Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Justin Trudeau is Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister. He also serves as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister of Youth. Trudeau’s vision of Canada is a country where everyone has a real and fair chance to succeed. His experiences as a teacher, father, leader, and advocate for youth have shaped his dedication to Canadians – and his commitment to make Canada a place where everyone has the opportunities they need to thrive.

Before entering politics, Trudeau spent several years teaching French, math, and other subjects in Vancouver. Teaching allowed him to make a positive impact in the lives of young people. He remains committed to hearing the voices of young Canadians, from the classroom to Parliament Hill.

Trudeau entered politics to make change that would better serve all Canadians. In 2007, he built a community-based, grassroots campaign to win the Liberal Party nomination in the Montréal riding of Papineau. He was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2011 and 2015. Justin was elected Leader of the Liberal Party in April 2013. His leadership campaign focused on building a new, truly national movement of progressive Canadians, bringing hundreds of thousands of Canadians into politics, most for the first time. He worked closely with his team to build a plan to create jobs, grow the economy, and strengthen the middle class. With Trudeau’s leadership, the Liberal plan emphasized fair economic opportunity for everyone, respect for and promotion of freedom and diversity, and a more democratic government that truly represents Canadians.

As Prime Minister, Trudeau leads a government that works hard every day to build an economy that works for the middle class and people working hard to join it. His team is focused on creating new jobs, fostering strength out of Canada’s rich diversity, fighting climate change, and achieving reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. A strong feminist, Trudeau appointed Canada’s first gender balanced Cabinet.

Trudeau is husband to Sophie Grégoire, a former Quebec TV and radio host. They married in 2005 and are the proud parents of Xavier, Ella-Grace, and Hadrien.

Anna Rosling Rönnlund

Together with Hans Rosling and Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund founded Gapminder in 2005. Gapminder’s mission statement is to fight devastating ignorance with a fact-based world view everyone can understand.

She designed the user-interface of the famous animating bubble-chart tool called Trendalyzer, used by millions of students across the world, to understand global development trends. The tool was acquired by Google, and Anna worked at Google in Mountain View, CA as a Senior Usability Designer 2007 to 2010. At Google Anna improved search results for public data, developed data exploration tools for Public Data and made a bubble tool gadget (Motion chart) in Google Spreadsheets. In 2010 Anna came back to Gapminder to develop new free teaching material. Anna is now Vice President and Head of Design & User Experience at Gapminder. She also sits in the Gapminder Board. Anna holds a Master’s Degree in Sociology and a Bachelor’s Degree in Photography.

Anna founded Dollar Street, the biggest systematic image bank with representative home documentations based on data. At the moment we have almost 30 000 photos and 10 000 video clips, which are free to use under Creative Common license.

Together with Ola and Hans, Anna wrote the Factfulness book, launched in April 2018.

Isha Sesay

Isha Sesay is a multiaward-winning CNN journalist, who has covered every major story of the past 10 years – with a particular focus on stories of social injustice and their impact on women and girls, as well as other marginalized communities. She is also the Founder and President of W.E. (Women Everywhere) Can Lead, a non-profit organization working in her native country of Sierra Leone, to nurture and empower teenage girls to become Africa’s next generation of dynamic female leaders. Sesay is currently putting the finishing touches on her first book, which details the mass abduction of the 276 Nigerian schoolgirls by the Boko Haram terror group in 2014. Their plight generated countless headlines around the world and the hashtag, #BringBackOurgirls. Harper Collins will publish the as-yet unnamed title, next year.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is a South African politician and United Nations official, and is currently serving as the Executive Director of UN Women with the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka has devoted her career to issues of human rights, equality and social justice. She has worked in government and civil society, with the private sector, and was actively involved in the struggle to end apartheid in her home country of South Africa. Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka began her career as a teacher and gained international experience as a coordinator at the World YWCA in Geneva, where she established a global programme for young women. She is the founder of the Umlambo Foundation, which supports leadership and education. A longtime champion of women’s rights, she is affiliated with several organizations devoted to education, women’s empowerment and gender equality.

The Honourable Maryam Monsef

The Honourable Maryam Monsef is the Member of Parliament for Peterborough—Kawartha, and Canada’s Minister of International Development and Minister for Women and Gender Equality.

After running for Mayor of Peterborough in 2014, she became the first woman to be elected in the federal riding of Peterborough—Kawartha, the first Afghan-Canadian Member of Parliament in Canada’s history, and the first Muslim to serve as a federal Cabinet Minister.

Drawing on her years of experience in community organizing, Minister Monsef has worked with local organizations, including the YWCA of Peterborough and Haliburton Board of Directors, the Ontario Public Interest Research Group, and the New Canadians Centre. She has served as the Vice-President of the YWCA in her riding, and sat on a number of councils and committees dedicated to promoting social and economic justice. She also founded the Red Pashmina Campaign, which raised money to support education for women and girls in Afghanistan.

As Minister for Women and Gender Equality, she has led Status of Women Canada’s transition from agency to the new Department for Women and Gender Equality, and has secured major investments in Canada’s equality-seeking movement, including over $200 million to help prevent and address gender-based violence, and $100 million to build the capacity of women’s organizations from coast to coast to coast. She launched the first-ever federal gender-based violence strategy, has worked with the Minister of Finance to ensure that all federal budgets have to undergo a gender budgeting process; and partnered with the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour and the President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government to create and pass historic proactive pay equity legislation to ensure equal pay for work of equal value in the federally regulated sector.

Minister Monsef has lived in Peterborough since 1996, and has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Trent University. She speaks English, Farsi and Dari, and continues to work on her French.

Joannie Marlene Bewa

Joannie Marlene Bewa is a physician, researcher, and sexual and reproductive health advocate. She was recently named a United Nations Young Leader for the SDGs by the UN Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth to support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. She founded in Benin Republic, the Young Beninese Leaders Association (YBLA), a youth and women-led organization, which among other achievements empowered and trained more than 10,000 youth, girls, and women through capacity-building, mentoring on sexuality education, reproductive health, leadership, and entrepreneurship and was awarded the First Lady Michelle Obama Young African Women Leaders Grant. Joannie is also a public health researcher at the College of Public Health, University of South Florida and is advancing scientific research for women’s health.

Joannie works to advance women’s rights and health through her many roles and affiliations: board member for Merck for Mothers, Women Deliver Young Leader (Class of 2016), founding member of the UNFPA Youth Panel Benin, and member of the Adolescent and Youth Constituency of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, Children’s Health (PMNCH) hosted by the World Health Organization.

Joannie was featured by Melinda Gates’ on her list of six influential women on the topic of global access to contraception in 2016, recently recognized as a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Goalkeeper and a ONE Campaign Woman of the Year. She supported global advocacy alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on International Women’s Day for a commitment of 650 million dollars for women’s health globally and is one the spokesperson of the ONE Campaign Open Letter for women’s right which reached over 150,000 signatures in few days.

Winnie Byanyima

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director at Oxfam International, is a global authority on economic inequality and women’s rights. Born in Mbarara, Uganda, her activism was inspired by the brave women in her village. She continues to support women’s rights struggles worldwide. Winnie formerly led the directorates of gender and development at the UN Development Programme and the African Union Commission, and served in the Ugandan Parliament for 11 years.

Ms. Byanyima is a signatory to her country’s 1985 peace agreement and has helped to broker and support women’s participation in peace processes in several African countries. As part of her drive to bring women’s perspectives into core development issues, she co-founded the Global Gender and Climate Alliance and chaired UN-wide task forces on gender aspects of the Millennium Development Goals and climate change.

Ms. Byanyima has served on numerous global boards and commissions and is currently a member of the Executive Board of the International Centre for Research on Women. She holds a M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering in Energy Conservation and the Environment (University of Cranfield, UK), and a B.Sc. in Aeronautical Engineering (University of Manchester, UK).

Jean Kemitare

Jean Kemitare is the Program Manager for the GBV Prevention Network at Raising Voices. Her work involves the coordination of a regional Network spread across the Horn, East and Southern Africa. She holds a Masters in in Social Sector Planning & Management and Bachelor's in Social Work from Makerere University. She has worked in the gender-based violence/ gender equality field for over ten years and was previously engaged in chronic poverty research and policy advocacy. She has expertise in GBV program strategy development, implementation & monitoring; capacity building for NGOs involved in GBV programing, advocacy and research. She is an active member of civil society in Uganda and serves as board member to some. She has authored a range of approaches and articles including the Get Moving! Process for strengthening individuals and organizations addressing GBV. Her dream is to see a world where women and men are valued and access opportunity/resources in equal measure.

Humberto Carlo

Humberto Carolo is the Executive Director at White Ribbon in Canada and the Global Co-chair of the MenEngage Alliance. He is a men and masculinities and gender-based violence prevention expert with 20 years of experience in the not-for-profit sector. He has strong cross-cultural experience in developing and overseeing large-scale, multi-national programs and strategies involving diverse stakeholders in multiple sectors. Humberto's current work is focused on developing educational strategies to engage men and boys in promoting gender equality, healthy masculinities, and preventing all forms of gender-based violence.

Sophia Wanjiku

Sophia is a gender expert with a Master's degree in Gender and Development, Master's in International Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid and a BA in Sociology. Currently working at International Rescue Committee (IRC) as Women's Protection and Empowerment (WPE) as Technical Advisor, she provides technical support for WPE programs in Horn and East Africa (Uganda, South Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe). She has 18 years' professional experience working in different national and international NGOs in East and Horn of Africa in humanitarian and development context. She has worked at technical and managerial positions thematic areas of Gender mainstreaming, gender based violence, young women and adolescent girls programming, governance, peace building and HIV/Aids. Her previous work has been with different INGOs including Mercy Corps, Women for Women International and other Kenya National NGOs.

Ramatu Bangura

Ramatu serves as a Program Officer for the NoVo Foundation’s Advancing Adolescent Girls’ Rights initiative. Prior to joining NoVo, Ramatu served as Program Director at the Sauti Yetu Center for African Women in the South Bronx, where she founded and managed a program designed to meet the educational, developmental, leadership and college readiness needs of immigrant young women from West Africa. She engaged in advocacy and research on a host of issues impacting transnational girls, including early and forced marriage, sexual violence, trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation, and educational access for English Language Learners. While working in community-based organizations, Ramatu earned both a Masters of Education (EdM) and Doctorate of Education (EdD) in International & Transcultural Studies Teachers College, Columbia University.

Moufeeda Haidar

Moufeeda Haidar is the Gender Integration Specialist at the Arab Institute For Women. She joined the Institute in 2015 and is a master trainer in the Qudwa: Basic Living Skills Program that targets illiterate to semi-literate women in the community along with a previous experience as a national consultant and trainer on human rights and intercultural citizenship. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Law from the Lebanese University.

Ugwu Nkechi Uzoamaka

Nkechi Uzoamaka is a 26-year old program officer with LEDAP in Nigeria. In 2017 she implemented LEDAP's project on supporting survivors of sexual and reproductive rights violations in the three North East states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe. In this project they provided counseling and vocational training for women and girls, mostly drawn from IDPs camps and host communities in these states. These women suffered from violations such as child marriages, rape, sexual slavery, sexual exploitation etc. In 2018, Ms. Uzoamaka participated in LEDAP-CRR collaborative project on documenting incidents of SRHR violations in Northern Nigeria.

Kate Gilmore

Kate Gilmore was appointed United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights on 1st December 2015.

She brings to the position diverse and longstanding experience in strategic leadership and human rights advocacy with the United Nations, government and non-government organizations.

Prior to joining OHCHR, Ms. Gilmore was Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director for Programmes with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Previously she was National Director of Amnesty International Australia and then Executive Deputy Secretary General of Amnesty International.

Ms. Gilmore started her career as a social worker and government policy officer in Australia. She helped establish Australia’s first Centre Against Sexual Assault at Melbourne’s Royal Women’s Hospital and her work over a number of years focused on prevention of violence against women. In Australia, she was granted honorary appointments to provincial and national public policy and law reform processes, including membership of the country’s first National Committee on Violence Against Women.

Ms. Gilmore holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New England and postgraduate degrees in Social Work from the University of Melbourne and Community Development from RMIT.

Sathya Doraiswamy

Dr. Sathya Doraiswamy, currently the Chief of Health at UNFPA/ Bangladesh, is a senior public health professional with 20 years of experience in the Government, NGOs and in the UN. He holds a BA in Medicine and Masters in Community Medicine from Chennai, India and is pursuing a professional doctorate at the University of Bath, UK—studying provider attitudes behind medically unnecessary cesarean sections. Dr. Doraiswamy has worked in Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and in Europe in various capacities- committing the bulk of his career has been in supporting humanitarian public health responses for conflict affected populations.

Grace Kodindo

Dr. Grace Kodindo is an Obstetrician-Gynecologist who currently serves as the Director of Reproductive Health in Chad’s MOH. She obtained her undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Montreal. Dr. Kodindo served as the head of maternity at the Central Hospital in N’Djamena for many years and received a Distinguished Community Service Award for EmOC from FIGO/ Mailman’s School of Public Health. Dr. Kodindo later worked as the Chief Advisor for the Reproductive Health Access, Information and Services in Emergency Settings (RAISE) Initiative, and was featured in a 2005 BBC film, Dead Mums Don’t Cry, and documentary, Grace Under Fire.

Debora Diniz

Debora Diniz currently serves as the Deputy Director of Rights and Justice at IPPF/WHR. Prior to joining IPPF, Ms. Diniz co-founded and served as Executive Director of ANIS Institute of Bioethics, a feminist organization based in Brazil dedicated to advancing women’s rights through litigation, communications, and advocacy. An anthropologist by training, Debora’s research spans several issues including reproductive and sexual rights, disability, criminal justice and prison reform, and public health. Ms. Diniz has extensive experience arguing cases on abortion and marriage equality before Brazil’s Supreme Tribunal. She was recently engaged in evaluating the SRHR situation and needs of populations displaced from Venezuela.

Martin Gutierrez

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.

Gladys Mugambi

Gladys Mugambi worked as a District Nutritionist at Thika District Hospital for 10 years. She has served as the National Coordinator of the Micronutrient Program. She has worked as Deputy Head of the Division of Nutrition and National Food Fortification for the Ministry of Health and is licensed as a Registrar at the Kenya Nutritionists and Dieticians Institute. She currently acts as the Multi Sectoral Coordinator FS & Nutrition in the Department of Health Sector Coordination and Inter Governmental Affairs at the Kenyan Ministry of Health, acts as the SUN Focal Point and a SUN Executive Committee member.

Vivian Onano

Vivian Onano is a social entrepreneur and seasoned humanitarian who is recognized as an emerging woman leader bringing change to the African continent. She is a youth advisor to Global Education Monitoring Report, UNESCO and the Founder/Director at Leading Light Initiative. Vivian is a respected speaker who often speaks on global education, gender equality, youth empowerment, and international development. She has presented at the United Nations General Assembly and the Clinton Global Initiative, among others.

Irshad Danish

Irshad Danish is International Development Practitioner with key expertise in Policy Advocacy and Campaigning. He has been advocating for Women and Child Rights with focus on Nutrition, Reproductive Health & Rights and Right to Survival. He is Steering group member of SUN Civil Society Network and founding Secretary of SUN Academia & Research Network. He also coordinates SUN Civil Society Asia Regional Coordination Group. He has been working with leading International organizations including Save the Children & Nutrition International.

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.

Lily Kak

Dr. Lily Kak is Newborn Health Team Lead at U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington DC. She received her PhD in Anthropology from the State University of New York and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in health education and behavioral sciences from Johns Hopkins University. During her 18 years at USAID, she has led the development of the Agency’s global development alliances with the private sector, health professional associations, and NGOs to scale up newborn health interventions through innovative private sector approaches. She provides leadership and guidance to expand and ensure technical excellence of USAID’s newborn programs worldwide.

Winnie Mwebesa

Dr. Winnie Mwebesa is Associate Vice President, Technical, at Save the Children US, with more than 25 years of clinical and programming experience in reproductive health. Dr. Mwebesa manages technical experts supporting the design, implementation, management and evaluation of Maternal Newborn and Child Health programming in low resources settings. A native of Uganda, Winnie grew up in Belgium where she earned her M.D. and ObGyn residency at the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels. She also holds a Master in Public Health in population and reproductive health from Johns Hopkins University.

Malika Ndlovu

Malika Ndlovu is an internationally published South African poet, playwright, performer and arts project manager. Via her poetic memoir, “Invisible Earthquake: A Woman’s Journal through Stillbirth,” published by Modjaji Books in March 2009, she has become a passionately vocal advocate around pregnancy-related loss, bereavement support and maternal health through a wide variety of community interventions. Malika’s voice has featured in the Lancet Medical Journal, SANDS (Miscarriage, Stillbirth & Newborn Death Support) newsletters, BBC World Service, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimist” blog, and WHO’s April 2017 World Health Day online campaign focused on mental health issues.

Sandra Oyarzo Torres

Registered Midwife Sandra Oyarzo Torres is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile. Since taking that position in 1998, she has taught across the five-year degree curriculum of the Midwifery School. With a Master’s degree in Health Science Education, she currently teaches in the Department of Education in Health Sciences to students seeking Postgraduate Degrees. Additionally, she is the coordinator and Professor in the Multidisciplinary Teams Formation Program. Sandra has been a member of the Chilean Midwives Association since 2007, working in the Scientific Committee. She was elected Secretary General in 2015, and in 2018 she was elected as the Vice President in the new Board. She became an ICM Board Member representing Central and South America in 2014 and the same year she trained to be a Master Trainer CBE TOT. During 2017, she was reelected as an ICM Board Member for her second term. As an ICM Board Member, Sandra has devoted herself to strengthen ICM’s three pillars: Education, Association and Regulation in the Americas.

Joy E. Lawn

Professor Joy Lawn is an African-born, British-trained pediatrician and perinatal epidemiologist, now Director of Maternal, Adolescent, Reproductive & Child health (MARCH) Centre at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. She has >25 years of experience including: clinical care, epidemiological burden estimates, design and evaluation of maternal, newborn and child care services at scale, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, including a decade with Save the Children. Her Masters of Public Health is from Emory University and PhD in perinatal epidemiology from UCL. She has published >250 peer reviewed papers including several Lancet series on newborn survival and stillbirths. Joy is a champion for women’s leadership.