles: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Venkatraman_Chandra-Mouli/contributions

Julianne Deitch

Julianne Deitch has more than a decade of experience working in global health with international, regional, and community-based organizations. She is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, where her research focuses on understanding adolescent demand for contraception in humanitarian settings. With the Women’s Refugee Commission, Julianne is leading a project aimed at expanding access to sexual and reproductive health services for adolescent girls in Iraq, Lebanon and Bangladesh. She is committed to designing evidence-based interventions that actively involve adolescents in program design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

Khadijah Moore

Khadijah Moore is on a mission to help create sustainable change. Trained as an sexual and reproductive health and rights educator, this catalyst for change has a unique nine-year background in advocacy, volunteerism and communications. A Commonwealth of Dominica native, she has served as President of the Youth Advocacy Movement, youth representative, and Board Director of the Dominica Planned Parenthood Association and the Caribbean Family Planning Affiliation. In 2016, Khadijah co-founded the Lévé Domnik Campaign, which is now a full-fledged organization launched to support survivors of gender-based violence. Khadijah is currently pursuing studies in Political Science and Women & Gender Studies in the United States.

Zeinab Cherri

Zeinab Cherri is a Women Deliver Young Leader and a member of WD Humanitarian Committee. She studied a Master's in Public Health in Disasters at Universidad de Oviedo and Université Catholique de Louvain. Zeinab overlooked mixed-method studies advocating for migrant and refugee women's right in Lebanon. As a Research Assistant at the American University of Beirut, she was responsible for developing the research methods and analyzing qualitative data that will help decrease adolescent girls’ school dropout rate in Tripoli, Lebanon. As an advocate, Zeinab published a study on early marriage and barriers to contraception among Syrian refugee women in Lebanon.

Diana Mukami

Diana is the Head of Programmes and Director, eCampus at Amref Health Africa’s Institute of Capacity Development. She has experience in designing, implementing and managing health systems and strengthening programs that seek to increase access to quality health services in sub-Saharan Africa. For more than 15 years, Diana has been involved in capacity development programs for frontline healthcare workers, including community health workers. She believes that technology, used the right way, contributes significantly towards the development of responsive human resources for health in Africa.

Marie-Ange Saraka-Yao

Marie-Ange Saraka-Yao is a senior executive with a relentless drive for results and a 20-year track record in strategic leadership, policy development, innovative finance, and resource mobilisation in emerging markets and globally. Ms. Saraka-Yao is currently the Managing Director of Resource Mobilisation and Private Sector Partnerships reporting to the CEO of Gavi, the vaccine alliance. Since joining Gavi in 2011, her leadership was instrumental in raising the largest amount of resources ever for Gavi close to USD 18 billion by 2015. She is the lead negotiator with G7 and G20 leaders, corporates and high net-worth individuals in the expansion of Gavi investors’ base.

Dayna Kerecman Myers

Durga Sapkota

Durga Sapkota is a Women Deliver Young Leader with more than 8 years of clinical and public health work experience, specifically, sexual, reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and adolescent health. She has been involved in qualitative research related to women's health as a freelance Research Consultant and has been providing training related to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and rights, especially to girls and women in hard to reach, poor resource, rural areas. Currently she is pursuing her Bachelor degree of law (LLB) as well as Advance Nursing with specialization in Women's Health Development. She is a Youth Champion of Asia Safe Abortion Partnership (ASAP).

Dr. Sameera Al Tuwaijri

Sameera M. Al Tuwaijri is a Lead Health Specialist and Global Solutions Lead for the Population and Development at the Health, Nutrition and Population Global practice, the World Bank since June 2016. She is a board-certified medical doctor (OB/GYN). She also has a master’s degree (Harvard) and a Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins) in Public Health, focusing on health systems development. Prior to the World Bank and after concluding her public health studies, she worked in the United Nations system for ten years.

Yasmina Zaidman

Yasmina Zaidman is the Chief Partnerships Officer at Acumen, which works to change the way the world tackles poverty. She leads its work with strategic corporate partners that share Acumen’s commitment to entrepreneurial approaches to tackling poverty. She spearheaded Acumen’s gender integration work, co-authoring the report “Women and Social Enterprises: How Gender Integration can Boost Entrepreneurial Solutions to Poverty” (ICRW). Ms. Zaidman has worked in the arenas of international development, corporate sustainability and social entrepreneurship for more than 20 years. She is on the board of the White Ribbon Alliance, which supports advocacy for safe birth for women around the world.

Dr. Gayathri Vasudevan

Dr. Gayathri Vasudevan was cited as one of the top 50 women in business by Business Today, a leading magazine in India in the year 2017 and “Entrepreneur of the Year in Social Business Category” by Forbes India in 2018.

She has a doctorate in Development Studies with 30 publications in the areas of labour and employment and gender issues to her credit. Gayathri was also a speaker at the EY World Entrepreneur Forum 2017 at Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Between 1999 and 2007, Gayathri worked for the International Labour Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency. She co-founded LabourNet in 2006 with a vision to enable livelihoods and enhance quality of life through Education, Employability and Entrepreneurship. LabourNet’s model has been widely acclaimed as one of the few companies in this space which is run profitably and having far reaching impact. LabourNet has impacted about a million lives, empowering youth, men and women to earn a decent living or become profitable micro entrepreneurs.

Yen Do

Based in Vietnam, Yen focuses on investment opportunities in Vietnam and the Philippines. Prior to joining Patamar Capital, Yen was a Business Intelligence Analyst at Trust Circle Vietnam Ltd., a local fintech start-up with the mission to serve the financial needs of ordinary people using technology. Prior to Trust Circle, Yen started her career as an investment banking analyst in Vietnam’s leading brokerage firm, Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corporation (HSC). Yen graduated cum laude from North Central College, Illinois where she pursued a B.S. in Finance and B.A. in Global Studies, and served in multiple student-led organizations.

Robert Webster

Bob Webster is a Managing Director at SEAF, currently supporting a number of initiatives, including SEAF’s Women’s Opportunity Fund in SE Asia. Mr. Webster has been an active trainer and advisor in impact investing, including for the GIIN, ANDE, Santa Clara University and the Harvard Business School. He also serves as the mentor for investment readiness for the social enterprise accelerator at Santa Clara University. Bob holds an MBA in finance and a BA in Mathematics from Indiana University. He completed Harvard University’s Financial Institutions for Private Enterprise Development Executive Program, and he has completed post-graduate work in agricultural economics at the University of London.

Katja Freiwald

Katja Freiwald has been working with Unilever for more than 10 years and has built her career around a broad expertise in consumer and B2B marketing. She leads on developing the advocacy and partnerships strategies on the areas of gender equality and livelihoods, and has extensive experience in developing and implementing successful partnerships with organizations such as: UN Women, WFP, IFAD, GAIN, PSI, Acumen and governmental organizations such as GIZ and the Dutch Government. Katja uses her marketing expertise to the overall development of partnerships supporting behavioral change campaigns as well as seeking innovative business models to deliver sustainable development for business and communities.

Preston Mitchum

Preston is a Black queer advocate and activist with over five years of legal and policy experience in his role as Senior Legal & International Policy Analyst at Advocates for Youth. At Advocates, he supports both Policy and International Youth Health and Rights Divisions on the global sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) portfolio, and is a Board Member of the MenEngage Alliance. In addition to his work at Advocates, he is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center teaching LGBT Health Law and Policy. He is the first openly LGBTQ Division Chair of the Washington Bar Association Young Lawyers Division (WBA YLD). Prior to joining Advocates, Preston served as the Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) where he provided in-depth analysis of new data, policies, and programs across SRHR.

Ambassador Deborah Birx

Deborah L. Birx, M.D., is the Coordinator of the United States Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS and U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy. Ambassador Birx is a world-renowned medical expert and leader in the field of HIV/AIDS. Her three-decade-long career has focused on HIV/AIDS immunology, vaccine research, and global health. As the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, Ambassador Birx oversees the implementation of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in history, as well as all U.S. Government engagement with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Serving as the U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy, she aligns the U.S. Government’s diplomacy with foreign assistance programs that address global health challenges and accelerate progress toward: achieving an AIDS-free generation; ending preventable child and maternal deaths; and preventing, detecting, and responding to infectious disease threats.

Patrick Mwesigye

Patrick is the founder and team leader at the Uganda youth and Adolescents Health Forum a grassroots youth led and youth serving organizations that works towards empowering marginalized and vulnerable adolescent girls and young women to live quality lives with equity and dignity and support them with opportunities to realize their full potential through addressing their health, gender equality and livelihood needs. Patrick is a very passionate and dynamic young man from Uganda who has championed gender equality reproductive rights for girls and has strongly worked with both local communities in Uganda and the Uganda government to advocate for prioritise these rights.

Rasha Jarhum

Rasha Jarhum is a South Yemeni Senior Development Policy Advisor and Expert on Women, Peace, and Security. Jarhum has been working in the humanitarian and development fields, and advocating for Human Rights including women and refugees rights for over 15 years. She is also a civil society activist and development campaigner. Jarhum is a recipient of the Women Have Wings award.

Erin Kenny

Ms. Erin Kenny (MPH) is the Head of the Technical Unit and Senior Adviser to the United Nations-European Union Spotlight Initiative to Eliminate Violence Against Women and Girls. In this role she provides technical oversight to a 500 million Euro portfolio of programmes worldwide. Prior to assuming her current position, Erin was a team leader in UNFPA’s Humanitarian Division, overseeing their work on addressing GBV in emergencies. Before joining the UN, Erin worked with the International Rescue Committee, Child Fund International, EngenderHealth, Save the Children, the Women’s Refugee Commission, and the Open Society Foundations.

Geetanjali Misra

Geetanjali Misra is the co-founder and executive director of CREA. Geeta has worked at the activist, grant-making, and policy levels on issues of sexuality, reproductive health, gender, human rights, and violence against women. Before joining CREA, she was program officer sexuality and reproductive health for the Ford Foundation in New Delhi and supported nongovernmental organizations in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka working on sexual and reproductive health and rights. She also co-founded SAKHI for South Asian Women in New York in 1989, a nonprofit organisation in New York, committed to ending violence against women of South Asian origin.

Memory Zonde-Kachambwa

Memory Zonde-Kachambwa is a pan-African feminist and social-justice activist. She is a recognized cross-cultural thought leader in movement-building and feminist organizing in policy, advocacy, and networking. She has over 18 years of experience developing, managing, and implementing programs promoting women and girls rights regionally and globally. Memory has extensive front-line experience implementing campaigns/policy advocacy initiatives advancing human rights, gender equality, economic justice, sexual-rights and bodily autonomy, transformational leadership, ending-violence-against women and girls and  sustainable development. She passionately dismantles and disrupts patriarchy, neo-liberal systems and structures that oppress and deny women dignity.

Shruti Arora

Shruti has been working on issues of Gender and Sexuality with a feminist understanding since 2011. She has been part of various campaigns, and activist and advocacy forums aimed at understanding, engaging with and speaking out against issues like street sexual harassment, moral policing, control over women and trans people's mobility in public spaces, and legal reforms on sexual violence (post-2012 rape case in Delhi).

Fionna Smyth

Fionna Smyth oversees Oxfam’s humanitarian campaigning to ensure the rights of those affected by crisis. She has worked in development and human rights for 15 years for Oxfam, Amnesty and the UN.

Mbathio Diaw

Marisa Viana

Marisa Viana is currently the Executive Coordinator of RESURJ (Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice Alliance), a transnational feminist alliance of activists working towards the fulfillment sexual and reproductive right and health for all. Marisa’s commitment and dedication to social justice, gender equality and human rights is deeply rooted in her experiences growing up in a resource-poor area of the Brazilian Amazon where discrimination and violence against girls and women continues to be the norm. Marisa’s experience spans policy advocacy, program development and evaluation, implementation of youth-friendly health services, grant making, and young feminist organizing. She has led the Association for Women’s Rights and Development (AWID)’s Young Feminist Program; worked at the Foundation for Tropical Medicine in the Brazilian Amazon implementing youth friendly health services program for adolescents living with HIV/AIDS, and she also served as Latin America Program Associate for the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC). She is a member of the BRICS Feminist Watch, the Vecinas Feministas for sexual and reproductive justice in Latin America, and an advisor to Mama Cash. Marisa has a Master in Public Health from Columbia University.

Laurie Adams

Laurie Adams is the Chief Executive Officer of Women for Women International (WfWI), a leading global organization dedicated to working with women survivors of war. With more than 25 years of experience working in international development and human rights, Ms. Adams is an innovative leader, strategist, and gender rights advocate. Prior to joining WfWI, Ms. Adams served as the Director of Women’s Rights for Oxfam in the United Kingdom leading communications, fundraising, program development, and advocacy of Oxfam’s women’s rights work. During her tenure, Ms. Adams created high-level partnerships with government leaders and multinational corporations and, under her leadership, Oxfam doubled its financial commitment to women’s rights.

Lisa Williams

Lisa E. Williams, Team Lead on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, OECD Development Co-operation Directorate, leads the Organisations work on gender equality policies and practices with the 30 development agencies and foreign affairs branches of government in the Development Assistance Committee. Her career spans more than 20 years in international development and work in the OECD, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and in public affairs, communications and journalism. She has led several expert development networks to deliver research programmes leading to internationally agreed guidance and standards in the OECD on major development challenges and in addition to gender equality has expertise in the areas of governance and anti-corruption, prevention of violent conflict and security sector reform, human rights, access to justice and development evaluation. She holds an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a BA in Journalism and International Affairs from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has worked and in a number of countries. She speaks French fluently and currently lives in France with her partner and three children.

Sarah Hendriks

Sarah Hendriks leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s efforts to achieve substantive and sustainable results in promoting gender equality and unlocking the empowerment of women and girls. Prior to joining the foundation in 2015, Sarah worked as the director of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion for Plan International, leading the development of a comprehensive gender equality policy, strategy and global capacity development program. In this role, she was the editorial chair and lead researcher for a multi-year global research and policy report entitled ‘Because I am a Girl: The State of the World’s Girls’. As the head of programming for Plan’s gender equality work, she led the development of the ‘Global Girls Innovation Program’, a $500 million portfolio of innovation and results-driven initiatives on adolescent girls. Sarah earned her master’s degree in adult education and international community development from the University of Toronto.

Lina Abirafeh, PhD

Dr. Lina Abirafeh, (Executive Director of the Arab Institute for Women at the Lebanese American University) is based in New York and Lebanon. Her background is in gender-based violence prevention and response in development and humanitarian contexts.

She brings over 20 years’ experience in countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, and others.

Her 2015 TEDx talk summarizes her experience. Lina completed her doctoral work from the London School of Economics and published “Gender and International Aid in Afghanistan: The Politics and Effects of Intervention” based on her research.

She speaks and publishes frequently on a range of gender issues. In 2018, Lina was listed as one of the Gender Equality Top 100: The Most Influential People in Global Policy - one of only two Arabs to make the list.

Sussanne Skidmore

Sussanne Skidmore was elected BCFED Secretary-Treasurer in November 2018. A well-known human rights, social justice and queer rights activist, Sussanne has served as executive vice-president of BCGEU since 2014. She has also served as co-chair of the BCFED’s Human Rights Committee, and is active in the Women’s Rights Committee.

Rita Aciro Lakor

Rita Aciro Lakor is champion for women's rights and leader of one of Uganda’s largest NGOs working on gender transformation and the empowerment of women. 

Krishanti Dharmaraj

Krishanti Dharmaraj founded the Dignity Index, a human rights measurement tool utilized to ensure equity and inclusion, co-founded WILD for Human Rights (Women's Institute for Leadership Development) and initiated the U.S. Human Rights Network. She served as the Western Regional Spokesperson for Amnesty International USA. Under Krishanti’s leadership, San Francisco became the first city in the US, and in the world, to pass legislation implementing an international human rights treaty (CEDAW). She conducts trainings and lectures extensively in the US and abroad.

Bilan Arte

Bilan is a black Muslim feminist residing on unceded and never surrendered Algonquin Territory. She is an activist with more than a decade of experience in grassroots and youth-lead movements, and is fueled by her passions for social justice and equity. Today, Bilan is the National Representative for Women and Human Rights at the Canadian Labour Congress. In her volunteer time, she is proud to serve as co-president for the board of directors of Planned Parenthood Ottawa, and as a national board member for Oxfam Canada.

Haldis Holst

Haldis Holst is Deputy General Secretary of Education International (EI) which represents organisations of teachers and other education employees across the globe and is the world’s largest federation of unions.

Ms. Holst is also currently Chair of the Governing Board of The European Wergeland Centre (EWC). The EWC is a resource centre based in Oslo for education professionals, researchers, civil society, policymakers, parents and students across Europe. In addition, Ms. Holst serves on the Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and on the Board of the Global Campaign Against Child Labour.

Ms. Holst graduated as a teacher in 1983, after majoring in English and Physical Education. She has worked as a teacher in primary and secondary schools and has been a union representative at local, regional and national level. In 2001, she became Vice-President of Norsk Lærerlag (NL). After the merger of the two largest teacher unions in Norway in 2002, she was an Executive Board member and later Vice President of Utdanningsforbundet (Union of Education Norway).

Ms. Holst has also served as Norway’s representative on the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) and been a member of the Executive Board of Education International. Ms. Holst was Vice-President of EI from 2009 –2012.

Laura Garcia

Laura Garcia is the Executive Director of Fondo Semillas, the only women’s fund in Mexico. Laura attended King’s College in London for a Master’s Degree in International Peace and Security. Before working at Semillas, she was a human rights advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. She has collaborated with various civil society organizations, such as the International Center for Transitional Justice and the International Council on Security and Development on projects focused on human rights, transitional justice and Latin American drug policies. Laura is a Board Member of Women’s Funding Network, and an advisor to the Global Fund for Women.

Maame Akua Kyerewaa-Marfo

Maame Akua Kyerewaa-Marfo is the communications assistant for the African Women’s Development fund, a singer, a feminist and a writer. She is passionate about social change, progressive feminist thought and using the arts to effect social change. She is an organizing member of the Young Feminist Collective, a space for feminist community and activism in Accra, Ghana.

Kinga Wisniewska

Kinga Wisniewska is a feminist and a sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) advocate from Warsaw, Poland. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Development Policy and Management at the Global Development Institute in Manchester, with a focus on environmental degradation, agricultural economics and intersectional gender equality. She has experience in resource mobilization and grant-making in the public and private sectors, as well as social justice networks. Kinga is a Women Deliver Young Leader and 120 Under 40 Award winner. She is passionate about SRHRs, women's rights and climate justice. She enjoys hiking, cooking and learning about anthropology of food.

Jess Tomlin

Named by the Stevie Awards as 2017's Most Innovative Woman of the Year, Jess is the President and CEO of The MATCH International Women’s Fund - Canada’s only global fund for women. Emphasizing the role of innovation in social movements, The MATCH Fund resources women’s organizations around the world working to change systems and dismantle barriers through innovative and disruptive approaches. Jess has worked in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Asia for a range of actors including the World Bank, the UN and USAID. Jess was the Director-Women’s Platform for CARE Canada’s signature ‘I am powerful’ campaign. Prior to her appointment at The MATCH Fund, Jess was with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), managing large-scale reform for the Agency that supports Palestinian Refugees in Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.

Mogesi Betty Samburu

Ms. Mogesi Betty Samburu is an Assistant Director Nutrition and Dietetics Services working for the Ministry of Health Kenya currently deputizing the head of nutrition and coordinating research in nutrition programme. Previously held the position of National Programme Manager for Maternal Infant and Young Child Nutrition (MIYCN) since 2013 to June 2017 at the Ministry of Health Headquarters. Ms. Samburu is a Nutrition and Dietetics specialist specifically with specialization in Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition (MIYCN) and she is passionate about changing lives of vulnerable populations especially women and children through influencing policy and practice using research evidence.

Muhammad Zahidullah

Mohammed Zahidullah is the Head of Sustainability at DBL Group – one of the largest apparels and textiles organization in Bangladesh. In this role, Zahid has been working to promote social and environmental responsibility for the textile industry of Bangladesh. Through a wide range of programs aimed at the improvement of the lives of workers and the local communities and reducing the impact on the environment; Zahid regularly works with a broad range of stakeholders, including UN agencies. He is currently managing several sustainability programs, including the Partnership for Cleaner Textiles (PaCT) by IFC, Mothers@Work and Children’s Right & Business Principle of UNICEF and Future Leaders Development Program (FLDP). Sustainability programs at DBL are aligned with SDGs.

Bianca Stumbitz

Dr. Bianca Stumbitz has specialist knowledge on the subject of maternity workplace policies and practices across the world, and has recently undertaken related research in South Africa, Ghana and Malaysia. She has particular experience in exploring breastfeeding support and other maternity protection issues at work within their specific policy and cultural context, with a focus on low paid and vulnerable workers, and in examining the feasibility of innovative workplace maternity supports at low cost.

Alison Stuebe

Dr. Stuebe completed her Obstetrics and Gynecology residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She completed fellowship training in Maternal Fetal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s, and she earned a Masters in Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. She has published more than 140 peer-reviewed articles. She is currently an Associate Professor and Board-Certified Maternal-Fetal Medicine subspecialist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and Distinguished Scholar of Infant and Young Child Feeding at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. She is Medical Director of Lactation Services at UNC Health Care, and she works with an interdisciplinary team of faculty and staff to enable women to achieve their infant feeding goals. Her current research focuses on developing models for holistic and equitable care of families during the 4th Trimester.