Chhavi Ghuliani
Chhavi Ghuliani is currently on the leadership team for BSR’s HERproject, a cross-sector collaborative initiative aiming to empower low-income women, and leads the program’s global work in financial inclusion. Prior to joining BSR, Chhavi worked for a socially responsible investment firm, spent several years as an operations manager for Oracle’s Asia-Pacific and Americas regions, developed a CSR strategy for a spirits company in Mexico, and freelanced as a CSR consultant for the Institute of Public Health. Chhavi holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business, an M.A. in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. in English and Computer Science from Rutgers University. He speaks English, Spanish, and Hindi.
Nazneen Huq
Nazneen C. Huq, founded Change Associates Ltd. with a mission to improve the lives of disadvantaged people namely garment factory workers through building their capacities. 20 years of experience has given her the insight that an enabling environment needs to be created for workers through training management as well. Trained as an Architect, she has a unique background in designing and facilitating process oriented workshops /trainings/curriculums using participatory methods which provides her clients with business benefits. As Country Manager, HERproject- an initiative of BSR, aimed at creating awareness on health, finance and gender issues for workers, she is managing and facilitating partnerships between international companies and local manufacturers.
Krittika Wutthipat-arree
Krittika is SVP of Li & Fung. She oversees all operations across business units in Thailand and Myanmar. Prior to this, she led LF’s Vendor Compliance & Sustainability handling corporate global policy, strategy and execution within supply base globally. Before Li & Fung, she was SEA & SA Regional Director – Sustainable Manufacturing and Sourcing at Nike Inc with responsibility of developing and managing strategies and execution activities throughout the region. Earlier positions have included APAC Organizational Development and Regional Coordinator & Country Director for the International Youth Foundation; and Country Director for Commercial Intelligence, a legal and business consulting firm.
Henri Dommel
Henri Dommel joined UNCDF as the Director of the Inclusive Finance Unit in 2007. He is responsible for leading the Unit’s strategy in promoting inclusive financial sectors in Least Developed Countries. This includes the development of a range of market development diagnostics and tools as well as programs targeting specific access to finance “frontier” issues (i.e., women and youth, access to clean energy, etc.). He also contributes to mobilizing external partnerships and resources. Henri leads a technical team of regional managers, portfolio managers and country resident advisors based in the field. Prior to joining UNCDF as Director, Henri spent six years (2001-2007) as IFAD’s (International Fund for Agricultural Development) Senior Technical Advisor, Rural Finance. Prior to IFAD, Henri worked as Programme Manager at UNCDF from 1993 to 2001. Before entering the UN system, Henri worked at Banque Paribas in New Delhi as well as in Paris at the bank’s department for Africa and the Middle East. Henri holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC, and a degree from the “Institut d’Études Politiques” in Paris, France.
Anna-Karin Jatfors
Anna-Karin Jatfors is the Deputy Regional Director at the UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, where she provides programmatic and operational oversight to ensure the effective delivery of results at regional and country level. She also engages in technical advisory services and capacity-building to facilitate the development, implementation and monitoring of policies and programmes to empower women and girls and advance gender equality. Anna-Karin has more than 15 years’ experience working on policy and programming related to women’s and children’s rights, combined with a background in communications and advocacy. Prior to UN Women, she served for five years with UNICEF as a Gender and Development Officer in New York and later as a Child Protection Specialist in Indonesia. Anna-Karin holds an MA in International Politics from the Centre Européen de Recherches Internationales et Stratégiques in Brussels, Belgium, and a Bachelor’s Degree in International Studies from American University in Washington, D.C.
Liz Kellison
Liz Kellison of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is responsible for leading the strategic, financial, and operational activities for the team, which works to make high-quality financial services widely accessible to poor people throughout the developing world. Liz joined the foundation in 2008, where she initially served as senior project officer in the Chief Administrative Office, helping manage large cross-foundation initiatives. Prior to the foundation, Liz was Director of Programs at WebJunction/OCLC, an online community for public library staff which helps support libraries offering public access computing services and programs. Prior to WebJunction, Liz served as Vice President of Business Development and Director of Academic Affairs at Quisic, a leading online business and management education company, serving Global 1000 corporations worldwide. Originally from Washington DC, Liz holds a Master’s in Slavic Literature from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and earned her BA at Williams College.
Lilyanne Ndinda
Lilyanne works at Oxfam Kenya, Markets and Livelihoods Programme. She has 10 years of experience as a development practitioner working on sustainable livelihoods and women’s economic empowerment, resilience, market systems and value chain development. She leads on WEE in the Nairobi urban programme, and has adapted the Rapid Care Analysis for use with urban women traders and domestic workers.
Miranda Morgan
Miranda is Oxfam’s learning adviser for multi-country programmes Gendered Enterprise and Markets, the Enterprise Development Programme and WE-Care, working to generate, capture and share learning in order to improve programme quality and thought leadership. She has worked with UNDP, LEAD International, ODI and the CGIAR (WorldFish).
Pranati Mohanraj
Dr. Pranati Mohanraj is the Technical Advisor for Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation for the Pathways program at CARE. She has extensive experience in establishing monitoring and evaluation system; providing technical leadership for development of critical program indicators, monitoring and assessment tools; and in conducting impact measurements. Her work life spans engaging with country level government departments; grassroots level organizations; as well as providing technical support and guidance to countries across Africa and South Asia. She leads processes for developing monitoring, learning and evaluation framework and system; impact measurement and evaluation research; and capacity building of staff on program implementation. She came to CARE with a Masters’ degree in Social Work and a PhD in Women’s Studies from University of York in the UK.
Emily Hillenbrand
Emily Hillenbrand is Team Leader for the Pathways Program, a flagship initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that aims to empower and increase the productivity and empowerment of 52,000 poor women smallholder farmers in more equitable agriculture systems. Emily’s work and research focus is on integrating gender-transformative approaches to food and nutrition security programming. She has expertise in leading and designing qualitative approaches and participatory processes to assess gender behavior changes at intra-household and community levels. She has co-produced several training curricula and published a number of articles and presentations related to gender and food security. She holds a MA in Women, Gender and Development from the Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands. She has previously worked as Regional Gender Advisor at Helen Keller International (HKI) Asia-Pacific Regional Office, and as Program Manager and Gender Technical Advisor for HKI Bangladesh.
Agnes Loriba
Agnes Loriba is the Project Manager of the Pathways Project in Ghana. She is an all-round social development worker with over ten years of extensive hands-on working experience in Ghana, six years of which has been served under senior programme leadership and management of donor-funded programs on food and nutrition security, governance (advocacy, rights and voice), environmental sustainability, climate change resilience, social and economic empowerment of women and youth. She holds a first degree in development Studies and a Master’s Degree in Development Management both from the University for Development Studies in Ghana.
Nurul Siddique
Siddiquee supports CARE’s Agriculture and market systems program in more than seven countries of Asia and Africa. He provides technical and programmatic support to other food and non food value chains program and social enterprises at a number CARE country offices. Siddiquee is a key contributor to CARE’s agriculture and market systems work and has developed guidance notes and approaches to agriculture programming and ensured the systematic sharing of lessons to CARE’s peers and partners. He has coauthored CAREs book on ‘Sustainability of Smallholder Agriculture value chain: Lessons learned from Strengthening the Dairy Value Chain Project in Bangladesh’.
Hazel Malapit
Hazel Malapit is a Research Coordinator at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). She coordinates research, training and technical assistance on the implementation of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, manages and coordinates the integration of gender into the research of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health, and conducts research on gender, women’s empowerment, agriculture, health and nutrition issues. Before joining IFPRI, she conducted research on gender and development economics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and the World Bank. She received her PhD in Economics from American University.
Kalyani Ragunathan
Kalyani Raghunathan joined the International Food and Policy Research Institute as an Associate Research Fellow in 2015. Her primary research interests are in the evaluation of social protection schemes, and her dissertation largely focused on an evaluation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in India. As part of her work at IFPRI, she is actively involved in the design and execution of two large-scale impact evaluations that investigate the effectiveness of leveraging the women’s self-help group platform to improve maternal and child nutrition outcomes. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University in May, 2015.
Megan Gash
Megan Gash is a Research Director at Grameen Foundation (united with Freedom from Hunger). She has over ten years of experience collaborating and coordinating research, evaluation and monitoring activities on multi-sectoral programs with local research teams, academic researchers, and partner organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Her recent research focuses on savings groups, women’s empowerment, resilience, and food security. In 2013, Megan was awarded the Practitioner of the Year by the SEEP Network. She has a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from American University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from the University of California, Davis.
Sarah Janzen
Sarah Janzen is Assistant Professor of Economics at Montana State University. Janzen’s research focuses on poverty and asset dynamics, women’s empowerment, risk and uncertainty, and social protection. Much of her empirical research stems from the design and implementation of impact evaluations of social protection programs targeting the poor and vulnerable, particularly women, in developing countries. She currently has ongoing research projects in Kenya and Nepal. Janzen earned a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Davis in 2013.
Hannah Guedenet
Hannah Guedenet, Director of Nutrition Programs for Agribusiness Systems International (ASI), brings 10 years of experience working in international development and on the integration of agriculture and nutrition. She has a Master’s in Public Health with a focus in nutrition and behavior change communications from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She currently manages ASI’s portfolio of nutrition-sensitive agriculture projects, including a BMGF-funded poultry, nutrition, and women’s empowerment project in Burkina Faso and the AgResults Zambia Biofortified Maize Pilot, testing the introduction of provitamin A maize meal into markets with the goal of improving nutrition.
Ayesha Akter Kona
Ayesha Akter Kona, Gender Advisor for ACDI/VOCA – Bangladesh, has dedicated her career to gender and women’s empowerment. She has more than 20 years of experience in a range of organizations addressing cross-cutting themes in gender, social development, project management, livestock, and market systems. In her current role, she provides Prior to working for ACDI/VOCA, she was the Director of Gender and Capacity Development and a member of the senior management team for Compassion Limited.
Lydia Mbevi
Lydia Mbevi, Regional Youth and Gender Advisor Africa for ACDI/VOCA, has more than 15 years of experience in agricultural development, humanitarian assistance, and livelihoods. Lydia provides support to projects in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia, South Sudan, Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, and the Philippines. Her main role is ensuring ACDI/VOCA’s mandate of using an integrated approach to transform opportunities for men and women is realized in different projects. She also mentors and coaches project gender specialists to ensure that they have skills and tools to provide technical support to their teams. Lydia has a Masters in Gender and Development.
Sita Zougouri
Sita Zougouri, PhD, Technical Director and Gender Lead for ASI – SELEVER, has more than 15 years of experience in implementing gender mainstreaming approaches for agriculture, WASH, and nutrition programs throughout West Africa. In addition, she has conducted extensive research on gender and development issues and served as an Associate Professor at the University of Ouagadougou. In her role with the SELEVER project, she leads the technical team and ensures gender integration in a market systems approach for poultry production. She has a PhD in anthropology from Uppsala University in Sweden
Ulrike Joras
Ulrike Joras is a private sector advisor at Oxfam in the UK. In her current work, she focuses on developing programmatic partnerships between Oxfam and companies, in particular in the areas of women’s economic empowerment and weather insurance. Before joining Oxfam, Ulrike worked mostly on the intersection between fragility, peacebuilding and the private sector, focusing on conflict-sensitive business practices and business and human rights. She worked for organizations such as the United Nations, International Alert, swisspeace, and as a freelance consultant. Ulrike holds a PhD from Germany and has published various reports and articles on responsible business conduct.
Gianluca Nardi
Gianluca Nardi is a Market Systems and Women’s Economic Empowerment specialist with 17 years of international development experience working in various management and consultancy roles in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia. He has been working for CARE International UK since 2005 based in Brazil and he is now Senior Advisor for Women’s Economic Empowerment. He is the main focal point for Women’s Economic Empowerment in agriculture value chains globally and presently he is especially involved in the cocoa value chain across several countries.
Adriana Siddle
Adriana Siddle is the Dignified Work and Legal Adviser for CARE Cambodia. She has been working with CARE in Cambodia for the past two years on projects to address sexual harassment and improve working conditions for women in the garment, hospitality and construction sectors. Prior to working in Cambodia, Adriana worked in public policy at the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian Commonwealth Treasury. She has honours degrees in law and philosophy.
Supraja Suresh
Supraja is a sustainability professional with experience of working with garment and footwear supply chains in India, Cambodia and Bangladesh. In her current role, as advisor for garment sector projects with CARE Cambodia, she develops and manages relationships with retailers, industry bodies, other stakeholders and advises the factory team on implementation design and strategy. She is passionate about worker well being and women’s empowerment in the context of global supply chains. She is a trained Indian classical vocalist and is fluent in five languages, including Tamil and Telugu.
Kalyan Rath
Kalyan Rath is a Project Manager for Labour Rights with CARE Cambodia. She has worked for CARE for seven years to promote better protections in the workplace for beer promoters and garment factory workers. Kalyan is passionate about quality, interactive training on gender and human rights. She has been the main focal point for engagement with garment factory human resources managers on addressing sexual harassment in their factories through training, consultation and technical assistance.
Hannah Lee
Hannah Lee is the Regional Coordinator for CARE’s Enhancing Urban Marginalised Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (EMERGE) Regional Initiative. The aim of EMERGE is for marginalised urban women to participate and use their voice in an environment free of violence, where there is legal protection, responsive governance and where they have equitable access to services and income opportunities. Drawing on lessons from the four country level projects, CARE seeks to provide a platform in the wider Mekong and South East Asian region from which we can raise the profile of marginalised urban women’s issues and challenges amongst key actors. CARE seeks to do this through a research and advocacy agenda, capacity building of CARE and partner staff, and the sharing of best practice, experiences and tools with other non-governmental organisations and interested agencies.
Jenn Williamson
Jenn Williamson is Senior Director of Gender and Social Inclusion at ACDI/VOCA, managing the Gender and Behavior Change Unit in the Technical Learning and Application Division. She oversees and leads strategic gender equity, female empowerment, and social inclusion initiatives, including adoption and implementation of ACDI/VOCA’s policy for promoting gender equity. Dr. Williamson holds a B.A. in Studies in Women and Gender and English from the University of Virginia as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. in English, with a concentration in gender, race, and intersectionality, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sabine Garbarino
Sabine Garbarino is a senior manager in the inclusive economic growth team at Adam Smith International (ASI). She is currently leading the women’s economic empowerment work for Nigeria’s Growth and Employment in States (GEMS3) programme. Before joining ASI Sabine has been working at Oxford Policy Management for 12 years providing technical leadership on gender and equity across a range of portfolios including private sector, social protection, health and infrastructure.
Anita Raj
Anita Raj, PhD, is a Professor of Medicine and Global Public Health and the Founding Director of the Center on Gender Equity and Health at the University of California, San Diego. She has served as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on more than 50 federal, foundation and multilateral (e.g., UNICEF) grants conducting research on gender inequities and health in South Asia, the United States, Russia, and sub-Saharan Africa, and she has approximately 180 peer-reviewed publications from this research. She has published in such prestigious journals as the Lancet, and her research has been featured in media outlets across national settings.
Nandita Bhatla
Nandita Bhatla is Senior Technical Specialist and Advisor, Violence, Rights and Inclusion at the Asia Regional Office for the International Center for Research on Women. She has expertise in areas of gender analysis, empowerment, gender-based violence and working with adolescents on gender equity and prevention of gender-based violence. She has undertaken extensive research on domestic violence, its legal and social aspects, and the links of GBV with development issues including health, education, local self-governance and women’s asset ownership. Prior to ICRW, she worked with community organizations to design gender-integrated programs, including a continuing education centre for adolescent girls, and training women to produce an award-winning newspaper.
Jeni Klugman
Jeni Klugman is Managing Director at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government’s Women in Public Policy Program at Harvard University. Previous positions include Director of Gender and Development at the World Bank, and director and lead author of three global Human Development Reports published by the UNDP. She sits on several boards and panels, including for the World Economic Forum and the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Australian National University and postgraduate degrees in both Law and Development Economics from the University of Oxford where she was a Rhodes Scholar.
Gichelle Cruz
Gichelle A. Cruz is the Gender Specialist of the USAID project on Strengthening Urban Resiliency for Growth with Equity (SURGE). The Project aims to support the USAID/Philippines’ Cities Development Initiative (CDI) by assisting potential partner cities promote balanced and resilient urban growth. She is an accredited National Gender Resource Pool (NGRP) with professional background on Inclusive Development and Participatory Media Consultant. She have more than fifteen years of professional experience in the design and conduct of several research and extension programs to promote empowerment and social transformation of marginalized sectors. A former University Extension Specialist and Senior Lecturer teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on gender, communication development, behavioral change communication and participatory media at the College of Social Work and Community Development, University of the Philippines.
Luvy Villanueva
Ms. Villanueva is manager of the “Supporting Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Philippines Project,” also known as GREAT Women Project (Gender Responsive Economic Actions for the Transformation of Women), which aims to achieve sustainability and competitiveness of women’s micro enterprises. Ms. Villanueva served as a Consultant for sustainable livelihood programs of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Sustainable Livelihood Program, Department of Agrarian Reform’s Agri-enterprise Development Program and STAR Program of Coca-Cola Philippines and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority. She also served as program manager at the Asian Center for Entrepreneurship (ACE) of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), where she acquired her Master in Entrepreneurship degree in 2001.
Primar Jardeleza
Jardeleza is the Vice-President of the Pambansang Kalipunan ng mga Manggagawang Impormal sa Pilipinas (PATAMABA), Inc. or the National Network of Informal Workers in the Philippines, a membership-based organization run and managed by grassroots women homebased and informal workers. She is also the Project Manager of the project entitled, “Capacitating Organized Women Micro-entrepreneurs Towards Improved Market Access, More Enabling Business Environment and Truly Inclusive Social Protection” funded by TRIAS Belgium that aims to improve the entrepreneurial capacities of PATAMABA members towards better market access of their products and services that would enable them to increase incomes and sustain their enterprises.
Jennie Vader
Jennie Vader is an Associate Technical Advisor for Project Concern International’s Women Empowered (WE) Initiative. She is responsible for leading quality programming, monitoring, evaluation, and research and documentation activities for WE programs across Africa. A graduate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Jennie has significant experience working in a variety of development contexts and previously worked as a program quality consultant for PCI in Malawi where she lives.
Norah Moturi
Norah Moturi is a youth volunteer with Mpanzi Empowering Women and Girls. The program promotes VSL for adolescent girls and youth (15-30) who have experienced GBV. Young women meet weekly to share their stories and build their savings group; they work with chiefs, male relatives, and spouses to prevent violence and promote protection and livelihoods. Norah studies International Affairs at Mary Baldwin University in Virginia where she participates in the Global Honor Scholars and the President’s Society. She has a deep sense of understanding regarding women’s empowerment, education, training and support. Norah values social connection, community building and global awareness.
Jackie Ogega
Dr. Jackie Ogega is the Senior Associate Gender in Development at Creative Associates. Jackie has over 16 years of experience in international development, with technical expertise in gender integration, female empowerment, research, peacebuilding, child safeguarding and protection. At Creative, she provides strategic direction on gender in development approach, advises on gender integration in new business development, and provides technical gender integration support to ongoing programs. Jackie is the Co-founder of Mpanzi Empowering Women and Girls. She has worked with different organizations including PCI, CRS, World learning and Religions for Peace, managing international development programs involving multiple partners, and in developing countries.
Louise Williams
Louise Williams is a Principal Associate at Nathan Associates Inc., one of the world’s first economic consulting firms. Trained as a lawyer, Louise assists governments, companies, not-for-profit associations, and international organizations in supporting effective and inclusive systems of economic growth, law, governance, and trade. She is a primary architect of the USAID Business Climate Legal and Institutional Reform (BizCLIR) initiative, the APEC Women and the Economy Dashboard, the APEC Women in Transportation data framework, the APEC Women in STEM framework, and a number of other tools for analyzing issues and implementing change.
Katy Vickland
Ms. Katy Vickland is the Director of Creative Associate’s Workforce Development and Youth Practice Area, leading Creative’s teams working to address the challenges of high unemployment and poverty in vulnerable groups such as at-risk youth. She specializes in workforce development, including inclusive value chains and local capacity building, and developing public-private partnerships that strengthen connections among youth, business, civil society and training institutions. Ms. Vickland has led a variety of programs funded by USAID and other international donors in private-sector led economic development, value chain development, and workforce development, federal research and development opportunities and many more areas.
Salem Helali
Mr. Salem Helali is an international development specialist with 14 years’ experience, of which nine years, are on USAID funded projects as Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP) and Chief of Party (COP). Areas of expertise include labor market-driven workforce development programs, private sector demand assessment, curriculum development/adaptation, training design and delivery of employment -related services. Mr. Helali is the senior Technical Advisor and Project Director for the USAID-funded Afghan Workforce Development Program with Creative Associates. He has extensive experience in institutional capacity building of small and medium sized business, basic education, literacy, local governance, technical and vocational education, rural community development, post-crisis and post-conflict programming among other areas.
Pamela Escobar
Pamela Escobar is a Business Administrator, Specialist in International Business Management and Master in Strategic Management, Planning and Control. She has worked in the development and management of projects for people in extreme poverty, Afro-descendent communities and victims of armed conflict, Microfinance, Financial Inclusion, Financial education and Gender Equity with the goverment sector by 10 years. She is currently leading economic empowerment programs in Fundación PLAN Colombia, aimed at the economic empowerment of youths through work and entrepreneurship training, thereby improving their human development and social capital to achieve insertion in the labor and productive market in suitable conditions, adapted to the realities and demands of the Market.
Chen Tinting
Chen Tingting serves as Program Officer for Women’s Empowerment at The Asia Foundation China, responsible for managing all programs related to the empowerment of women and disadvantaged groups, including migrant women, and women and children affected by domestic violence. Tingting joined the Asia Foundation in 2010. Her previous experience includes various assignments with the former UNIFEM East & Southeast Asia Regional Office in Bangkok and the Association of Women for Action and Research in Singapore. Ms. Chen holds a B.A. in Media Communications from Nanjing University in China, and a Master’s Degree in Gender Studies from Lund University in Sweden.
Anusuya Krishnan
Anusuya Krishnan is the Managing Director of two companies, Aozora Innovations and Migi-Te, and she is Chairman of Training at the National Association for Women Entrepreneurs of Malaysia (NAWEM), where she oversees programmes to grow entrepreneurship among women in Malaysia such as the Capacity and Capability Building (C2B) Programme funded by HSBC Bank and the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development; and Empretec, a flagship capacity-building program of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to promote entrepreneurship and sustainable and inclusive growth among micro, small and medium sized enterprises.
Yasmin Bin-Humam
Yasmin Bin-Humam is a Financial Sector Specialist on CGAP’s Strategy, Research & Development team focusing on gender issues. She facilitates a community of practice on women’s financial inclusion that brings together various stakeholders to foster knowledge sharing and collaboration. Yasmin also provides support to CGAP projects and research in considering the women’s market. Before joining CGAP, Yasmin developed indicators measuring women’s equality under the law for the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law project and contributed to publications on matters of legal barriers to women’s economic empowerment. Her previous research includes the historical evolution of labor and family law reform in countries around the world, and she has compiled legislation on banking, NBFI and consumer protection regulations. Her prior work experience spans the public, private and non-governmental sectors. Yasmin holds JD and MSFS degrees from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Harvard.
Anna Mecagni
Ms. Mecagni has spent the past 17 years in her career supporting inclusive development with marginalized populations. At Women for Women International, Ms. Mecagni ensures the development and quality of women’s empowerment programs in conflict-affected countries. She guides country teams in WfWI’s economic development activities including cash transfers, business and vocational training, savings and lending groups, and men’s engagement. Previously, Ms. Mecagni managed civil society strengthening, youth development and refugee rights programs with FHI 360, IRC, and Human Rights First. Ms. Mecagni served as an adjunct professor at GWU and earned her Masters from the Fletcher School at Tufts.
Diva Dhar
Diva is a Program Officer (Measurement, Learning and Evaluation) with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in India, where her portfolio includes evaluations in gender, ICT, nutrition, child health and youth. She is also leading impact evaluations in gender and education. Diva was formerly Associate Director at J-PAL South Asia for evaluation capacity building and the Program Director of the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results (CLEAR) in South Asia, where she worked on strengthening M&E capacity in the region. Previously, she worked for J-PAL and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) on several impact evaluations in India, Bangladesh and Morocco.
Priya Nanda
Priya is a Senior Program Officer with the Gates Foundation, India where she leads the measurement and evaluation for social norms and equity. She was at the International Center for Research on Women’s (ICRW) Asia Office in India from 2006 to 2016 where she led a portfolio of research, on measurement and evaluation of women’s economic empowerment and reproductive and sexual health. She was the Co-Director of the ODI-led research consortium on gender and adolescents. Dr. Nanda holds a Ph.D in health economics from the Johns Hopkins University, an MIA from Columbia University and an MA in Economics from the University of Delhi.
Randeep Kaur
Randeep is currently working as the Director for Girls education In Room to Read India Trust. Randeep has been working in the development sector since 1995. Her initial engagement was with government programs such as the District Primary Education Program and UNICEF. Randeep has also worked with Plan International India as their Education Adviser for a number of years and was later heading a team of specialists as the Senior Program Manager. Randeep’s area of expertise includes strategic planning, research for girl’s education and life skills.
Charity Troyer Moore
Charity Troyer Moore is India Research Director for Evidence for Policy Design at the Harvard Kennedy School. She leads research-policy engagements with a variety of entities in India – including a large skills training program – to ensure that research is attuned to the problems facing policymakers and integrated into policy design and program implementation. Charity’s research examines how to use technology to improve public service delivery and governance; the drivers and potential solutions to India’s low female labor force participation; land rights; and social protection programs. She holds an M.A. in Economics and Ph.D. in Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics.
Ravi Verma
Ravi Verma is Regional Director at the International Centre for Research on Women’s (ICRW) Asia Regional Office in New Delhi, India. He has worked on issues of men and masculinity, male sexual health and gender equality in relation to violence against women, reproductive health, including family planning and HIV/AIDS, in India and Asia. He has published extensively on these issues in both Indian and international journals of repute. Ravi has also served as a member of High Level Committee on the Status of Women (HLCSW), Government of India and the Rights & Empowerment working group of the FP2020 Initiative.
Cavelle Dove
Cavelle has been active in three continents of community development from social work in South Africa, and community development and child protection work in Canada, through to women’s economic development and social enterprise in Asia. Cavelle managed the grant to 250+ community based organizations for the Embassy of Canada for more than 10 years and has consulted on several startups in Southeast Asia, and is the co-founder of a social action organization specializing in linking the university and marketplace to marginalized communities in Thailand, and a social business in Yangon for vocational skills training to vulnerable women and operates three commercial cafes. In 2015, Cavelle launched the “Improving Women’s Market Opportunities” project for 25,000 women in Shan and Kayin states, Myanmar, as the Country Manager for MEDA, and was featured on Global network news in Canada as a global changemaker for her work in women’s economic empowerment.
Myat Thet Thitsar
Myat Thet Thitsar is the CEO of Enlighten Myanmar Research Foundation (EMReF) and received an MA in International Relations and Affairs from California State University. He has almost 9 years of social research experiences particularly in governance, political economy, social relations, rule of law and justice and working for development of evidence based policy making and revitalization of independent research culture in Myanmar. Myat Thet also teaches International Political Economy and Social Research Methodology to CSOs, academic institutions, political parties and young university graduates. EMReF conducted Series of Qualitative Social and Economic Monitoring, The Study of Status and Trends of Land Tenure Rights among smallholder rubber famers in Mon State, Social Assessment on the Agriculture Development Support Project, Gender Value Chain, Social Protection in small scale Agriculture Research, Rule of Law and Access to Justice etc.
Dr. Khin Mar Cho
Dr. Khin Mar Cho is the Country Director for Myanmar and International Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Specialist at Cornell University, New York, as well as Founder of Dr. Khin Mar Cho Foundation and support over 300 children from village schools in Hinthada-Ayeyarwady. Dr.Cho holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Extension and Agricultural Economics, three post-doc in global extension, food systems and nutrition. She has 20 years working experience in teaching, research and extension globally-teach international agriculture, global food systems, nutrition education, agribusiness and farm management. Currently Dr. Cho provides technical assistance at different universities across Myanmar and extension executive training and nutrition training to government officials. She has received several awards for her outstanding teaching, research and extension outreach activities by United States Department of Agriculture, international organizations and universities.
Jackie Pollack
Jackie Pollock is the Chief Technical Advisor for Migration projects in ILO Yangon, including the Developing Internal and International Labour Migration Governance project supported by Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT) and the regional project TRIANGLE in ASEAN supported by DFAT, Australia. She works on legal and policy development, assisting in provision of direct support to potential and returning migrants and their families from Myanmar. Jackie founded and directed a Thai NGO, MAP Foundation to promote the rights of migrants. She has also worked with empower foundation, the sex workers organization in Thailand, as a consultant with the UN Task Forces against human trafficking in the Mekong region and in Nepal and has contributed to journals, research and books on migration, trafficking, labour and gender issues. She holds a BA Hons Degree from the University of Sussex, UK.
May Thu Ne Win
May Thu Ne Win is the gender coordinator of MEDA with 10 years of working experience in INGO, NGO and UN as gender technical expert and spent a few years in gender and health policy and has managed gender based violence, women leadership and economic empowerment. May has advocated to different policy decision makers including ASEAN inter-parliamentarians and UN HQ. May holds a Masters degree in Political Management from Aldersgate College, Philippines, and Diploma of Business from Wigan and Leigh College, UK and Bachelor degree of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from University of Medicine 1, Myanmar.
Jared Rowell
Jared Rowell is Regional Manager for South and East Asia at Mercy Corps. He manages a regional team that supports eight of Mercy Corps’ country offices, including Mongolia, China, Timor Leste, Indonesia, India, Nepal, Myanmar and Thailand. Jared worked for other international NGOs in Jordan, Tanzania and Egypt prior to joining Mercy Corps in 2014 and has extensive experience in both humanitarian and development programming through the lens of resilience. He is based in Bangkok, Thailand.
Nelson Owange
Nelson currently is Mercy Corps Kenya Program manager and Head of Office based in Northwestern Kenya where he manages adolescent girls and women empowerment programs, and peace building programs. Prior to joining MercyCorps in 2015, Nelson had more than 6 years’ experience in managing resilience building programs in Horn of Africa focusing on disaster risk reduction, strengthening livestock and fish value chains, water and sanitation, and holistic natural resource management. Nelson received his Msc and BVM from the University of Nairobi where he conducted a studies on occurrence and risk factors of rift valley fever in Garissa and later a study on the role of women in Camel milk value chain in the urban and peri urban areas of Hargeisa (Somaliland). He is passionate about actualizing adolescent girls and Women economic empowerment in Arid and Semi-arid areas that are often in conflict.
Vicki Wilde
Vicki Wilde is the Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She is responsible for the gender portfolio in Agricultural Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In addition to managing grants aimed at empowering women in farming households (including GAAP2), she works closely with the foundation’s teams for nutrition, crops, livestock and policy. She spends much of her time working closely with grantees in India and East and West Africa. Before joining the foundation, Vicki was the founding director of African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) and the CGIAR Gender & Diversity Program.
Kathleen Colson
Kathleen Colson is the Co-Founder of the BOMA Project. She is a former refugee worker and safari guide who wanted to a see a long-term solution to drought and famine in the African drylands. Kathleen co-founded the BOMA Project in 2006. Since then, BOMA’s two-year, gender-focused graduation program has benefited more than 86,000 women and children in the drylands of Kenya. BOMA’s goal is to lift 100,000 women and children out of extreme poverty by 2018 and reach 1,000,000 women and children by 2021.
Tazeen Hasan
Tazeen Hasan leads the women’s financial inclusion work at the World Bank Group’s Women, Business and the Law program. She was the legal specialist for the “World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development” and “Opening Doors: Gender Equality in the Middle East and North Africa”. She coauthored “Empowering Women: Legal Rights and Economic Opportunities in Africa” and “Voice and Agency”. Previously, she was a barrister in the UK specializing in civil and commercial law and an adviser to NGOs in Kenya. She has a Masters (International Law) from London School of Economics and a BA (Law) from Oxford University.
Rachel Coleman
Rachel Coleman is an Analyst in the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab. She coordinates the research uptake work of a portfolio of impact evaluations across various sectors. She also works on several financial inclusion pilot projects. Before joining the World Bank, Rachel worked in an advocacy unit of an NGO focused on global health campaigns in Sub-Saharan Africa. She holds a masters degree from George Washington University in International Trade and Investment Policy.
Anca Bogdana Rusu
Anca Bogdana Rusu is a Financial Inclusion Specialist at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), where she is part of the IFC-MasterCard Foundation Partnership for Financial Inclusion team. Her current work focuses on digital financial services, big data analytics, alternative delivery channels, mobile money and gender in Sub-Saharan Africa. Anca has authored and co-authored reports and academic papers on topics such as agent banking, microfinance and mobile financial services, financial inclusion and bridging the digital and financial inclusion gender gap. Anca has a Master in Public Policy from Georgetown University and holds a Certificate in FinTech from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Zainab Akther
Zainab Akther is the Chief of Party for Feed the Future Bangladesh Women’s Empowerment Activity at Winrock International. She is an experienced team leader and manager specializing in economic and social development, gender equity, education, training, and livelihoods for women and men. She is skilled in networking, advocacy, and mobilizing strategic partnerships with donors, government institutions, community-based organizations, the private sector, and other stakeholders. Ms. Akther has experience with nutrition-sensitive agriculture, women’s social and economic empowerment, and behavior change communications and strategy development through gender transformative approaches. She has more than 30 years’ professional experience in Bangladesh, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and Canada. She has an MBA and MA in Political Science from Canada and Bangladesh.
Shamim Murad
Mr. Shamim Murad is the General Manager of Strategic Partnerships and Business Development at ACI Limited, a leading agribusiness integrator in Bangladesh. He leads projects with development partners through an inclusive business philosophy and ensures measurable impact through public-private partnerships. Mr. Murad has more than twelve years’ experience in business development in agribusiness, FMCG, and telecommunications sectors. He applies needs analyses to lead strategy and market research, design products and services, and advise boards in robust decision making. He has a degree in Statistics from the University of Dhaka and completed higher education from the Indian Institute of Management.
Robin Gravesteijn
Robin Gravesteijn is Data Management Specialist at the UNCDF office in Bangkok working under its SHIFT and Cleanstart programmes. He manages a data and analytics hub that uses financial inclusion related data to inform development policies and practices of financial service providers, investors and regulators in South East Asia. With 10 years of working experience in development finance, Robin managed social performance monitoring and client-outcome assessments at Oikocredit. From 2008 to 2013 he was also seconded to the ILO Social Finance Program conducting impact evaluation and offering technical support to two microfinance institutions in Central Asia launching SME- and women’s business loan programs. He further worked in the commercial banking sector and at the Rabobank Foundation. Robin received his Ph.D. from the University of Bath in Social and Policy Sciences and holds MScs in Development Studies (Cum Laude) and Economics from Utrecht University.
Jonggun Lee
Jonggun Lee is the research lead at Pulse Lab Jakarta of United Nations Global Pulse (a special innovation initiative of the United Nations on Big Data), harnessing new digital data to better protect vulnerable population around the world. He leads a number of research initiatives analyzing various big data such as social media, mobile data, satellite imagery, transportation data, and financial data, combining with small data. He is a frequent speaker at various venues organised by public sector, private sector, and academia and a member of Global Working Group of Big Data for Official Statistics by UN Statistics Division.
Fajar Adiwidodo
Fajar Adiwidodo leads Entrepreneurial Finance Lab’s business development in Indonesia. He is an an experienced banker with 10 years of management experience. He has established Sharia business in multinational banks such as HSBC Amanah Syariah and OCBC NISP Syariah. Previously, he managed the Sharia retail business in CIMB Niaga Syariah, and he was a Singapore-based Management Consultant with Oliver Wyman. His projects in Oliver Wyman included corporate planning in micro-banking, at which point he became interested in psychometric credit scoring. Fajar received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Wesleyan University, Connecticut under a full merit scholarship from the Freeman Foundation.
Anweshaa Ghosh
Anweshaa Ghosh is a Research Analyst at Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi (India). She has an M.Phil degree in Women’s Studies from School of Women Studies, Jadavpur University. She has been working as researcher on women’s informal labour for the last seven years. Her past research and publications has been around women’s claims-making, domestic workers, sex workers and unpaid care work. She is currently part of the Nepal country team for the GrOW research study with IDS on ‘Balancing unpaid care work and paid work: successes, challenges and lessons for women’s economic empowerment programmes and policies.’
Parul Agarwal
Parul Agarwal heads the financial inclusion team at IFMR-LEAD and manages the organization’s research portfolio under this thematic area. She is involved in designing and setting up experimental and quasi-experimental impact evaluation studies that are relevant to policy and practice. Her research interests are labour mobility, product innovation and financial behavior of the poor. She is a co-investigator on some of the related studies in various parts of India and Bangladesh. These include evaluation of progress of microfinance and schemes like MUDRA, flexible credit contracts in Uttar Pradesh, digital cash transfers and sustainable financial inclusion programme in Northern Bangladesh and ecosystem of digital financial inclusion in India. Before joining IFMR in year 2010, she earned a Masters degree in Rural Management from the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB). She is a graduate in Economics from Delhi University.
Anoushaka Chandrashekar
Anoushaka Chandrashekar works as a Senior Research Associate with the financial inclusion team at IFMR LEAD. The primary project she works on is an impact evaluation study on the impact of day care centers on the health and economic well-being of women in rural Rajasthan. She is involved at the field level in supervising the data collection and monitoring activities, as well as data analysis and other aspects of the research project. Anoushaka has also worked on a couple of other short term financial inclusion studies in different parts of India. Prior to joining IFMR, Anoushaka earned a graduate degree in social work from The University of Texas at Austin, and a bachelors degree in Economics from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University.
Yamini Atmavillas
Yamini Atmavilas works as Lead, Health Systems and Communities Measurement & Evaluation at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s India Country Office. At the foundation, Yamini manages a portfolio of complex health systems strengthening evaluations and another managing evaluation of community mobilization and self-help group programs. Yamini has a PhD in Gender Studies from Emory University specializing in gender, work, migration, and economic development in India and south-east Asia. She has 15+ years of experience working on gender indices, time use, evaluation design, building gender-integrated measurement systems and indicators, capacity-building of government statistical systems, and gender mainstreaming.
Jasinta Barla
Jasinta Barla’s story is one of struggle from early childhood since her father died and the seven siblings struggled to make ends meet to her marriage into a family with frequent instances of food insecurity, and her husband’s addiction to alcohol making her the primary bread winner of the family with responsibility of bringing up their two children. She joined the SHG in 2011 and represented their village in the Federation, thereafter becoming President of SHG Federation in 2012. In 2015, she with support of her Federation got elected as member of District Council. She dreams of equal rights for women in the villages and is passionate about leading the way for their political empowerment.
Suneeta Dhar
Suneeta Dhar is Advisor, Jagori, a Women’s Resource Centre based in New Delhi working with a diverse group of women living on the margins of society to focus on women’s safety, their inclusion in governance, leadership development and in strengthening their collectives and institutions,. Suneeta has over three decades of experience on women’s rights, combining action research and gender mainstreaming processes with community-led initiatives and policy advocacy efforts. She has worked with civil society organizations in India and the United Nations Development Fund for Women. She is one of the Founding Directors of the South Asia Women’s Fund, as well as a member of the South Asian Network of Gender Activists and Trainers and the Institutional Ethics Review Board at JNU. She holds a post graduate degree from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and has been awarded the Fulbright and Advocacy International Institute Fellowships.
Laili Irani
Laili Irani is an Associate II and Senior M&E Specialist with the Population Council leading impact evaluations of health, nutrition and sanitation programming among self-help groups in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. She has over thirteen years of experience in M&E, conducting research and managing programs across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America on gender equality, family planning/reproductive health, child health, HIV and tobacco control. Laili has a doctorate from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in maternal and child health, demography and econometric analyses; an MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University; and, an MD from Tanzania.
Madhu Khetan
Madhu is a development professional who has worked with Pradan for more than 25 years in both field areas in Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh and now at its central office, supporting field action. Madhu is recognized for her pioneering work on gender equality through women collectives in PRADAN focusing on women’s understanding of gender in their everyday lives and catalyzing issues of gender stereotypes, injustice and discrimination; and accessing public services and programmes. Learning from this programme is shaping larger narrative on unlocking potential of women collectives beyond economic development to a broader transformative approach of socio-economic-political empowerment.
Amanda Klarer
Amanda Klarer manages the Marcatus QED Responsible Farming Program and the award-winning Marcatus Mobile Education Platform – a gender-inclusive educational program designed to reach and empower thousands of smallholder farmers to adopt sustainable practices and quickly improve their yields. Amanda has a double masters in Sustainable Agricultural Development in the Tropics and has spent many years learning from and working with smallholder farmers around the world.
Stuart Hawkins
Stuart Hawkins, Director of Sustainability has been with The Coca-Cola Company since 1998. He joined Coca-Cola in the company’s Middle and Far East Group public affairs and communications team in Hong Kong. Based in Bangkok, he currently leads the company’s sustainability and social impact strategy, programs and partnerships across Southeast Asia with a focus on community water programs and women economic empowerment. Stuart holds a Master of Arts degree in Modern History from Oxford University, England.
Mubashira Zaidi
Mubashira Zaidi is a Research Analyst at the Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi. She has an MA in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She has been involved in several research projects on gender and development, including on women’s claims making on violence against women, paid domestic work and unpaid care work. She is in the final stages of her PhD dissertation (Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany).
Deepta Chopra
Deepta Chopra is a social policy researcher with a focus on rights based policies and programming. She leads the gender work in the Institute of Development Studies on women’s and girls’ empowerment, focusing on gendered political economy analysis of policies for the empowerment of women and girls, and its core links with unpaid care work. She is the author of Development and Welfare States in South Asia and serves as principal investigator for the GrOW project on ‘Balancing unpaid care work and paid work: successes, challenges and lessons for women’s economic empowerment programmes and policies.’
Guy Stuart
Guy is Executive Director of Microfinance Opportunities and a Fellow at the Ash Center, Harvard University. Guy has extensive experience conducting research on the financial capabilities of low-income consumers. He has led Financial Diaries projects in 11 countries, collecting extensive data on the economic behavior of low-income people. Guy is also co-principal investigator of the Embedded Education Project at Harvard. Before becoming Executive Director of MFO, Guy was a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School where he taught courses in management and microfinance for 13 years. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1994.
Sophie Romana
Sophie Romana joined Oxfam America’s Community Finance Department in 2011, where she runs two flagship programs: “Saving for Change”, a savings led microfinance initiative in 6 countries, with over 730,000 clients, mostly women; and “R4, the Rural Resilience Initiative”, an innovative partnership with WFP and SwissRe providing access to savings and credit, Disaster Risk Reduction practices and weather index micro-insurance, in Ethiopia, Senegal, Malawi and Zambia. A graduate in international and public law from La Sorbonne, Sophie holds an MBA from Columbia Business School. At Oxfam, Sophie is a founding member of the Women’s Economic Empowerment Knowledge Hub and also co-leads the Social Protection & Resilience working group for the Resilience Knowledge Hub. Sophie co-leads Oxfam International’s contribution to the UN High Level Panel on Women’s Empowerment. A native of France, Sophie shares her time between Boston, New York and the rest of the world.
Marian Parsons
Marian Parsons is an Agriculture Development Officer and joined USAID’s mission in Bangladesh in November 2016. As a member of the Feed the Future Team, in the Office of Economic Growth (EG), she works on the integration of nutrition, gender and resilience within the FTF portfolio, and has the formal designation of Gender Point of Contact (POC) for the team. In this role, she oversees all aspects of gender integration in this large and complex portfolio, and leads the Gender Working Group. Prior to her posting in Bangladesh, Marian worked in the USAID office of Markets Partnerships and Innovations in the Bureau of Food Security in Washington D.C. Parsons received a Master of Science in International Agricultural Development from the University of California at Davis. From 2003 to 2005, she was a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Nicaragua.
Alejandra Vargas Garcia
Alejandra Vargas Garcia, is the Program Officer for the Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women Program at Canada’s International Development Research Centre. In her role, she supports 14 research projects in 50 countries to identify and overcome barriers to women’s economic empowerment in key areas like the care economy, skills training and employment. Alejandra has over eight years of experience working on women’s empowerment for the United Nations, the United States Agency for International Development, and Mexican public service, working on a federal program on violence against women. She holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University and a BA from the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico.
Gretchen Donehower
Gretchen Donehower is the Project Director of Counting Women’s Work (CWW). She works as an Academic Specialist for the Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging (CEDA) at the University of California at Berkeley. Gretchen holds a Ph.D. in Demography from UC Berkeley.
Syeda Faiza Jamil
Syeda Faiza Jamil has 6 years of dedicated Research and Innovation experience in the field of performance textiles, sustainability and water chemistry. In this role, she has worked closely with British Council and IFAI (International Fabrics Association International), USA and has pursued her doctoral degree from IMRI- University of Bolton, UK. In 2015, she joined Artistic Milliners as Corporate Responsibility and Communications Manager where she is relentlessly gearing AM to its core values of CSR and Sustainability. Apart from passionately involved in her work, Syeda takes time out for globe- trotting and reading literature.
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. Claire holds an MSc in Social Research Methods (2012) and an MSc in Social Policy and Planning in Developing Countries (1997) from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Elisa Minischetti
Elisa is the GSMA Connected Women Insights Manager. Before joining the GSMA, Elisa worked as an intern at the social enterprise WomenCraft in Ngara, Tanzania, where she contributed as Grant Manager and Budget Analyst. Prior to that, Elisa worked for Europe Direct, Forli’, Italy, as a European Trainer and covered roles at the Italian Consulate and at a shipping firm in Germany. Elisa holds a Master’s Degree from the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in International Economics and Conflict Management. This degree was a complement to her MA in International Security and Politics from University of Bologna and BA in Political Science and International Relations from University of Siena.
Martha Osorio
Martha has a background in economics and international relations and has wide-ranging expertise on various areas of gender and rural development. Over the last five years, she has been leading the program “Promoting gender equitable and inclusive investment in agriculture in the context of poverty reduction”. The program encompasses research, promotion of multi-stakeholder dialogue and technical and policy support to countries. Martha leads the FAO programme on gender and land. Martha is also responsible for indicator 5.a.2 of the Sustainable Development (women’s equal control/ownership of land). Martha holds a Master in Economics from the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, Master in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University and a Master in Cooperation and International Development from the European Institute.
Fraser Sugden
Fraser Sugden is a development geographer by training, specializing in the political economy of agriculture, water management and resilience. He is the country representative for IWMI Nepal, and the Gender, Youth and Inclusion theme leader for the CGIAR program on Water, Land and Ecosystems. He has worked across South and Southeast Asia, and his research interests are in rural class and gender relations and their role in mediating access to water and other land resources – particularly in the context of out-migration and climate stress.
Patrick Henry Asiñero
Mr. Patrick Asiñero is the Assistant Project Manager of the “Supporting Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Philippines Project,” also known as GREAT Women Project 2, which aims to achieve sustainability and competitiveness of women’s micro enterprises. As part of his role, he co-leads the convergence of government and private sector agencies to improve women’s economic empowerment outcomes in the Philippines. The project’s lead executing agency is the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW), with funding support from the Government of Canada. Prior to his appointment at PCW, he served development organizations such as World Vision Philippines, Oxfam Australia, Atlas Corps, and UNESCO for Eastern Africa Regional Office addressing issues related to child labor, education, livelihoods, youth employment, and gender equality. Mr. Asinero took his Master in Development Management at the Zuellig School of Development Management, Asian Institute of Management.
Sonia Jordan
Sonia Jordan is a Senior Manager and WEE Adviser at Adam Smith International. She has almost a decade of field-based experience in designing, implementing and evaluating inclusive private sector development and economic empowerment programmes. Sonia provides technical leadership on empowerment and inclusion across ASI’s Inclusive Economic Growth portfolio and has proven, practical experience supporting programmes dramatically ‘upgrade’ their approach from being gender-neutral to gender-transformative, with a particular focus on increasing and improving female workforce participation through gender-responsive business practices. Prior to ASI, Sonia worked in PwC’s International Development Practice on programmes such as the Girls’ Education Challenge, and at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Trade where she was responsible for integrating social and gender dimensions into Free Trade Agreements.
Caroline Rubin
Ms. Caroline Rubin works as a research associate in the regional integration unit at Nathan Associates Inc. She supports the US-APEC Technical Assistance to Advance Regional Integration (US-ATAARI) project, Nathan’s largest USAID program with a value of $27 million, and USAID’s Lao PDR–U.S. International and ASEAN Integration (LUNA II) Project. Ms. Rubin engages in technical studies, manages staff and oversees project financials across several areas including women’s economic empowerment. She has worked in China, Laos, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam. Ms. Rubin has a bachelor’s degree in government and politics from the University of Maryland.
Beth Porter
Beth Porter is the Policy Advisor of Financial Inclusion at UNCDF and the Better Than Cash Alliance. Beth has over two decades of experience in financial inclusion throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America. At UNCDF she provides policy guidance on financial inclusion, particularly to advance responsible finance and promote financial access of women and youth. She also supports the transition of payments from cash to electronic as an advisor to the Better Than Cash Alliance. Beth is on boards of the SMART Campaign, International Child and Youth Finance International, and CRECER, and was a founding member of Women Advancing Microfinance. Beth holds a Master’s degree from Johns Hopkins SAIS and a Bachelor’s degree from Stanford University. She speaks English, French, and Spanish.
Tania Beard
Tania Beard is a Project Manager at Dalberg Global Development Advisors in Senegal and advises clients across non-profits, governments, and the private sector in the areas of gender, agriculture, financial inclusion and broader issues of private sector development. Tania is the co-deputy of Dalberg’s Gender Expertise Area and supports teams internally to integrate a gender lens into their work. Currently, Tania is supporting UNCDF to develop their global gender and financial inclusion strategy. Tania holds a masters in Social Sciences and a Bachelors in Languages and Literature, both from the University of Oxford.