Featured Speakers
- Sheena Agarwal, Vice President of Operations, Give2Asia
- Erik Arnold, General Manager and Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Philanthropies
- Akhtar Badshah, Distinguished Practitioner & Senior Lecturer, University of Washington Author, The Purpose Mindset
- Suman “Sumi” Bhat-Kincaid, Founder, Principal Consultant, Sukara LLC
- Jennifer Butte-Dahl, Senior Director, APCO Impact
- Elizabeth J. Dale, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Director, Nonprofit Leadership Program, Seattle University
- Rebecca Darwent, Senior Advisor, Collaboratives, Philanthropy Together
- Suzanne Ehlers, Executive Director and CEO of USA for UNHCR
- Kezia Fernandes, Lead, Disaster Relief and New Initiatives, Amazon India
- Radha Friedman, Author and Philanthropic Advisor
- Yawa Hansen-Quao, Author and Founder, Leading Ladies Network
- Aisha Jumaan, MPH, PhD, President, Founder, Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation
- Obed Kabanda, Senior Director Global Partnerships/Innovation and Accountability Lead, Global Fund for Women
- Rufaro Kangai, Director, Emerging Movements & Opportunities, Global Fund for Women
- Mirte Postema, Senior Program Officer, Seattle International Foundation
- Robert Rosen, Director, Philanthropic Partnerships, Gates Foundation
- Surita Sandosham, President & CEO, Heifer International
- Fatema Sumar, Executive Director, Center for International Development (CID), Harvard University
- Atul Tandon, CEO, Opportunity International
- Alicia Vermaele, Director of Global Philanthropy & Community Engagement, Starbucks
Additional Speakers
- Pilar Arrossagaray, Young Leader in Diabetes, CUI.D.AR
- Devika Batra, Partnerships and Fundraising, Sehgal Foundation
- Jon Browning, Founder and CEO, Global Mentorship Initiative
- Devindra Chainani, Co-President, Pratham Seattle
- Kate Cochran, Chief Executive Officer, Board Member, Upaya Social Ventures
- Jennifer Crouch, Director, Development, VillageReach
- Patty Curran, Executive Director, Partners Asia
- Dr. Rebecca Dali, Founder, Executive Director, Centre for Caring, Empowerment and Peace Initiatives (CCEPI)
- Sierra Malia Fox-Woods, Senior Program Officer, Panorama Global
- Kirsten Gagnaire, Founder & CEO, Kati Collective
- Elaine Gibbons, Chief Impact Officer, Panorama Global
- Dr. Claire Gwayi-Chore, Associate Director, Health and Life Sciences, Gates Ventures
- Robert Hokanson, Senior Manager of Global Priorities, Humanitarian Services Division, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- Chris Jochnick, CEO, Landesa
- Walter Kerr, Cofounder, Co-Executive Director, Unlock Aid
- Dr. Khaing Zar Oo- Nge Nge, Global Program Manager, Shanta Foundation
- Tamra Madenwald, Associate Director of Clinical Operations, Curevo Vaccine
- Emmanuel Kwafo Mintah, Executive Director, Ark Development Organization
- Margarita Mora, Senior Managing Director, Partnerships, Nia Tero
- Greg Nelson, Chief Technology Officer, Opportunity International
- Megan Nykyforchyn-Clark, Director of New Business Development, The Hunger Project
- Nixon Ochatre, Founder, Head of Strategy, Amani Initiative
- Ankita Patel, Director, Collaboratives, Panorama Global
- Bindiya Patel, Co-Director & Faculty, Global Leadership Forum
- Juan Robalino, Climate Change and Land Tenure Specialist, Landesa
- Julia Roper, Director of Strategy, Panorama Global
- Laurien Sibomana, Founder, Director, Pillar of Health
- Paul Silver, Pangea Member
- Anne Sivley, Portfolio Manager, Sankofa Consulting, Pangea Member
- Anna Slattery, External Affairs Manager, The Hunger Project
- Greg Snyders, Partner, Dalberg
- Gunjan Veda, Director, Collaborative Research, Policy and Practice for The Movement for Community-led Development (MCLD)
- Mariam Zameer, Director of the Health Systems Global Technical Team and Immunization Lead, VillageReach
*More speakers coming soon!
Featured Speakers
Sheena Agarwal
Vice President of Operations, Give2Asia
Sheena Agarwal leads Give2Asia’s core services and programs. Her portfolio includes corporate and family giving, nonprofit partner services, and risk management. In addition, she has led the disaster program at Give2Asia over the past 5 years, including disaster campaigns and the development of the DisasterLink Response Network. Sheena brings over 15 years of experience in international development and program management for both private and nonprofit organizations. Prior to joining Give2Asia, she worked primarily with USAID-funded projects in a variety of sectors, including civil society strengthening, local governance, and environmental management. She has a Master’s degree in International Development from American University in Washington, D.C.
Erik Arnold
General Manager and Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Philanthropies
Erik Arnold has a passion for applying technology solutions to the nonprofit sector and is currently a General Manager and Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft Philanthropies. Erik leads end-to-end engineering strategy and execution for Microsoft’s nonprofit products in the Tech for Social Impact team, including the Nonprofit Common Data Model, Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, Community Training, and AI solutions. Erik joined Microsoft in 2017 as the Global Chief Technology Officer for the Tech for Social Impact team in Microsoft Philanthropies. He has led the engineering product strategy for nonprofits and the United Nations and Microsoft Philanthropies programs for digital enablement and the company’s cloud software donation strategy. Prior to Microsoft, Erik served nine years as the Chief Information Officer at PATH, an international nonprofit focused on global health, and 15 years at a privately held Bill Gates startup. Erik is active in local, national, and international technology communities. He sits on the board of directors of Evergreen Goodwill Industries, Global Impact, and on the technology advisory boards for a variety of social impact organizations in both the public and private sectors.
Akhtar Badshah
Distinguished Practitioner & Senior Lecturer, University of Washington, Author, The Purpose Mindset
Dr. Akhtar Badshah is the Distinguished Practitioner and Associate Teaching Faculty at University of Washington; and is the Founder and Chief Catalyst at Catalytic Innovators Group, where he advises individuals and organizations to catalyze their social and philanthropic investments. He is also the founder and curator of Accelerating Social Transformation, a mid-career professional development certificate course on social impact. Dr. Badshah led Microsoft’s philanthropic efforts for ten years, where he administered the company’s community investment and employee contributions. Dr. Badshah is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience in international development, managing a corporate philanthropic program and co-founding a global nonprofit for social enterprise. His new book Purpose Mindset: How Microsoft Inspires its Employees and Alumni to Change the World, Harper Collins Leadership Series, has just been released. Dr. Badshah serves on the boards of Microsoft Alumni Network, Global Washington (Chair), and The Indus Entrepreneurs, Seattle. He is an accomplished artist and a doctoral graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Badshah and family are active philanthropists in the Seattle area.
Suman “Sumi” Bhat-Kincaid
Founder, Principal Consultant, Sukara LLC
As a career relationship builder, Sumi has always believed that forging strong connections grounded in mutual respect are at the core of every successful partnership. It is through this lens that she has spent over a decade working in the nonprofit sector as a fundraising professional. Sumi’s most recent role was as the Director of Philanthropy at Upaya Social Ventures, a global nonprofit organization focused on lifting people out of extreme poverty through sustainable job creation. With specialties in corporate and foundation partnerships, Sumi’s prior roles include Senior Corporate Partnerships Officer at Bloodworks Northwest, where she gained institutional support for blood research, blood banking and transfusion services in the Pacific Northwest, and SightLife, a global health organization focused on restoring sight to the blind. Sumi was the Manager of Corporate and Foundation Partnerships, supporting SightLife’s programs in India, China, Nepal and Ethiopia.
Before joining the nonprofit sector, she specialized in customer care, logistics and planning in the transportation industry, where she established customer care systems and built customer service departments from the ground up.
Today Sumi continues her commitment to mission-driven work as a fundraising consultant and nonprofit recruiter through her company, Sukara LLC and in partnership with Clover Search Works respectively. She also serves on the boards of the Skees Family Foundation and AFP Advancement Northwest.
Sumi has a BS in International Management from Butler University, and an MPA from University of Washington.
Jennifer Butte-Dahl
Senior Director, APCO Impact
Jen Butte-Dahl, a senior director with APCO Impact based in Seattle, is an accomplished architect of initiatives, organizations, and alliances that tackle critical global challenges and span both continents and sectoral boundaries.
A people and results-focused leader, she has a track record of transforming ideas into action, navigating complexity, creating structure from scratch, building coalitions, and achieving real results in bureaucratic institutions as well as in fast-paced entrepreneurial environments. Two decades of international assignments have placed Ms. Butte-Dahl throughout the Middle East, Europe, Africa and the Americas working within and between the worlds of business, government, politics, philanthropy, academia and international and non-governmental organizations.
Early in her career, Ms. Butte-Dahl set up a nonprofit focused on entrepreneurship in post-apartheid South Africa and later opened a sales support office for a large technology company in the United Arab Emirates. During her career with the U.S. Government, she worked in the U.S. Department of State, on Capitol Hill, and across the Interagency as a senior advisor to U.S government officials and high-level presidential envoys. More recently, Ms. Butte-Dahl founded a mid-career graduate program at the University of Washington, launched a multi-million dollar public-private initiative that harnesses digital platforms and global connectivity to build meaningful relationships between young people in the United States, Middle East and North Africa, and led the policy education team on a presidential exploratory effort.
Ms. Butte-Dahl serves on the advisory council of the Stevens Initiative and as an affiliate faculty member at the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Management from Purdue University and a master’s degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.
Elizabeth J. Dale, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Director, Nonprofit Leadership Program, Seattle University
Elizabeth J. Dale, Ph.D. is associate professor and director of the Nonprofit Leadership Program at Seattle University. Elizabeth received her Ph.D. in Philanthropic Studies from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Her research focuses on the philanthropic practices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) individuals and couples, women’s giving and funding for women’s and girls’ causes, and the intersection of gender and philanthropy. She has presented nationally and internationally on her research as well as on service learning and online teaching methods.
Elizabeth teaches courses in philanthropy, governance, fundraising, and marketing and communications. She enjoys integrating new technologies and learning platforms in her classroom to enhance student engagement, whether teaching in-person or online.
Prior to beginning her Ph.D., Elizabeth served as Director of Development at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, a large community hospital in Chicago, and as a campaign manager for the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. She also served as Board Treasurer for the Chicago Women’s Health Center, a women’s health collective, where she participated in a collective governance structure. She achieved the Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) designation in 2012. Elizabeth also holds an M.A. in Women’s Studies from The Ohio State University and a B.A. in Journalism and Women’s and Gender Studies from Ohio Wesleyan University.
Rebecca Darwent
Senior Advisor, Collaboratives, Philanthropy Together
Rebecca is a social entrepreneur activating generosity through philanthropic advising, consulting, and speaking. A proven builder of relationships and capital, Rebecca has led strategy, policy, fund development and partnerships mobilizing multimillion dollar investments in equity, health and education. In 2020, Rebecca co-founded the Foundation for Black Communities, whose advocacy resulted in an historic $200 million dollar commitment to Black philanthropy by the Canadian federal government. Prior to this, she was Director of Global Partnerships at Singularity University leading tech and education programming across five continents. Rebecca also worked in the Ontario provincial government as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Minister of Children and Youth Services, responsible for the Anti-Racism Directorate. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Philanthropy Workshop Canada and Laidlaw Foundation, is a Women Leaders for the World Fellow, and a Canadian Millennium Laureate.
Suzanne Ehlers
Executive Director and CEO of USA for UNHCR
Suzanne Ehlers is an established non-profit executive leader with 25+ years of experience serving and connecting global populations including refugees, forcibly displaced people and the stateless. She is currently the Executive Director & CEO of USA for UNHCR where she leads a DC- and NYC-based organization of 80+ staff that amplifies refugee voices whilst engaging millions of Americans in support of the work of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
Prior to joining USA for UNHCR, Suzanne served as CEO of Malala Fund where she worked closely with co-founders Malala and Ziauddin Yousafzai to create a world where all girls can pursue twelve years of free, safe and high-quality education.
Before joining Malala Fund, Suzanne was President & CEO of PAI, a global advocacy organization that Suzanne transformed into a sector leader in the protection and promotion of the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls.
Suzanne’s hallmark as a leader is the transformation, scaling and growth of mission-driven enterprises. She is a systems thinker with a background in grantmaking, bringing a global and inclusive perspective to the most challenging policy issues of our times. She is energized by relentless and generous networking; connecting the dots between ideas, people and resources; and convening unlikely partners from across fields and sectors to discover new solutions to intractable problems.
Suzanne has held numerous board and advisory positions including with Ibis Reproductive Health, the Latin America Montessori Bilingual public charter school and US Global Leadership Coalition. Suzanne served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Central African Republic. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Government from Cornell University, and resides in Washington, DC with her husband and two teenage daughters (and perfect pooch).
Kezia Fernandes
Lead, Disaster Relief and New Initiatives, Amazon India
Kezia has over a decade of experience across the corporate and development sectors. At Amazon, she leads India’s Disaster Relief program that leverages Amazon’s assets and strengths, to serve communities impacted by natural disasters. This year alone, Amazon India has responded to 85 unique requests for support from 47 grassroots nonprofit partners. As part of Amazon’s CSR and Philanthropic mandate in India, she has a keen focus on scalable solutions for Disaster Relief and delivering aid to affected communities.
Radha Friedman
Author and Philanthropic Advisor
Radha Friedman is an international best-selling author and a philanthropic advisor and coach for leaders in nonprofits and foundations. She is on a mission to encourage investing in under-represented voices–especially women and girls of color, women with disabilities, and women who are LGBTQ or gender expansive.
Radha has helped some of the largest foundations in the world, including advising the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on their gender equality strategy and the Clinton Global Initiative’s Network on Women & Girls Economic Empowerment. Her work has engaged Nobel Prize laureates including the Dalai Lama, Shirin Ebadi, and Mary Robinson, as well as luminaries such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sakena Yakoobi and Ai WeiWei.
Radha has also helped to co-found several award-winning initiatives such as the Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights (winner of the largest humanitarian prize in the world) and the She Matters Foundation (supporting women refugees). She has been named a fellow by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, American Express Foundation, Independent Sector, Henry M. Jackson Foundation, and the Global Women’s Leadership Network. Radha has been featured in Forbes, The Guardian, Alliance and Foreign Policy Magazine. She is the author of Fundraising Without Burnout: Radically Reimagining Philanthropy to Transform Your Impact. (Difference Press, 2023)
Yawa Hansen-Quao
Author and Founder, Leading Ladies Network
Yawa Hansen-Quao is a Ghanaian author, social entrepreneur and a feminist. She sits on the Board of Directors of Ashesi University, serves on the advisory board, Women’s Institute for Global Leadership and Benedictine University. She is the founder of the Leading Ladies Network (LLN), a member of the African Leadership Network and the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community. She is a force to reckon with in the education and well-being of the girl child.
Aisha Jumaan, MPH, PhD
President, Founder, Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation
Dr. Jumaan has over 30 years of experience in public health, including viral vaccine preventable diseases, cervical and breast cancer research, surveillance, maternal, child health and nutrition, primary health care, and women in development.
Aisha is currently working with as an Independent Consultant coordinating health-related projects in Yemen. Between 2010 and 2012, Aisha supported the CDC’s Field Epidemiology training Program. Prior to that, she was the Director for HPV Vaccines: Evidence for Impact project at PATH. She was with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1995 to 2008. At the CDC, she had various roles over the years, including serving as team leader for varicella and zoster vaccination program as well as holding roles in the National Immunization Program, the Division of Cancer Control and Prevention, the Nutrition Division, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. She previously also served as an Assistant Professor at the Rollins School of Public Health, Epidemiology Department at Emory University.
Aisha also worked in her native home, Yemen, with UNFPA and UNDP. She also participated in health-related program development, evaluation, and training activities for Peace Corps. She was an Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Sana’a University, and consulted on research projects for various ministries, USAID, Save the Children, and Dutch Embassy.
Aisha Jumaan earned her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC., her Masters in Public Health from Emory University, Atlanta, GA, and her BA, Biology from Mills College, Oakland, CA.
Obed Kabanda
Senior Director Global Partnerships/Innovation and Accountability Lead, Global Fund for Women
Obed has for over 20 years been part of the civil society ecosystem influencing government and philanthropic funding partners in shifting the way global gender justice, public health and other social change funding efforts can embrace locally led approaches. He has initiated, developed, and managed strategic bilateral and multilateral funding partnerships with over $100M at regional and global levels. He currently leads development partner influencing efforts at Global Fund for Women as Senior Director Global Partnerships/ Innovations and Accountability Lead. And has served on the USAID civil society consultative working group on localization, as well as the Worl Bank Civil Society Working Group. He has stewarded funding partnerships from governments, foundations, and individual major gifts.
Rufaro Kangai
Director, Emerging Movements & Opportunities, Global Fund for Women
Rufaro is a recognized leader in supporting movement building and grantmaking, with over ten years of experience developing, managing, and implementing programs that promote women’s and girls’ rights globally. She is a seasoned cross-cultural communicator, bridging global funders and local networks of civil society organizations and policy leaders, with extensive frontline experience implementing programs that advance the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls.
Rufaro earned a bachelor’s degree in media communications from San Francisco State University and holds a master’s degree in leadership and management from the University of Zimbabwe. Having lost 22 female relatives to the HIV and AIDS epidemic, Rufaro made the decision to join the fight against HIV and AIDS by volunteering at the Berkeley Free Clinic. There, she was also involved in efforts to advocate for and provide sexual and reproductive health services to young people and marginalized populations in the Bay Area.
Rufaro’s training ground on global women’s and girls’ rights was at the International Child Resource Institute (ICRI), an international nonprofit that works to improve the lives of children and families around the world. Rufaro was selected to become first country director for the Child Resource Institute, Zimbabwe (CRIZ). Under her leadership, the organization grew to a staff of 20. In this role, she supported 20,000 leaders and 150 grassroots organizations in evidence-based grantmaking for advocacy projects that successfully advocated for the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls. In Zimbabwe, Rufaro collaborated with Global Fund for Women and the Young African Women Leadership Initiative to convene the first ever regional summit for Africa young women and girls. Rufaro was also a member of the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe where she was involved in the constitution-making process in Zimbabwe that led to the nation adopting a new constitution that promoted the empowerment of girls and marginalized groups.
Mirte Postema
Senior Program Officer, Seattle International Foundation
Mirte leads the Anti-Impunity Fund (AIF) and the Independent Journalism Fund (IJF).
Prior to joining SIF, she worked as a researcher for Human Rights Watch’s LGBT Rights Program, where she researched human rights violations against LGBTQ people in northern Central America, and for HRW’s Americas Division, where she focused on Guatemala and Mexico.
She has previously worked at Stanford Law School’s Human Rights Center, in California, where she was Fellow for Criminal Justice and Prison Reform in the Americas, and at the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF) in Washington, D.C., where she led the Judicial Independence Program. Mirte has also contributed political analysis on Guatemala to the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Mirte holds a master’s degree in human rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science, in the UK, a law degree from Maastricht University, The Netherlands, and a certificate in Contemporary Latin American Studies from the Catholic University of Chile.
She has written numerous articles and opinion pieces about rule of law issues in Mexico and Central America. She is a native Dutch speaker, is fluent in English and Spanish, and has some command of Portuguese, German, and French.
Robert Rosen
Director, Philanthropic Partnerships, Gates Foundation
Robert Rosen leads a team that oversees the foundation’s relationship with philanthropists and charitable organizations across the globe.
Before joining the foundation in 2007, Robert served as senior director of the Corporate Finance Practice of the Corporate Executive Board, the international business strategy and research firm. Previously he served as political director for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and in the White House as assistant to the president and director of Advance for President Clinton.
Robert received a Juris Doctorate from Cornell Law School and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Vermont.
Surita Sandosham
President and CEO, Heifer International
Surita Sandosham joined Heifer International in 2022. Born and raised in Singapore, Sandosham has more than two decades of senior leadership experience at global nonprofit organizations. Most recently, she served as Executive Director of Heartland Alliance International, a humanitarian and human rights nonprofit based in Chicago, Illinois. Prior to Heartland, Sandosham was Vice President of Programs at the global nonprofit Synergos in New York, building multisectoral partnerships on behalf of smallholder farmers and other vulnerable populations.
Sandosham is a lawyer by training who graduated from City University London and the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. As an international development practitioner and human rights advocate, she has served in leadership positions at Amnesty International, Equality Now, Rockefeller Foundation, Synergos, and Heartland Alliance International, working to accelerate agricultural growth, address malnutrition, improve retention rates in education and support economic development for marginalized communities.
Fatema Sumar
Executive Director, Center for International Development (CID), Harvard University
Fatema Sumar is the Executive Director of the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University. Housed at the Harvard Kennedy School, CID works across Harvard University and a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to build a thriving world for all.
Fatema has a distinguished career as a practitioner in the US government and civil society. She most recently served as a presidential appointee in the Biden-Harris administration as the Vice President of Compact Operations at the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). In this role, she oversaw the agency’s compacts worldwide to reduce poverty through economic growth. She managed MCC’s technical and regional divisions working on infrastructure, environment, private sector, gender and social inclusion, human and community development, agriculture, procurement, financial management, strategic partnerships, and contracts and grant management. She was previously MCC’s Deputy Vice President for Europe, Asia, the Pacific, and Latin America.
Fatema also served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia at the US Department of State where she led efforts to expand regional economic and energy connectivity and as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF). In the US Congress, she worked for three Senators including as a Senior Professional Staff Member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee focused on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the broader region.
In civil society, Fatema was the Vice President of Global Programs at Oxfam America where she oversaw regional development and humanitarian response to fight the injustice of poverty. Early in her career, she also worked at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Fatema is the author of the book, The Development Diplomat: Working Across Borders, Boardrooms, and Bureaucracies to End Poverty. She sits on Advisory Boards for Princeton, Cornell, and Indiana universities and for Muslim Americans in Public Service. She has been published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, The New Republic, The Hill, Devex, and other outlets. She is a frequent guest speaker and has testified before the US House of Representatives and Senate.
Fatema graduated with a MPA from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, where she received the prestigious Stokes Award, and a BA in Government from Cornell University. She has an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. She studied abroad at the American University in Cairo.
Atul Tandon
CEO, Opportunity International
Atul Tandon is a global leader known for building, growing, and turning around some of the world’s best-known for-profit and non-profit enterprises. Tandon currently serves as CEO of Opportunity International, a non-profit organization that designs, delivers, and scales innovative financial solutions to help families living in poverty build sustainable livelihoods and access quality education for their children.
Prior to Opportunity International, Tandon founded and served as CEO of the Tandon Institute, which provides strategy, solutions, and staffing to enable social sector enterprises. Before that, Tandon served as the leader of United Way Worldwide’s 41-country International Network, helping build and shape the world’s largest network of community-based charities. Additionally, he oversaw the network’s worldwide corporate relationships and fundraising functions.
In 2000, Tandon joined World Vision United States and led the organization through a period of unprecedented expansion, tripling revenues over his nine-year tenure. In addition to his U.S. responsibilities, he also led World Vision’s global initiatives to expand its fundraising in 25 countries. He also served on the board of VisionFund International, World Vision’s microfinance network.
Prior to his leadership roles in the non-profit sector, Tandon had a successful career in the global financial services industry. He helped launch Citibank’s consumer banking franchise in India, introducing services such as ATMs, credit cards, mortgages, consumer loans, and remote banking for the first time in the region. Citi brought him to the U.S. in 1992, where he led the turnaround of its operations in California/West, then pioneered customer-centered relationship banking before going on to manage the bank’s global branch distribution network.
In 2019, Tandon’s lifelong leadership was recognized with Ideagen’s Global Leadership Award, and in 2021 he received NonProfit PRO’s Lifetime Achievement Award honoring his decades of service to those living in extreme poverty.
Tandon earned an MBA and Bachelor of Commerce with honors from the University of Delhi and holds a certificate in governance from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has taught at both University of Washington’s Foster School of Business and University of San Francisco’s McLaren School of Business.
Alicia Vermaele
Director of Global Philanthropy & Community Engagement, Starbucks
Alicia Vermaele serves as the director of Global Philanthropy & Community Engagement at Starbucks Coffee Company and is the executive director of The Starbucks Foundation. Alicia oversees the strategy and giving programs for The Starbucks Foundation, focused on enabling thriving communities and uplifting those affected by disaster. Through this work, the Foundation supports both domestic and international initiatives that span from Starbucks’ local hometown of Seattle all the way through to coffee, tea, and cocoa-growing regions around the world. Additionally, Alicia and her team are focused on designing and scaling impact initiatives across coffee, social impact and sustainability that meaningfully engage Starbucks employees in advancing the company’s community promise. Alicia previously served as chief of staff to the Starbucks Executive Vice President of Global Coffee, Social Impact and Sustainability and led global business operations and engagement for the function. While at Starbucks, she built a team focused on early-stage social impact innovations that address key challenges faced by Starbucks employees and their communities at large, bridging deeper connections between the two to drive meaningful, long-term solutions as well as led the initial launch of the company’s commitment to hiring 10,000 refugees worldwide. Prior to relocating to Seattle, Alicia was a Deputy Director at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) where she planned and implemented CGI Latin America and CGI Middle East & Africa, convenings that engaged leaders from the private, public, and civil society sectors to make social impact commitments. Alicia is an accomplished musician and Berklee College of Music graduate, and holds a master’s degree from Columbia University.
Additional Speakers
Pilar Arrossagaray
Young Leader in Diabetes, CUI.D.AR
Pilar Arrossagaray is 32 years old and lives with type 1 diabetes since she was 12 years old. In 2016 she had the fortune of becoming a Young Leader in Diabetes of the Association for the Care of Diabetes in Argentina CUI.D.AR, a non-profit NGO that since 2001 works for children, youth and adults living with diabetes in Argentina to minimize the impact of this chronic condition on their lives and for disease prevention and health promotion. As a Young Leader in Diabetes of CUI.D.AR, Pilar has been working hard to improve the lives of all children and young living with this chronic condition in Argentina and worldwide. In this sense, she’s participated in many activities organized by CUI.D.AR, such as educational activities, diabetes camps and social media awareness campaigns. Later on, Pilar started to work in the areas of institutional communication and patient advocacy, having the opportunity to participate in meetings with the national health minister, the provincial education vice minister and national and provincial parliament members, among others. Pilar is truly passionate about seeking ways to change complex realities and has an active role showing the needs and difficulties that people with diabetes face in everyday life. She is also convinced that young people have a unique power to make changes happen and that it’s really important to use it in order to have incidence in public policies that can improve the quality of life of many people, especially children and young living with type 1 diabetes.
Devika Batra
Partnerships and Fundraising, Sehgal Foundation
Devika Batra is a Partnerships and Fundraising consultant at Sehgal Foundation. She brings with her multi-sectoral development experience, across fundraising, partnership development, people management, training, and program designing. She began working at SMSF in India in 2009 where she steered grassroots research and implementation initiatives aimed at food security, water security, and community empowerment.
Jon Browning
Founder and CEO, Global Mentorship Initiative
Jon Browning is a former Microsoft director who is the founder and CEO of Global Mentorship Initiative. GMI mentorships guide thousands of refugees and students in over 90 countries to their first sustainable job. Jon co-created the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation and BSR to encourage the hiring of youth in underserved communities and promote job creation. He is chair of the IAOP chapter for Social Responsibility and co-created the Global Impact Sourcing Awards.
Devindra Chainani
Co-President, Pratham Seattle
Devindra Chainani is the Co-President of Pratham Seattle. During his day job, he works on AI infrastructure at Oracle. Prior to joining Oracle, he was a product leader at Microsoft for over two decades, managing engineering teams for products such as Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Azure. Devindra has a passion for low-cost scalable education solutions and has worked closely with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on the way kids acquire and construct knowledge, a field in which he now holds a couple of patents. In addition to Pratham, he served on the Board of Trustees for University Prep Academy Seattle and the Founding Board for the Information School at the University of Washington.
Kate Cochran
Chief Executive Officer, Board Member, Upaya Social Ventures
Kate is a fierce believer that global poverty is not inevitable and that market forces and individual resolve are some of the sharpest tools available to us in that fight.
For the past several years, she has held leadership positions in international development organizations providing financial services and access to higher education to millions of the world’s poorest citizens. She served as Chief Operating Officer for Vittana, directing strategy for stimulating student loan markets in developing countries and later served as a consultant and board member disseminating the learnings from that organization.
Prior to Vittana, she held a range of executive roles at Unitus, a microfinance accelerator. She is a founding Board member of Upaya Social Ventures and served as its Chair and Treasurer prior to joining the staff.
In addition, Kate has consulted independently with a range of nonprofit organizations and social businesses. She is a frequent speaker on social entrepreneurship and the intersection of markets and mission at business schools and conferences.
Kate holds a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA Anderson.
Jennifer Crouch
Director, Development, VillageReach
Jennifer Crouch is Director, Development at VillageReach, a global health organization that transforms health care delivery to reach everyone. Jennifer leads resource mobilization for VillageReach and has a history of working in deep collaboration with partners throughout the health ecosystem including Africa Frontline First and the COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa. Jennifer has more than 20 years of experience in non-profit management and development, with a particular interest in creative capital structures. Prior to VillageReach, Jennifer led a stakeholder engagement team at Global Partnerships, a non-profit impact investor, and has also worked across the sustainable agriculture and education sectors. Jennifer holds a B.A. from James Madison University and an M.A. from the University of Washington.
Patty Curran
Executive Director, Partners Asia
Patty has spent her career focused on leading social justice and business ethics efforts. After studying Social Work at St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, she worked with coal mining communities in Appalachia and then in inner-city Washington, D.C. before serving as a Jesuit Volunteer in Kathmandu. She spent the following 15 years in Cambodia contributing to the fight against landmines and providing vocational training to landmine survivors, and through various non-profits, she led efforts to fundraise, support organizational development, and build skills and confidence of community groups driving change in their communities.
Ten years ago, she moved to Myanmar where she facilitated the collaborative effort of drafting of the National Strategic Plan for the Advancement of Women 2011-2021. She served as Trócaire’s Country Representative, leading a large team tasked with fostering partnerships with local organizations advancing women in leadership, demanding land rights, and providing humanitarian assistance to tens of thousands of Kachin people displaced by civil war.
With a move to the private sector, as Telenor Myanmar’s SVP and Head of Sustainability, Patty led teams in community outreach, supply chain sustainability, and social responsibility. Before leaving Telenor, she started a large-scale effort to provide a digital education program to out-of-school children in rural Myanmar through the free monastic education system. Most recently Patty was PeaceNexus Foundation’s Regional Programme Manager, supporting community groups to develop effective advocacy strategies and promoting conflict sensitivity within the private sector.
The middle of eleven children, Patty grew up in a family where social justice was instilled in them. Patty and her husband, Mark, have three children, Augustine, Dorothy, and Salvador.
Dr. Rebecca Dali
Founder, Executive Director, Centre for Caring, Empowerment and Peace Initiatives (CCEPI)
Dr. Rebecca Dali is the Founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Caring, Empowerment and Peace Initiatives (CCEPI). She founded the organization in 1989, combining her years of experience teaching with her belief in dignity, voice, agency, and access to basic needs for the most vulnerable people in her community. CCEPI implements programs to support victims of violence and terrorism and to stimulate citizens’ consciousness on empathy and social justice. CCEPI has served over 1 million people in Northern Nigeria, including many girls and women who escaped from Boko Haram. Dr. Dali received the Sergio Vieira de Mello UN Humanitarian Award in 2017. She was forced to flee Nigeria due to ongoing threats from Boko Haram but her work with CCEPI continues.
In 2020, Dr. Dali convened 30 Nigerian civil society groups to form a chapter of the Movement for Community-led Development. This powerful and honorable group spans Nigeria, representing all religions, youth, people with disabilities and more. Eighteen of the thirty organizations are led by women. Collectively, they represent a potential positive future for Nigeria, driven by love, all faiths, and the power of mutual aid.
Sierra Malia Fox-Woods
Senior Program Officer, Panorama Global
As a Senior Program Officer on the Partnerships Team, Sierra Malia Fox-Woods (she/her/hers) leverages her experience in program management, research, and partnership development to design and lead programming for high-impact social change efforts including philanthropic funds and grantmaking. She joined Panorama in 2020 and played a key role on the team that launched The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health. She has managed more than $12 million in grantmaking, developed programming for grantee partners, and produced insights for stakeholders informed by community-based organizations.
Sierra is Native Hawaiian and comes to Panorama most recently from Kamehameha Schools, a Hawai’i-based nonprofit educational trust. In this role, she helped facilitate a statewide public-private partnership to improve Native Hawaiian post-secondary retention and graduation, managed a multi-year research publication measuring Native Hawaiian well-being (Ka Huaka’i), and consulted on a variety of culture-based education and youth-development projects.
Sierra earned her MBA from Chaminade University and holds two BA degrees in Business Management and Hawaiian Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She is a certified mindfulness-based yoga instructor and lives in Silverdale, Washington with her husband, daughter, and Chihuahua Terrier. In her free time, she enjoys baking (okay, mostly eating) desserts and spending time with her family.
Kirsten Gagnaire
Founder & CEO, Kati Collective
A Seattle-area native and passionate advocate for gender and equity issues globally, Kirsten has spent much of her adult life living, working and traveling across Africa and SE Asia. She believes deeply in the wisdom of the perspectives of the people and places that are impacted by global health and development work and created Kati to help design processes and approaches that bring those voices to global policy and decision makers.
In every interaction, she centers agency and empowerment for girls and women while working towards equity and access in health, education, and commerce opportunities. She believes everyone engaged in a project must align in a way which tangibly and responsibility works in partnership with the communities in which they are privileged to work and to maximize appropriate outcomes for each environment.
Kirsten has built her career with an approach of “learning by doing” and through a mix of experience, empathy, data and pragmatism, she constantly works to find a way forward that is strategic, inclusive and realistic. She is a social enterprise innovator, thought leader, facilitator, problem solver, educator, and student. Her career has spanned a variety of perspectives including as a Global Director of a large, multi-country digital health program, a Country Director in West Africa, Managing Director in a large consulting firm, and running her own business. She has developed and led groundbreaking business models and partnerships with global multi-sector organizations including governments, corporate, United Nations agencies, and grassroots social entrepreneurs. After launching her 2 young adult children into the world, Kirsten is currently studying Spanish, re-learning piano, delving into the world of Web3 from a feminist perspective and has a BA in International Business from Seattle University.
Elaine Gibbons
Chief Impact Officer, Panorama Global
Elaine is Panorama’s Chief Impact Officer. In this new role Elaine is responsible for the strategy, operations, and development of Panorama’s diverse portfolio of social impact work.
Elaine brings deep cross-sector, global leadership and transformational change experience to Panorama. Most recently she served as President, Violet Gro an early-stage sustainable ag tech company. Prior to that Elaine was a member of the executive team at the global health innovation organization, PATH, where she ran a portfolio that included marketing and communications, policy and advocacy, revenue generation and strategic partnerships. Prior to PATH, Elaine spent 13 years at Russell Investments where she held several executive positions. Most notably as Managing Director for the US Go To Market team and Managing Director Global Operations, based in Bangalore, where she led a corporate transformation to start up India operations.
Dr. Claire Gwayi-Chore
Associate Director, Health and Life Sciences, Gates Ventures
Dr. Claire Gwayi-Chore is as a global health specialist and implementation scientist who has spent the last decade delivering and evaluating large-scale school- and community-based interventions in various low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. She has directly supported programs that have reached hundreds of millions of vulnerable people globally.
Claire spends a lot of time thinking about and investigating how power & privilege influence the way that we “do” global health. As a mixed-methods researcher, her works centers around driving equity to maximize intervention uptake in LMICs and other low-resource settings. Specifically, her areas of interest include adapting implementation science approaches to the practice of decolonizing global health and advancing health equity research.
She is an Associate Director, Health and Life Sciences at Gates Ventures where she serves as a Topic Lead in the Exemplars in Global Health program, managing a project investigating ‘positive outliers’ in global health equity. She holds a PhD in Global Health Implementation Science from the University of Washington School of Public Health, an MSc in Public Health in Developing Countries (now named Public Health for Development) from The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and an MHS in Health Education and Health Communication from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
She is passionate about mentoring the next (and current) generation of global health practitioners, researchers, and leaders. She enjoys cooking, traveling, Pilates, and finding opportunities to do all three at the same time.
Robert Hokanson
Senior Manager of Global Priorities, Humanitarian Services Division, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Robert Hokanson has worked in international development and relief in various forms for over 25 years. He served as a full-time missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Bolivia Cochabamba mission and earned degrees in Near Eastern Studies, International Development and Organizational Behavior. Early in his career, he worked in rural villages of the Bolivian and Peruvian Altiplano, supervising health, water, and agriculture projects. He served as program director and vice president of a microenterprise development organization with operations in five countries. Since 2007, Robert has worked in the Church Welfare and Self-Reliance Department where he has overseen initiatives for employment, childhood nutrition, refugees, clean water, and food security. Robert currently serves as senior manager of global priorities in the Humanitarian Services Division. Robert is married and the father of five daughters. He enjoys running, backpacking and exploring the great outdoors
Chris Jochnick
CEO, Landesa
Chris Jochnick is a global land rights expert and social entrepreneur with decades of experience in international development. Chris joined Landesa as CEO in August 2015 after leading Oxfam America’s work on corporate engagement. He is the co-founder and former director of two pioneering non-profit organizations: Center for Economic and Social Rights and the Ecuador-based Centros De Derechos Economicos y Sociales and spent seven years working in Latin America, devoting much of that time to addressing threats to Indigenous Peoples’ land rights. Prior to Oxfam, Chris worked as a corporate attorney on corporate governance and social responsibility. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and former fellow of the MacArthur Foundation and Echoing Green. Chris is Chair of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre and on the Steering Committee of the Sorensen Center for International Peace and Justice. He is a member of the advisory council of the International Land and Forest Tenure Facility, and of the Center for Business and Human Rights at NYU Stern School of Business. He has published scholarly articles widely and has edited two books.
Walter Kerr
Cofounder, Co-Executive Director, Unlock Aid,
Walter Kerr knows you don’t have to be powerful to have power and that every big movement starts with a small group of people who first take action. He is the co-founding co-executive director of Unlock Aid, which is a coalition of organizations driving a campaign to restructure the U.S. approach to global development. Prior to starting Unlock Aid, he worked as an executive at a technology startup and at the US State Department, where he served as a US diplomat in China and Brazil. Walter started his advocacy career by taking on Big Tobacco in the United States, where he led a student movement that helped change public health policies like banning smoking in public places.
Dr. Khaing Zar Oo- Nge Nge
Global Program Manager at Shanta Foundation
Dr Khaing Zar Oo @ Nge Nge is taking on the role of Global Program Manager at Shanta Foundation US starting in August 2023. She is one of the co-founders of Muditar and has been with the organization for 14 years. She started as a field staff for three years and then served as the Regional Manager of Southern Shan State, Myanmar for ten years. She also worked as a country director of Muditar Foundation Myanmar for the year 2022.
She is responsible for Operational Oversight, Accountability, and Partner Capacity Strengthening. This involves providing formal training, coaching, and mentoring to improve existing operational systems or program/project design. Additionally, she is working on Programmatic Expansion, Operational Expansion, and Strategic Partnerships. She is a medical doctor who received a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) from the University of Medicine Magway, Myanmar, in 2008.
She is a passionate leader who is deeply dedicated to supporting underserved communities. She is a trainer with a great sense of humor who is always eager to learn more in order to lead and guide in strengthening community systems, policy-making, and ensuring that potential strategies in developing countries are feasible and successful. Honesty, Sincerity, and Integrity are her life’s values on the path to success.
She belongs to the PaO/Shan/Innthar ethnic group and practices Buddhism. She grew up in Nyaung Shwe, a small town in Southern Shan State. In her free time, she enjoys traveling with friends, photography, singing, and listening to music.
Tamra Madenwald
Associate Director of Clinical Operations, Curevo Vaccine
Tamra brings more than 20 years’ experience successfully implementing Phase I-IV vaccine clinical trials globally. Prior to joining Curevo, Tamra worked for Medicago Inc., overseeing their global pediatric SARS-CoV-2 vaccine clinical trial program. Prior to that role, Tamra worked for PATH’s Center for Vaccine Innovation and Access (CVIA), overseeing the planning and implementation of numerous global vaccine clinical development programs in Malaria, Pertussis, RSV, Polio, Pneumonia, and Influenza, many of which were successfully conducted in resource limited settings. Tamra came to PATH from the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center where she managed and oversaw numerous HIV vaccine trials globally. Tamra earlier served as Assistant Director of the Office of International Training at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) at Yale University, as Project Coordinator of the Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS) at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and as a Field Coordinator for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) on humanitarian relief assignments in Kosovo, Croatia, and the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Tamra earned her B.A. from Bennington College, an M.A. from the University of Washington, and an M.P.H. from the University of Pittsburgh.
Emmanuel Kwafo Mintah
Executive Director, Ark Development Organization
Emmanuel is a change agent who has undertaken several development projects in Ghana for the past 20 years. He is the Executive Director of Ark Development Organization, a non-governmental organization in the Eastern Region and the Eastern Regional Chairman for Coalition of NGOs in Health and CONIWAS. With a background in social work and leadership, Emmanuel possesses a strong understanding of the challenges faced by marginalized communities and a passion for improving their well-being. He has been instrumental in championing advocacy through community mobilization strategies such as awareness creation, people-centred advocacy etc. in ensuring social development initiatives in rural hard-to-reach communities. Over the years, Emmanuel has spearheaded Local and International sponsored projects which seek to provide humanitarian services for women, children, the youth, PWDs, and people living with diseases such as diabetes, HIV/AIDS, TB, Skin-NTDs.
Margarita Mora
Senior Managing Director, Partnerships, Nia Tero
Margarita Mora is the Senior Managing Director of Partnerships at Nia Tero. For more than two decades, she has co-created and implemented strategies that promote equitable relationships between Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and rural farmers, collaborating with global environmental organizations.
Leveraging from the wealth of lessons and experiences, Margarita plays a crucial role in shaping Nia Tero’s approach to building meaningful partnerships with Indigenous Peoples and local communities globally. As an alumna of the Mulago Foundation’s Conservation Fellowship, a former MIT Media Lab Fellow, and a Heinrich Böll Stiftung alumna, she brings a diverse and comprehensive perspective to her work.
Greg Nelson
Chief Technology Officer, Opportunity International
Greg Nelson serves as Opportunity’s Chief Technology Officer and leads the organization’s Digital Innovation Group (DIG), which seeks to deeply understand our clients and partners in order to develop the appropriate technologies that best serve their needs. DIG combines Opportunity’s Digital Financial Services team and Product Innovation team to build solutions that enable clients to improve their livelihoods and break the cycle of generational poverty. Greg also guides—and is supported by—Opportunity’s Technical Advisory Council, which includes members from Microsoft, Google, and Meta. Prior to joining Opportunity, Greg spent 26 years at Microsoft and was based in Seattle, London and Paris. As Vice President of Partner Ecosystem for Business Applications, Greg helped Microsoft’s developer community use tools and platforms to grow their businesses. His other roles spanned engineering, partner and business development, marketing, and sales. Greg has an MBA from Harvard University, a degree in African Studies from the University of Cape Town, and a BA from Seattle Pacific University. He and his wife Laurie have two children, Becca and Tyler. They currently reside in Seattle.
Megan Nykyforchyn-Clark
Director of New Business Development, The Hunger Project
Megan Nykyforchyn-Clark is the Director of New Business Development at The Hunger Project. With expertise in institutional fundraising, program design, and project management, Megan has secured tens of millions of dollars in grant funding from foundations, bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors for domestic and international non-profits. Prior to coming to The Hunger Project, whose focus on human dignity inspired her, she held leadership and project management roles and consulted for various international non-profits in South Africa and the United States. A graduate of the University of Rochester and the University of Texas School of Public Health, Megan resides in Washington DC with her family.
Nixon Ochatre
Founder, Head of Strategy, Amani Initiative
Nixon Ochatre, is the Founder and Head of Strategy at Amani Initiative a Ugandan grassroots non-profit combatting child marriage and teenage pregnancy since 2012. As Chairperson of the Movement for Community-led Development Uganda Chapter, he oversees a network of 90+ grassroots organizations. With a decade of hands-on experience, in resource mobilization from traditional and local sources for local organizations. Beyond his leadership roles, he provides strategic guidance to local organizations as a Board Member, contributing to their growth and impact. His expertise positions him as a dynamic advocate for creating an enabling environment for community-based organizations, fostering sustainable change at the grassroots level.
Ankita Patel
Director, Collaboratives, Panorama Global
Ankita Patel is the Director of Collaboratives at Panorama Global. In this role, she develops equity-minded strategies to amplify the impact of collaboratives and networks powered by Panorama and captures leadership and wisdom to influence the social change sector. Ankita combines almost 20 years of experience in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector to elevate the social, political and economic status of communities in our democracy and economy. Previously, Ankita served as a Senior Advisor at Tides advocacy, a pro-Black 501(c)(4) fiscal sponsorship organization to support progressive political movement leaders in implementing their political and electoral strategies. As the Senior Program Manager for Public Policy and Advocacy at Philanthropy Northwest, Ankita managed the Washington Census Equity Fund, a donor and community collaborative that closely partnered with Washington state to ensure a complete, robust and accurate count in historically undercounted communities, and advocated against the citizenship question being added to the Census questionnaire. With a strong passion to advocate for women, immigrants and people of color, Ankita served in various roles at the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Ankita holds a Juris Doctorate from Seattle University School of Law.
Bindiya Patel
Co-Director & Faculty, Global Leadership Forum
As Co-Director, Bindiya Patel leads strategy and fundraising for the Global Leadership Forum. She also serves as core faculty to develop globally-minded social purpose leaders.
Ms. Patel has more than 20 years of experience leading projects and initiatives in the global health sector. In her last role at PATH, Ms. Patel served as managing director for PATH’s largest division where she oversaw strategy, operations and integration. She also led the implementation of an innovative approach to equity in programming across the organization. Earlier in her career at PATH, she advocated for new HIV prevention options for women in the Global Campaign for Microbicides, managed US government funded projects on tuberculosis in Tanzania, served on PATH’s strategy team, and launched the PATH Center for Malaria Control and Elimination. In her roles with PATH’s strategy team and Global Health Programs division, Ms. Patel designed and led organization-wide change initiatives to enable structured collaboration across countries and programs to strengthen PATH’s impact. Prior to PATH, she oversaw child health and nutrition programming in multiple South African townships and managed grants to local organizations in the UK.
Ms. Patel earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering from Cornell University and a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton University. She serves on the board of directors for the National Women’s Health Network and the Civic Council for the Master of Arts in Applied International Studies at the University of Washington Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.
Juan Robalino
Climate Change and Land Tenure Specialist, Landesa
Juan Jose Robalino serves as Climate Change and Land Tenure Specialist at Landesa, with experience in sustainable landscapes, climate change, as well as agri-food and forestry value chains for more than 7 years. Prior to Landesa, Juan Jose worked in the international development, private, and public sectors, supporting interventions toward sustainable landscapes. Juan Jose has developed recommendations for enabling policy, regulations, market development, and financial mechanisms for resource mobilization addressing sustainable development in Myanmar, Uzbekistan, India, Bahrain, among others. With an Economic and Finance MBA degree, his interest is to keep working for advancing sustainable land management with an emphasis on climate change.
Julia Roper
Director of Strategy, Panorama Global
Julia Roper is a Director of Strategy who supports partners on strategy development, stakeholder engagement, policy, and advocacy. With a background in psychology, Julia believes that mobilizing strong partnerships and engaging the right stakeholders is both a science and an art. She has served on several global health technical working groups, partnering with WHO, UNICEF, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gavi, and others to strengthen global policy, compile and disseminate best practices, and develop unified strategies to improve health outcomes.
Prior to joining Panorama, Julia most recently focused on improving access and uptake of new vaccines in low- and middle-income countries as a manager with Clinton Health Access Initiative. During that time, she was based in Uganda, Nigeria, Lesotho, Indonesia, and Vietnam and led projects focusing on strategic planning, sustainable financing, capacity building, and market shaping, among other activities.
Julia attended Dartmouth College where in addition to Psychology, she studied International Studies, and acquired a certificate in Global Health.
Julia was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and is excited to be back after ten years of being away and is especially looking forward to the beautiful outdoors, good coffee, and great people.
Laurien Sibomana
Founder, Director, Pillar of Health
Laurien Sibomana is the Founder and Director of Pillar of Health (PoH), a non-profit whose mission is to have every person with type 1 diabetes (T1D) in Rwanda have health insurance and be sustainably able to afford diabetes care. Pillar of Health assists children/youth and families (3000+) from 23 district hospitals and plans to expand to 30.
Paul Silver
Pangea Member
Paul joined Pangea in the spring of 2016. Prior the merger he was Pangea’s Vice -President, a board member, and an active member of the SE Asia pod. He participated in site visits to Myanmar in 2016 and 2018 and to Laos in 2023. For about 40 years until his retirement in 2022, he was a corporate/business lawyer in Seattle, but throughout his career, he has had a strong interest in what lawyers call “pro bono” activities, including providing volunteer legal services to a number of non-profit organizations. Between college and law school he served as a Peace Corp volunteer in Thailand. That experience contributed to his ongoing interest in pro bono activities.
Anne Sivley
Portfolio Manager, Sankofa Consulting, Pangea Member
Anne joined Pangea Giving in 2016 and serves on Global Washington’s Pangea Advisory Council. She has been active in supporting Pangea’s grantmaking to partners in Mexico and Guatemala and previously served on Pangea’s Board of Directors. In her role as a Portfolio Manager at Sankofa Consulting, Anne supports philanthropic and community-based organizations to build and strengthen monitoring and evaluation practices that center equity and drive continuous learning. She draws from over eight years of experience as a program manager, evaluator, and researcher focused on gender and racial equity and social justice. Her portfolio of evaluation and learning work spans global and domestic domains, including financial inclusion, Indigenous guardianship, and education. Anne holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Washington Evans School.
Anna Slattery
External Affairs Manager, The Hunger Project
Anna Slattery serves as the External Affairs Manager for The Hunger Project. In this role, Anna drives high-impact events, engagements, and communications to rally support for the end of hunger globally. She routinely represents THP at the United Nations and other global fora.
Prior to joining THP, Anna served as a Public Affairs Officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development based in Washington, D.C. In this role, she designed and executed strategic engagements around the world and developed digital communication strategies for a diverse portfolio of issues, including women’s empowerment, humanitarian relief, global health, and other executive priorities.
Before her tenure with USAID, Anna worked for a boutique consulting firm in Washington, supporting strategic communications for national security and technology clients. Her work on behalf of these clients won several national awards.
Anna holds an M.A. in Global Communications from Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University and a B.A. in International Studies from Elon University. During her undergraduate studies, she attended the University of Ghana – Legon for one semester.
She currently resides in Boston with her husband, daughter and beagle.
Greg Snyders Partner
Dalberg
Greg Snyders is a partner with Dalberg, an impact-focused advisory firm dedicated to global development. Based in Seattle, he advises clients on the development of strategies and the design of new initiatives to deploy resources for impact across the spectrum of capital, from philanthropic to commercial. As co-lead of the firm’s Finance & Investment practice, he has over a decade of experience in structuring impact investment vehicles across sectors including workforce development, renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and conservation, and works fluidly across the private, public and philanthropic sectors.
Gunjan Veda
Director, Collaborative Research, Policy and Practice for The Movement for Community-led Development (MCLD)
Gunjan Veda is the Director, Collaborative Research, Policy and Practice for The Movement for Community-led Development (MCLD), a global consortium of 2000+ local civil society organizations and INGOs. Her work includes creating collaborative and mutual partnerships, interrogating structural violence in existing systems, forms of knowledge production and publication, and consistently challenging existing spaces for partnership, capacity strengthening and knowledge sharing to become more inclusive and more equitable. Gunjan’s work cuts across sectors, roles and responsibilities and accompanies organizations and individuals in their quest to transform our sector. On January 1, 2024 Gunjan will be stepping in as the Executive Coordinator of MCLD Global and Executive Director of MCLD US. Prior to joining MCLD, Gunjan worked across grassroots and civil society organizations in India, founded a social enterprise and was a policy maker at the Indian Government’s Planning Commission with a portfolio encompassing gender equity, health, nutrition and government-civil society interface. A firm believer in the power of stories Gunjan has authored two books: Beautiful Country: Stories from Another India (Harper Collins with Syeda Hameed) and the Museum of Broken Tea Cups (Sage and Yoda Press).
Mariam Zameer
Director of the Health Systems Global Technical Team and Immunization Lead, VillageReach
Mariam Zameer is the Director of the Health Systems Global Technical Team and Immunization Lead for VillageReach. She focuses on improving equitable access to health care and health financing. Prior to VillageReach, Mariam has worked at PATH and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She has extensive work and lived experience in Pakistan, and also worked in DRC, Malawi, Mozambique, Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana. Mariam is Pakistani with a background in Economics and Public Policy. She is currently a doctoral candidate at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine looking at the funding environment and external trends related to localization. Her thesis is focused on immunization access for urban poor communities.