Koki Agarwal

Dr. Koki Agarwal is an internationally recognized expert in safe motherhood, reproductive health, and family planning policies and programs. She has more than 25 years of service delivery experience in reproductive health, family planning, and maternal health, and for over two decades has led, managed, and implemented large-scale USAID-funded global health projects.Since 2014, Dr. Agarwal has directed USAID’s flagship Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP), with a focus in 24 USAID priority countries. MCSP is the principal follow-on to the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP), for which she also handled the overall management and technical integrity.

Esenam Amuzu

Esenam is a member of CURIOUS MINDS Ghana, a youth-led advocacy group working towards youth development through the media. She addresses the demographic dividend in Africa through the improvement of SRHR access for young women, particularly in rural areas of her country. She volunteers for several youth and health related organizations, both on national and international levels. Esenam serves as a Youth advisory board member of the Ghana SRHR Alliance for young people. She is a youth representative on the UNFPA–UNICEF Joint Programme on Empowerment of Adolescent Girls through Sexual and Reproductive Health, Education and Rights.

Maryjane Lacoste

Maryjane Lacoste joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in May 2014, working with the Family Planning Team as the senior program officer for family planning service delivery and quality. As such, she leads and manages implementation of the Implant Access Program, ensuring that the strategy focuses on expanding access to method choice and strengthens quality of care including counseling, interpersonal communications, clinical training, service delivery, and performance monitoring.

Jennifer Pope

As Director of Family Planning & Reproductive Health at PSI, Jen provides technical assistance to country programs providing life-saving products, clinical services and behavior change communications that empower the world’s most vulnerable populations to lead healthier lives. Jen has over 15 years of experience working with non-profits, corporations and government agencies on family planning, HIV and AIDS, malaria, child survival, institutional strengthening, staff capacity building, social marketing and franchising. Before joining PSI, Jen worked for a variety of organizations including the Peace Corps as a health volunteer in Mali.

Joy Cunningham

Joy Cunningham is the Acting Director of Research Utilization at FHI 360. Joy manages a portfolio of global youth health and gender activities for multiple projects. From 2008 to 2014, she led the knowledge management activities conducted under USAID’s Interagency Youth Working Group (IYWG). In this role, she worked to synthesize new evidence about youth reproductive health and develop and implement evidence-based resources, working closely with country office youth specialists and FHI 360’s research utilization team. She currently serves on the management team of Advancing Partners and Communities, a USAID project to promote community-based access to family planning. In this role, Joy provides leadership to a team of FHI 360 staff and manages the youth and gender activities.

Dr. Holly Burke

Holly M. Burke, PhD, MPH is a scientist in the Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (RMNCH) Division at FHI 360. She has nearly 20 years of experience conducting research focused on sexual and reproductive health, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. She has held scientific leadership roles as the Principal or Co-Investigator for more than a dozen studies utilizing various research methodologies resulting in more than 25 peer-reviewed journal articles. She has expertise in both quantitative and qualitative research methods, program evaluation; and she has advanced training in psychometrics techniques, including scale development, testing and validation. Her content areas of expertise include adolescent health, contraceptive use dynamics, health communication, HIV prevention, and the integration of economic strengthening and health interventions to influence behavior change. Since 2009, Dr. Burke has been FHI 360’s lead scientist on DMPA-SC and self-injection efforts.

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.

Doreen Kessy

Doreen is a Chief Business Officer at Ubongo, a social enterprise that creates edutainment content for learners in Africa. At Ubongo she is instrumental in the distribution of its content across the continent, innovating and finding ways to continually deliver fun learning to over 11 million kids in Africa! As a champion for education and gender equality, Doreen strives to ensure more kids in Africa have access to top quality education. She has an MBA and BS in International Business and Economics from Liberty University and has worked at the Int’l Justice Mission in Washington DC, Wells Fargo in Virginia and Smile for Africa in Zimbabwe. Doreen is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, Acumen Fellow, and winner of the Women in Africa Entrepreneurship in Education Award.

Heather Beem

Heather completed her PhD in Mechanical Engineering at MIT in 2015. While a graduate student, Heather developed a passion for seeing MIT-style hands-on learning environments manifest around the globe. She co-founded the D-Lab: Education class, where she mentored dozens of students in international projects. For the last three years, she has lived in Ghana, where she has led PEN in the training of thousands of West African STEM teachers.

Samantha Williams

Samantha has over 10 years' experience in education in Africa and girls' leadership. Prior to heading girls'education at Teach For All, she served as Chief of Staff to the CEO, and led the organization's growth strategy and partner support in Africa for five years. Previously, Samantha worked at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, Harvard University, and Communities In Schools. She holds degrees from Harvard University, the University of the Witwatersrand, and Georgetown University, where she is a Trustee of the Baker Scholars Program. She is also on the board of viBe Theater Experience, a girl-centered NYC nonprofit.

Brittany Boettcher

Brittany has run several major programs for the Skoll Foundation since joining in 2006, including the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship. She currently oversees Skoll's Portfolio Intelligence program, a collaborative platform that allows the Foundation to develop insights and share learning on the impact of its Awardee portfolio. Brittany is passionate about building partnerships to drive more diverse, equitable, and inclusive practices in philanthropy to support underrepresented leaders on their path to scale. She holds a BA in Internal Affairs with a minor in Japanese from the University of Colorado Boulder and MBA from Presidio Graduate School.

Gerda Verburg

Gerritje “Gerda” Verburg is a Dutch politician and diplomat of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party and trade union leader. She served as Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United Nations organizations for Food and Agriculture in Rome from 2011 to 2016. In this role, she chaired the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) between 2013 and 2015. Additionally, she was appointed Chair of the Global Agenda Council for Food and Nutrition Security of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2014, and in 2016, she was appointed as Coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement by UN Secretary-General Bank Ki-moon. Previously, she was an MP from 1998 to 2007 and again from 2010 to 2011, and also served as Minister of Agriculture in the fourth Balkenende cabinet. During her time as an MP, she focused on matters of social affairs, the European Union, and energy and innovation policy.

Bärbel Weiligmann

Bärbel Weiligmann has addressed issues in agriculture from different stakeholder perspectives. Presently as special advisor for global commodity chains for the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. Previously, as Senior Program Manager for Food Security at the Rabobank Foundation she is responsible for developing and strengthening links between agriculture and nutrition. Previously at the Tropical Commodity Coalition (comprised of 10 Dutch NGOs), she was engaged in stimulating the development of sustainable supply chains in cocoa, coffee and tea. Working for the Hamburg Chamber of Skilled Crafts and being responsible for a large European education project (with 13 partners in 7 countries), and a marketing project, she expanded her experience with the private sector. Her career commenced with a 10 year stint at GIZ, the German International Co-operation Service, engaged in diverse positions and long-term overseas assignments, including as an Economic Advisor on marketing policies for Citrus fruits. Her PhD was in the field agriculture with specialization on information exchange in networks.

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.

Joel Spicer

Joel Spicer is the President and CEO of Nutrition International. He is a global health leader with a track record of building and leading initiatives and partnerships in nutrition, maternal and child health, TB, HIV, innovative finance and resource mobilization. Over his career he has worked for the Canadian International Development Agency, UNICEF, WHO, Stop TB Partnership, World Bank and in support of governments. Joel is passionate about unlocking human potential for people living in poverty and closing the missed opportunities gap. In September 2016, Joel received the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Emerging Public Health Professional Award.

Lawrence Haddad

Before joining GAIN, Dr. Lawrence Haddad was the founding co-chair and lead author of the Global Nutrition Report, Director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), and research Director at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). In 2018, Lawrence was awarded the World Food Prize for his: “relentless leadership and advocacy in mobilizing political will to make nutrition the focal point of development strategies.

Monami Mehnaz

Monami is a dynamic youth advocate for nutrition and joined SKNF in 2013 and participated in many training and youth forums activities in Bangladesh - winning the “Year best Shornokishoree 2014.Currently, she is also working as a Graduate SKNF leaders and support in training and capacity building activities of SKNF club members and part-time work as TV Anchor at Channel i.

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.

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.

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.

Taylor Riley

Taylor Riley is a Research Associate at the Guttmacher Institute. Her main research interests include adolescent sexual and reproductive health behaviors and needs, quality of maternal and reproductive healthcare services, and abortion in low- and middle-income countries. Her recent research utilized indirect measures of abortion in Zimbabwe and assessed uncertainty in expert surveys used to estimate abortion in restrictive settings. Ms. Riley received her Master of Public Health, with a focus on population and family health, from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Jihad Zahir

Jihad Zahir is an assistant professor within the department of computer science at the Faculty of Sciences Semlalia, Cadi Ayyad University, Morocco. She holds a PhD degree in computer Sciences. Her research interests include Information Retrieval, Text Mining and Sentiment Analysis. Before joining academia, Jihad ZAHIR was working, for two years, as a consultant for the Youth Programme, in the Moroccan office of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Claire Sibthorpe

Claire is the Head of Connected Women which is focused on accelerating digital and financial inclusion for women and works with mobile operators and their partners to address the barriers to women accessing and using mobile internet and mobile money services. Claire has been working for 20 years with public, private and international development organisations on social policy and service delivery with a focus on information and communications technology (ICT) policy and practice. She has developed, managed and implemented programmes in Africa, Asia and the UK including as a senior consultant at Atos KPMG Consulting and at IDRC.

Fridah Githuku

Fridah Githuku is the Executive Director of GROOTS Kenya, a national movement of grassroots women in Kenya. She provides strategic leadership in the implementation of a Data-Driven, Community-led Advocacy campaign on gender equality titled “SDGs Mashinani (Swahili word for grassroots) in partnership with Equal measures 2030. Fridah is currently representing Civil Society in the Inter Agency Gender Statistics Committee by the National Statistical Agency in Kenya She serve in the Kiambu County Environment Committee responsible for county environmental management. She is a champion of community-generated data and grassroots women leadership.

Emily Courey Pryor

Emily Courey Pryor is Executive Director of Data2X. She also led the UN Foundation’s program on Women’s Economic Empowerment, and was Senior Advisor to the Girl Up campaign. Emily previously worked for Gilead Sciences, and for the American Red Cross Headquarters. She received her MPH from the University of Michigan and BA from the University of Florida.

Affette McCaw-Binns

Dr. McCaw-Binns is the Professor of Reproductive Health and Epidemiology at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Her maternal and perinatal health research has informed the development of maternal mortality surveillance, clinical guidelines and health promotion tools for pre-eclampsia, and the establishment of high-risk antenatal clinics and other services aimed at ending preventable maternal and perinatal deaths in Jamaica. She has collaborated with PAHO, UNFPA, and UN women among others and has served on WHO HRP committees since 2006 focused on improving measurement, surveillance and strategies to enhance global maternal health and survival.

Dr. Ian Askew

Dr. Ian Askew is the Director of WHO’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research, which includes the UNDP-UNFPA-UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP). In this role, he provides leadership on critical aspects of sexual and reproductive health and rights by: shaping the global research agenda and coordinating high-impact research; setting norms and standards for delivering sexual and reproductive health services; articulating ethical and human-rights-based approaches; strengthening research capacity of institutions in low- and middle- income settings; and guiding efforts to achieve WHO’s vision of a world in which all people attain the highest possible standard of health and well-being, including their sexual and reproductive health.

A social scientist by training, Dr. Askew has led research over three decades that has developed and tested interventions for improving access to and use of sexual and reproductive health services, with a particular focus on health systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Examples include community participation in primary health care, improving the quality of reproductive health services, multisectoral approaches for addressing the needs of adolescents, integrated strategies for delivering comprehensive services, especially for STIs including HIV, evaluating community and health system efforts to encourage abandonment of FGM, and innovative financing mechanisms for reproductive health services. Before joining WHO in 2016, Dr. Askew lived in Kenya for 25 years and worked in multiple countries throughout the region.

Marleen Temmerman

Professor Dr. Marleen Temmerman is a well-recognized global leader in women, child & adolescent health. She brings academic, technical, political, governance, management and leadership skills to the table as well as diplomacy, advocacy, fundraising, training and clinical expertise. Currently she is Chair, Dept Obs/Gyn, and Director, Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health, Aga Khan University East Africa (Nairobi, Kenya). Prior she was the Director of the Department of Reproductive Health and Research (RHR) at WHO. As an obstetrician she supervised over 18,000 births in many parts of the world, during her over 30 years of clinical work. Her interest is women’s health and rights.

Angelina Spicer

Angelina Spicer is a comedian, actress, social media influencer, wife and mother. A cum laude graduate of Howard University, Spicer has smartly delved deep for comedy that’s authentic, transparent and relatable. By using her social media platform, she became an outspoken advocate for maternal mental health after she was admitted into a psychiatric facility for treatment of postpartum depression (PPD). It was then that her journey to remove the stigma from the shame and guilt associated with PPD began. She became the 2018 Spokeswoman for The Blue Dot Project, has lobbied on Capitol Hill, helped pass three new pieces of legislation for new moms in California and been featured in USA Today, Essence magazine, and on NPR.

Emily Chartrand-Hudson

Emily Chartrand-Hudson is passionate about providing reproductive healthcare services directly to women as an Indigenous Registered Midwife. Emily was born and raised in Canada. She briefly studied English Literature at Trent University in Canada and received her Bachelor of Health Sciences degree in Midwifery at Laurentian University in Canada. As an Indigenous Registered Midwife at K’Tigaaning Midwives, she is responsible for providing healthcare to women in the prenatal, intrapartum, and postpartum periods. She also is responsible for providing care to their newborns. As an advocate, Emily works in an Indigenous community, providing healthcare services to Indigenous women and children.

Dr. Mariam Wallet Aboubakrine

Dr. Mariam Wallet Aboubakrine, is a Tuareg woman. She is a current member and former chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous. She holds a M.A.S on humanitarian action from Geneva University in Switzerland and a medical doctor degree from University of Tizi-ouzou in Algeria. Dr. Wallet Aboubakrine is also member of Tin hinan, a nomadic women organization from the region of Sahel-Sahara in Africa. Currently she is in education degree at University of Ottawa, guest speaker, and independent consultant on Indigenous Issues.

@MAboubakrine

Marion Buller

Chief Commissioner Buller is Cree and a member of the Mistawasis First Nation in Saskatchewan. In 1994, Buller was the first Indigenous woman appointed as a Provincial Court Judge in British Columbia. She was instrumental in establishing the First Nations Courts of British Columbia in 2006 and the Aboriginal Family Healing Court in 2016. Chief Commissioner Buller received both her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Victoria. Prior to being appointed to the Provincial Court, Buller worked in civil and criminal law. She was Commission Counsel for the Cariboo-Chilcotin Justice Inquiry and served as President and Director of the Indigenous Bar Association in Canada, the B.C. Police Commission, the Law Courts Education Society and the Law Foundation of British Columbia. She retired from the Provincial Court on August 31, 2016 in order to lead the National Inquiry.

Jane Meriwas

Jane Meriwas is an indigenous woman, mentor, feminist and women human rights defender with more than 15 years advancing women and girls rights national, regional and international platforms. Jane is a graduate with BA in Community Development and undergraduate in Gender Development. Jane is the founder of Samburu Women Trust, an Indigenous women-led hub working locally, nationally, regionally and internationally to advance indigenous women and girls collective voice, in policy and influence community perceptions towards women decision making. Jane is the winner of tje 2019 Kenya Red Cross Inclusion Award and a board member of the National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders Kenya and IPACC East Africa Regional Representatives.

Lynne Groulx

As the Executive Director for the Native Women’s Association of Canada, Lynne Groulx advocates for the rights of Indigenous women. Her passion and expertise on Indigenous rights, gender equality, human rights and economic development make Lynne one of our country’s strongest activists. Through her intensive dedication to empower women of all Nations, Lynne won the Women’s Executive Network’s 2018 Canada’s Most Powerful Women award.

Lynne’s academic background equipped her to push for decolonization in all aspects of society. She focused in civil and common law, with studies in corporate law, social justice, and Indigenous legal traditions and customary laws.

During her past two years at NWAC, Lynne furthered the organization’s capacity to address its mission “to advocate for and inspire women and families of many Indigenous nations” and defend Indigenous women’s human rights. Through effective high-level negotiations with key government agencies, Lynne is bringing Indigenous women’s issues to the national and international stage.

Most notably, Lynne has taken the lead on developing a social and cultural innovation NWAC Resiliency Centre. This culturally appropriate, Indigenous hub will promote healing and feature workshop spaces and a boutique to provide employment and revenus to over 200 Indigenous women entrepreneurs in Canada.

Lynne Groulx is a paradigm of resolute leadership expressing the full capacity of her knowledge to ensure justice and equality for all Indigenous women. Through her visionary efforts, she has embossed the unmistakeable value and power of the many Nations of Indigenous women to further the road to reconciliation and decolonization.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Jemie Shrestha

Jemie Shrestha is a Youth Advocate with White Ribbon Alliance Nepal. Ms. Shrestha is a passionate advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights, focused on improving access to services and education for girls. She has effectively used health education and the promotion of self-care principles and practices to challenge misinformation, cultural taboos and often deadly rituals around menstruation. She is an experienced speaker and advocate, having previously spoken at the World Health Assembly and multiple local and national forums. Ms. Shrestha is currently studying for her degree in Social Work from St. Xavier’s College.

Martha Brady

Martha Brady is Director, Sexual and Reproductive Health at PATH. She leads a global program aimed at improving the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of women and girls, including research and programming on reproductive health literacy, SRHR-HIV linkages, and women’s self-care products and practices. For more than two decades, Ms. Brady has worked with diverse partners to design and evaluate health, education, and sports programs for women and girls, including authorship of numerous peer-reviewed articles and publications. She was previously Senior Associate at the Population Council. Ms. Brady holds a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University.

Chiwawa Nkhoma

Chiwawa Nkhoma is Deputy Country Representative and Head of HIV at PSI Malawi. In her 10 years with Population Services International (PSI), she has initiated and implemented wide-ranging HIV service delivery programs, including HIV self-testing. Ms. Nhkoma is actively engaged in self-care policy, successfully working with the Government of Malawi to improve access to self-care options. Prior to PSI, she spent eight years managing clinical trials research on microbicides. Ms. Nhkoma holds a master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins University, and a master’s in science and bachelor’s from the University of Malawi.

Manjulaa Narasimhan

Manjulaa Narasimhan is a scientist in the Department of Reproductive Health and Research at WHO, leading the development and implementation of the WHO Consolidated Guideline on Self-care Interventions for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). She also coordinates advocacy, research, policy and programmatic linkages between SRHR and HIV interventions, and co-convenes the interagency working group on SRHR/HIV linkages.

Miles Kemplay

Miles Kemplay is Executive Director, Adolescence, having led CIFF's work on adolescent sexual and reproductive health as Director since 2016. He joined CIFF in 2012 following six years with Marie Stopes International and more than a decade working for global health, development and private sector organizations. Miles was previously Director for Business Development at MSI London, after leading the MSI program in Madagascar. Before MSI, Miles managed neglected tropical disease programs in Sudan, West Darfur and Liberia. Miles received his M.Sc. in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and an undergraduate degree from the University of London.

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.

Monica Magoke-Mhoja

Dr. Magoke-Mhoja brings over 25 years of experience in leading women’s rights programs including designing and implementing collaborative community and international programs on land rights  and gender-based violence. She is the first chairperson of WiLDAF-Tanzania and the first coordinator of the United Nations’ CEDAW Task Force in Tanzania. She is also the founder of the Women’s Legal Aid Center and facilitated the establishment of paralegal centers to provide legal aid services. She is a 2003 recipient of the American Bar Association’s International Human Rights Award for significant contribution to human rights, rule of law and access to justice.

Soledad Tlehuactle González

Soledad is an active member and president of the Association of Foresters of the Sierra of Zongolica, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Mexican Network of Peasant Forestry Organizations. Her role within the organization includes aiding women victims of domestic violence, helping women access education as a means to prevent violence, and advocacy to strengthen the rights of women and children as well as access to economic opportunities. Soledad is also a member of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests, a regional organization dedicated to defending the land and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples and forest communities.

Kalpana Giri

Kalpana Giri is a forester by training and action researcher by practice with substantive experience in development policy and practice. She has implemented environmental development projects, primarily in the Asia-Pacific Region, and has provided oversight to all aspects of research and project management, including planning, implementation, evaluation and upscaling. Her areas of technical expertise include action research, policy analysis, gender equity and social inclusion, governance, tenure and developing enabling environments within projects, programs and organizations. She excels in building international, regional, national and community sector partnerships, with demonstrated success in establishing a network of “Gender Champions” who are influencing gender equality in more than 20 key climate change, REDD+, and FLEGT policies and processes in six countries in the Asia-Pacific.

Silene Ramirez

Silene is the Gender Justice lead at the global Coalition Rights and Resource Initiative. She graduated from the University of Cincinnati, in Ohio, with an M.A. in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality studies and holds a B.A. in international relations from the National University of Costa Rica. She has worked throughout Latin America on topics related to Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendant communities’ collective tenure rights, rural and indigenous women’s leadership, health and education. In her home country, Costa Rica, she worked with Amnesty International’s Regional Office with the program Stop Violence Against Women and collaborated with the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights.