Speakers and Attendees

Jacqui True, FASSA, FAIIA is Professor of International Relations and Director of Monash University’s Centre for Gender, Peace and Security. She is also a Global Fellow, Peace Research Institute (PRIO), Oslo and received her PhD from York University, Toronto, Canada, and an honorary doctorate from Lund University Sweden in 2018. Her research is focused on the Women, Peace and Security agenda: Understanding the political economy of violence against women, sexual and gender-based violence in conflict in Asia Pacific; and the gender dimensions of violent extremism and conflict. Her book, The Political Economy of Violence Against Women (Oxford, 2012) won the American Political Science Association’s 2012 biennial prize for the best book in human rights, among other prizes. Recently she published Violence against Women: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford, 2020). and with Sara E. Davies of The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace and Security (2019). In 2021 Professor True was named one of the 100 most influential Persons in Gender Policy – for the gender-based violence area.

From academic to corporate and institutional leader, Stephanie has driven cultural, structural and digital change agendas across large globally focused businesses to make them more accessible to their users. Finding great ideas which add true value to our social and commercial worlds come from fostering a culture of diversity, collaboration and trust.

Md. Mashud Alam has been working in the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) since 1999. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics is the National Statistics Organization (NSO) of Bangladesh. He has over 12 years of experiences for generating Gender Statistics in BBS. He is currently the Director of Demography and Health Wing of BBS. The mandate of this wing to produce official statistics in the area of Demography, Gender, Health and other Social issues.

Md. Mashud Alam started his career as a Statistical Officer (SO) in the Industry and Labour Wing of BBS.

He has vast experiences in conducting different surveys and censuses. In joint collaboration of UNWomen Bangladesh and BBS, ‘Time Use Survey 2021’ has been conducted under his leadership. A periodic publication ‘Compilation of Gender Statistics’ is published under his supervision. He was actively engaged in conducting ‘Violence Against Women Survey 2014’. He was the Focal Point Officer of ‘Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2019’. He was one of the Project Directors of ‘Population and Housing Census 2011’.

Md. Mashud Alam holds a MSS and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from University of Dhaka. He has another Masters degree in Public Health from James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University.

Tasnima Mukit is a development practitioner who has been working in the development and humanitarian sectors since 2018. She is currently designated as a Project Officer (Gender & Safeguarding Focal) at the Center for Natural Resource Studies (CNRS) and is a member of the Asia Feminist Coalition. She obtained her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Forestry and Environmental Science from Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh, where her dissertation research was conducted in collaboration with the Oxfam-PROTIC project. She was also awarded the prestigious National Science and Technology (NST) Fellowship for 2020–21.

Social forestry and community-based natural resource management are two of her fields of interest. She has a distinct perspective on gender and climate justice. She has hands-on experience and knowledge of working with climate-vulnerable and disaster-affected communities. She is participating in the 2022 Bali Care Economy Dialogue to speak about her experiences and thoughts about care, climate change, and natural resource management in Asia.

Joshco is the manager for Inclusive Development at Pacific Disability Forum, whose goals are to facilitate effective participation of persons with disabilities in Pacific Island countries and Territories.

In his own words:

My name is Joshco Edward Wakaniyasi and I am 50 years old. I acquired my disability in 1999 after an accident resulting in a quadriplegic diagnosis. Even as a person with high support needs, I still love and participate in the same hobbies I had pre-accident. I still go fishing, enjoy good movies and just hanging with friends. My partner is also a person with a disability as she is blind, and we have a 11-year-old daughter. I have a younger sister and brother and often stay in touch and have regular family get togethers. Aside from my love to engage towards disability inclusion programs and initiative I enjoy working with young people towards their goals and aspirations.

Laisa Bulatale is the Team Leader for the Gender and Transitional Justice (GTJ) Programme, prior to this she held the position of a Research Officer.

Laisa has a positive, proactive can-do approach to life has resulted in numerous value-adding outcomes for teams I have worked with. She is passionate about raising awareness, legal advocacy and addressing human rights issues particularly in the areas of governance, gender and disability. Additionally, Laisa is a keen musician who loves song-writing, guitar and live band performances.

Laisa specializes in the area of research and has produced numerous publications for the organisation in the area of social protection, older women, reproductive cancers, women's economic status , and submissions to various national and regional platforms.

Laisa holds a Professional Diploma in Legal Practice (PDLP) 2017, Bachelor of Laws (LLB) 2017 – University of the South Pacific and Diploma in Music – Fiji National University.

Nalini Singh, Executive Director of the Fiji Women's Rights Movement )FWRM), is from Fiji, is a feminist and a social development specialist with over 20 years’ experience in design, implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation of women’s rights and development programmes in Asia Pacific. With her passion for women’s human rights and gender equality driving her work, her particular interests is in the issues of women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), decent work and organisational capacity strengthening.

Prior to joining FWRM over four years ago, Nalini worked as the Programme Manager- Advocacy and Capacity Building for the Asian Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW) based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for 7 years. Before this she was a Programme Officer at the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) based in Chaing Mai, Thailand for 5 years. Nalini was also part of the Regional Rights Resource Team for 2 years. The diverse and unique experiences across the region have provided Nalini with invaluable skills, practical knowledge, learnings and understanding of contextual realities for the work that she does.

Nalini is a graduate of the University of the South Pacific.

The Head of Family Health Unit, managing Fiji 's Maternal, Children, Adolescent and Sexual Reproductive health for the country. Completed an MBBS from the Fiji school of Medicine and has a Masters in International Public Health from The University of Sydney. A public health specialist.

Fish Ip is the Asia Pacific regional coordinator at IDWF. Her roles include advocacy, delegation and representation, coordination, capacity-building and training, as well as case-management. Coming from a labor union background, she has extensive experience in transnational organizing, research, and movement building. The IDWF has currently 83 affiliates which are domestic workers unions/organizations from 65 countries, organizing 631,000 domestic workers. IDWF aims at organizing domestic workers into a collective voice and representation so that they can make changes in their lives and labour conditions.

Radha Shah is research and policy lead at PathFinders, a migrant women's maternity rights organization in Hong Kong. She has a background in Social Anthropology and South Asian Studies, and previously worked in development and academia in Canada and Pakistan. Radha has designed and conducted research for international and local organizations on gender and minority rights; prison reform; and internal displacement and international migration. She has also taught an undergraduate anthropology course at the Aga Khan University in Karachi.

Radha holds a B.A. from the University of Toronto, and an M.A. from York University.

Akshat Singhal is the co-founder of The Gender Lab and has 17 years of experience in working in the space of social and corporate sector. He has been engaging with different spaces through research, training and collaboration on gender and masculinities. He is an alumnus of Global Shapers network, an UnLtd India fellow (2013-2015) and Asia Foundation Development Fellow 2019. He is a co-recipient of Lotus Leadership Award 2020 by The Asia Foundation. He loves exploring the interconnected of issues, deepening culture and questioning different aspects of power.

Ayushi Banerji is Co-founder of The Gender Lab - with 9 years of experience in the field of gender & feminism with a focus on adolescent girls and women.

She has been a G(irls)20 Ambassador(now Fora Network For Change) and is now a Steering Comittee Member. She has been involved in training and creating learning experiences on gender and leadership for various organisations. She was invited to speak on the panel at Women's Forum, Paris on bridging the age gap in the future of work for women and at Urban Thinkers Challenge, Mumbai on Reimagining cities from a gender and youth perspective. An alumnus of St.Xaviers College, Mumbai, Ayushi is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and an Acumen India Fellow since 2019. She is the co-recipient of Lotus Leadership Award 2020 by The Asia Foundation.

Her grassroots experience, in combination with her global exposure, gives her a unique perspective on gender issues and approaches to address them. She brings with her deep passion and commitment to the cause of gender equality. She is a trained creative facilitator and is exploring how engaging in arts can truly transform a person.

Amar is Partner at Intellecap and is part of its Gender and Livelihoods Practice. He has over a decade of business consulting and research experience across South and Southeast Asia, East Africa and the USA. He has worked on projects related to women’s entrepreneurship, gender analyses and gender lens investing (GLI), the care economy, impact investing, SME financing and enterprise support. Amar has a specific interest in gender mainstreaming and has worked extensively on engagements researching and documenting strategies, applications, and utility of investing with a gender lens. He has liaised with diverse stakeholders – LPs, GPs, lenders, entrepreneurs, intermediaries, researchers and policymakers – to identify trends, challenges and opportunities for GLI. Amar has also advised on gender analyses of investors and lenders to create gender action plans to build/strengthen frameworks that enable product-design, sourcing, due-diligence, disbursal and post-disbursal processes that enable the deployment of more capital to women entrepreneurs and with a gender lens; and enable alignment of internal policies to support GLI.

Susan Thomas has been active in the field of Health and Development for the past 38 years. She is currently the National Health Coordinator in SEWA. She also manages the Child Care initiatives at Self-Employed Women’s Association, (SEWA) and has been active in the Childcare campaign led by SEWA in India. As a public health and development professional her focus has been to work on various aspects of issues surrounding women, young people and children with a particular focus on social security.

She has worked in different Non-Government as well as Funding Organizations, holding senior positions with an expertise in managing large programmes and teams in diverse geographies across India. While working for these organizations, she has travelled extensively both nationally and internationally representing their interests in various public and private forums. She is also a member of the Social Protection Advisory Committee of WIEGO.

Sona Mitra has worked in the area of women and development for the last one and a half decades. Her core research interests are in areas related to policies in women’s economic empowerment. She has examined the causes of low work participation rates of women in India extensively using secondary and primary data from the field. She has been actively working with the government on improving WEE policies and is currently a member of the Broadbased committee for Gender Responsive budgeting in India. Sona regularly writes for journals, magazines, newspapers on similar issues.

Sona holds a Phd in Economics from the esteemed Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. India.

Sumitra Mishra is the Executive Director of Mobile Creches, a leading early childhood development organisation working to ensure young children are a national priority in law, policies, research, practices, capacities and communities. She is a postgraduate in special education and comes with twenty-five years of experience. She has worked closely with children and young adults with disabilities, trafficked children, and some of the most disenfranchised women and children through programme design, policy matters and research. She has wide experience in organizational strategy and development, policy advocacy and campaign building, evidence-based programmes impacting change, fundraising and communications. Her recent published work includes State of the Young Child in India 2020, Her Right to Equality – Rethinking India 6 2021. She is recognized as a leader of civil society, a versatile TedX speaker and across other platforms. She was awarded as one of India’s Best Leaders in Times of Crisis 2021 by Great Place to Work (GPTW).

As a member of the investment team, I have an active role in building the deal pipelines, assessing and analyzing the potential deals, and working with portfolio companies. I take the lead on building out Sweef Capital’s presence in my home country, Indonesia.

My role enables me to draw on the full range of experience I’ve gained as a finance professional including at a leading Indonesian Venture Capital firm working across due diligence, fund operations, and actively engaging with portfolio companies and in Deal Advisory at KPMG Indonesia advising private equity clients and strategic investors.

I began my career at PricewaterhouseCoopers auditing publicly listed entities, national and multinational companies professional services firms such as McKinsey & Company. I am a Certified Public Accountant and hold a Bachelor of Accounting from Atma Jaya Catholic University, Indonesia.

Susan Nio is the founder, CEO & CTO of LoveCare, the first online marketplace in Indonesia that connects professional caretakers with families who need high-quality home care services. Under her leadership, the company has grown from humble beginnings in mid-2019 to over 500 care workers nationwide, serving more than 10.000 clients whilst still being 100% self-funded. LoveCare is also chosen as one of the winners of the UN Women Care Accelerator Program 2021.

Technology and women's empowerment have always been her passion. She hopes through LoveCare, the unexplored territory of the care industry in Indonesia can be transformed and elevated.

Made by parents for parents, Kiddocare is Malaysia’s first and preferred on-demand babysitting platform that conveniently connects parents with trained and vetted Malaysian babysitters based on their preferred time and location.

In her own words:

What excites me every morning when I wake up, is the ability to make a difference in someone's life.

And with Kiddocare, I can do just that. Helping parents find reliable care for their children, support a mother who's struggling to cope with her newborn baby, giving moms and dads opportunity to have their date nights, empower a stay-home-mom to take time for herself, and especially now, helping work-from-home parents get effective and productive work time while their children are safely entertained.

And every night I am grateful knowing that we've helped our carers put food on her family's table, put their children through school, get to buy the car they need, pay for their bills, go for family vacation, put themselves in university. We know we've enabled, and empowered.

Profesor Emerita Dato’ Dr Rashidah SHUIB, an academic-activist, and a Fulbright-Hays scholar, graduated with a Ph D from Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA. On 21 May 2022 she was conferred Professor Emerita by Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). She still lectures at USM’s Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Unit, School of Health Sciences. From 2005-2012 she was the Director of the Women’s Development Research Centre USM, now known as the Centre for Research on Women and Gender (KANITA). Her research interests and publications are in the intersections of gender, health, and development issues covering sexual and reproductive health and rights, marriage and migration, violence against women, micro-credit and empowerment. She was the Principal Investigator for the first national prevalence study on women’s well-being and domestic violence against women using the WHO multi-country questionnaire She continues to do action research and training in gender and rights and is often invited to be a speaker and member of expert panels both by government agencies and NGOs.

Her experiences at the international level include being a member of the Gender Advisory Panel (WHO, Geneva) for six years, a member of the International Women’s Advisory Panel (IWAP) of IPPF, London, a current Board Member of the ARROW-US, and a faculty member of the Ewha Global Empowerment Programme, South Korea. Harpswell. Currently she is the President of the Reproductive Health Association of Kelantan (ReHAK).

Ms. D.Sukhjargalmaa has 10 (1996-2006) years of experience in the development field having worked with UNFPA as a field officer supporting the Mongolia country programme, and UNDP where she was Governance as well as Poverty Reduction Team Leader at the level of Assistant Resident Representative in Mongolia, Timor Leste and Cambodia at different times. Ms. Sukhjargalmaa served 3 years as Gender Advisor to the Prime Minister of Mongolia (2018-21), 6 years as Press Secretary and Head of the Media Service of the President of Mongolia (1990-96). Prior to this, she worked for 15 years with Mongolia’s State Committee for Information, Radio and TV, starting in 1976 as a correspondent for the Mongolia Magazine and concluding in 1990 as the Editor-in-Chief of the Foreign News Desk.

Ms. D.Sukhjargalmaa is one of the core drafters of Mongolia’s NGO Law (adopted 1997) and the drafter of the Law on Gender Equality (adopted in 2011).

She has been an independent consultant in the field of women in politics, gender, civil society and development.

Ms. D.Sukhjargalmaa has extensive ties with the country’s civil society, having served as the President of LEOS, one of the largest women’s organizations (1996-1998), and a board member and member of a number of other women’s, human rights and development CSO

Ms. Zolzaya Batkhuyag (she/her/hers) is a lawyer and a gender and development analyst, holding a Master of Development Studies degree from the University of Melbourne as an Australia Awards Fellow. She is a Co-Founder of and an Advisor to the Women for Change (WFC) NGO in Mongolia.

Zolzaya is a recognized advocate, trainer, and consultant in gender, human rights, and leadership, working at the grassroots level fighting for gender equality and women’s empowerment. She has successfully led numerous advocacy projects to raise public awareness of human rights, gender equality, and civic education since 2008. From 2011 to 2013, she produced the first The Vagina Monologues in Mongolia, the feminist play by Eve Ensler. She initiated and continues to lead the annual Women’s Political Leadership Program, having trained over 150 future women public leaders of Mongolia since 2015. She also led independent, civil society observations of the 2012 and 2016 parliamentary, and 2017 Presidential elections. She has served on the boards of many civil society organizations, such as the LGBT Centre of Mongolia, and currently serves on several, such as the Mongolian Women’s Fund.

Zolzaya has been selected as the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader (Class of 2021), the Asia Foundation’s Asian Development Fellow (Class of 2015), and the U.S. Department of State’s Community Solutions Program Fellow (Class of 2014). Zolzaya is frequently sought by the media to comment on gender and human rights issues. She recently founded Mongolia’s first women’s standup comedy crew, using artivism to spread the message of gender equality.

Kripa Basnyat is currently working as National Project Coordinator for UN Women-ILO Joint Programme (Promoting decent employment for women through inclusive growth policies and investments in care) at ILO Nepal Country Office. She is an intersectional feminist with experience of working on peacebuilding and reconciliation; women’s economic, social and cultural rights; gender equality and social inclusion; violence and harassment through research and policy advocacy, collective feminist movement building, leadership development and capacity strengthening. She has an experience of working with feminist human rights, international development organizations, regional networks and academic institution in South Asia, East Africa and UK. She is the Co-Founder of Reclaiming Narratives which is an intersectional feminist collective in Nepal. Kripa completed M.Sc in Inequalities and Social Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is a 2018-19 Atlantic Senior Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and a founding member of South Asian Feminist Alliance on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Saleha Shah works as a Project Coordinator for Feminist Futures at Oxfam in Asia. She has over four years of experience working in climate change, gender, and care in government institutions, think tanks, and, more recently with Oxfam in Pakistan on projects focusing on gender and climate change development since 2018. She is skilled in communications, research, and advocacy and holds a degree in International Relations from the University of London. She is also On Deck’s Climate Tech Fellow. She currently works for Oxfam's Asia Regional platform which overlooks 10 countries in Asia for the Feminist Future work which prioritizes work on the care economy.

Ms. Jacel J. Paguio is a licensed social worker and is currently a Senior Officer in the Poverty Eradication and Gender Division, Human Development Directorate, ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Department, in the ASEAN Secretariat.

Ms. Paguio has been supporting the ASEAN Sectoral Bodies in advancing agenda on social welfare and development and on promotion and protection of rights of women and children ensuring mainstreaming of gender and social inclusion in the regional development agenda of ASEAN. Ms. Paguio has extensive work and experience on social welfare administration, gender and development, social protection and child protection in her stint as former Deputy Program Director of ABS-CBN Foundation, Inc. and Assistant Regional Director of the Department of Social Welfare and Development – National Capital Region, Philippines. She served as part-time faculty member of the Social Work Program of the College Department - St. Mary’s College in Quezon City, Philippines.

She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work at The Philippine Women’s University (PWU) and her post-graduate education in Masters of Science in Social Work (MSSW) at the Asian Social Institute (ASI) in the Philippines.

MARIA KRISTINE JOSEFINA G. BALMES is currently the Deputy Executive Director for Operations of the Philippine Commission on Women. Prior to joining the Commission, she was an elected local government official. DD Kristine is also part of several civic organizations. Aside from her dedication to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment, she has remained an advocate of different causes including but not limited to environment and climate change.

As Deputy Executive Director, she served as OIC-Project Manager of the Great Women Project and currently, continues to serve as its oversight. She is also the Commission’s Chairperson of their Covid-19 Task Force. Currently, she is the Chair of the Interagency Committee on Gender, Children, and Youth Statistics and Co-Chair of the National Steering Committee on Women, Peace, and Security.

Maria Rosario “Lot” Felizco is the Country Director of Oxfam in the Philippines. She previously headed Oxfam in the Philippines in 1995 to 1999 and held senior roles in Oxfam Hong Kong. Prior to rejoining Oxfam in 2017, she was Philippine country manager for Christian Aid. She has also taught at the University of the Philippines, as assistant professor in 2013 to 2015.

Lot holds a Bachelor’s degree in Community Development from the University of the Philippines and a Master’s degree in Social Anthropology of Development from SOAS University of London, as a recipient of the Chevening Awards.

Meredith specializes in issues related to aging and care. She has over 17 years’ experience working across the Asia-Pacific region on issues related to adaptations to population aging and older persons Her experience spans policies and programs on social protection, health, humanitarian response, community driven development and long-term care systems. Within ADB she focuses on managing ADB’s regional technical assistance focused on building long-term care systems and developing community-based services for older persons and providing technical advice on adapting to population aging.

I founded Sweef Capital as an independent firm in mid 2021, having led the Asia and women’s economic empowerment investment programs for Small Enterprise Assistance Fund (SEAF) since 2018. We saw a unique opportunity to position an investment firm to respond to a major shift that recognises the power of women taking charge of their futures, which can unlock significant new value.

Leading the investment team, I draw on two decades in private equity leadership experience focused on growing mid-sized businesses across Europe and Asia, including with GE Capital, Private Advisors and Goldman Sachs and the experience gained as Senior Managing Director at SEAF. Leading on the SEAF Women Opportunity Fund (SWOF) and spearheaded development and developing benchmarks to make the trends in diversity and inclusion more accessible to institutional markets provided a great foundation for the new firm. We were thrilled to see this recognised in the 2020 Private Equity International Awards which rated our Southeast Asia women’s economic empowerment fund design among the Top 30 innovations in ESG/Impact.

I have a Masters in Law from University of Canterbury and Masters in International Accounting & Finance from the London School of Economics.

Katja leads the UN Women Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) and Migration portfolios in Asia and the Pacific. She oversees UN Women’s work on gender-inclusive entrepreneurship, transformative work on the care-economy and works towards strengthening gender-responsive business conduct to build an ecosystem that supports women's empowerment and gender equality in the world of work. She led the recently completed multi-country, multi-stakeholder three-year programme ‘WeEmpowerAsia’, a UN Women programme funded by and in partnership with the European Union that sought to increase the number of women who lead and participate in businesses in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. A key component of the programme mobilized private sector companies of all sizes and across sectors to commit to and implement the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a set of 7 principles guiding businesses to become more gender-responsive across their value chains.

Katja worked in the private sector for more than 15 years in multiple roles spanning from marketing to sales and was Unilever’s Director of Global Partnerships and Advocacy for Women’s Economic Empowerment and Inclusive Business Development before joining UN Women. Katja frequently serves as a speaker, panelist, and member of several advisory boards, including Amfori, a global business association for open and sustainable trade.

As a Senior Gender and non-discrimination Specialist, Joni Simpson provides policy analysis, technical guidance and support on gender equality and inclusion in the world of work in East and South East Asia and the Pacific. This includes technical guidance on care economy, equal opportunity, pay equity, ending violence and harassment and discrimination at work, and diversity inclusion (persons with disabilities – including through the ILO Global Business and Disability Network, indigenous persons and LGBTIQ persons) and through the promotion of key gender equality and inclusion International Labour Standards. In addition, she promotes women’s entrepreneurship and economic empowerment and leadership approaches to ILO constituents and partners. Previously, Joni was ILO’s Global Coordinator & Specialist in Women’s Entrepreneurship Development and Entrepreneurship Education. She is the co-founder of the Women@ILO network. She holds a Master's degree in Cultural anthropology and a Bachelor’s in Education.

In addition to her work at the ILO, she has over ten years of experience in women-centred Community Economic Development and Community Credit, building accessible and gender-responsive programmes and policies for Entrepreneurship Development and financial inclusion. Prior to joining the ILO, she headed a Women’s Enterprise Center and social purpose enterprise in Canada. She has lived and worked in the Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America

Sarah Knibbs has been working in the Asia Pacific region for the last 25 years, with a range of organisations including UN Women, UNFPA, DFID China, Save the Children Fund, VSO and the Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance (KHANA). Her work has focused on gender, violence against women, HIV, youth issues, and sexual and reproductive health and rights. Sarah joined UN Women in 2014. She was initially based at Cambodia Country Office and moved to the UN Women Regional Office for Asia Pacific in June 2020 where she is the Deputy Regional Director. She is currently the Regional Director, Ad Interim.

Sarah is from the UK and studied History at Oxford for her first degree, later taking an MSc in Development Management specialising in Population and Reproductive Health at the University of Wales Swansea.

Ms. Wanna Suksriboonamphai received her M.A. in International Policy Studies from Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), and a B.A. in Economics from Thammasat University, the university with long-standing history of Social Work education and Economics teaching in Thailand.

Khun Wanna was operations director (or Coordinator) of the Coordinating Office for ASEAN Humanitarian Task Force for Victims of Cyclone Nargis in Yangon, Myanmar 2008-2009; a Regional Training Program Manager for US Department of State; and worked in Jakarta at ASEAN Secretariat in Science and Technology Division as a science policy officer where she also took part on reviewing a very first draft of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Blueprint.

Having worked in Baghdad, Sana'a and a few of dangered posts, she has a combined portfolio of training, international development, and management traveling & working in approximately 40 countries in 5 continents. She's currently an Executive Director of ASEAN Training Centre for Social Work and Social Welfare.

Ms. Luinstra manages programs, engages private sector clients, and advises colleagues on gender and inclusion issues across East Asia Pacific at the International Financial Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group. Ms. Luinstra leads activities aimed at improving business outcomes through investing in workplace gender equality; facilitating access to finance and markets for women entrepreneurs and female founders; reaching female consumers as a distinct market segment; and addressing gender-based violence.

Previously, Ms. Luinstra managed the Better Work program for IFC, a partnership with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and over 70 leading clothing brands that has improved the working conditions of over 3 million garment workers worldwide. Prior to IFC, Ms. Luinstra worked at the ILO in Geneva and before that as a social protection and labor policy specialist at the World Bank in Washington, DC. She has experience in more than two dozen countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia, and the Pacific Islands. She has been interviewed or had work featured on BBC, CNBC, Asia Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post among other media outlets. Ms. Luinstra lives in Hanoi, Vietnam with her husband and twin sons.

Jodi has been responsible for coordinating and delivering the ITF strategy on gender equity in the transport industry for almost a decade, with more than 25 years experience working with trade unions nationally and internationally in the public and private sector. She is committed to ending the systemic exclusion of women from decent transport work, and ending gender-based violence in the industry as intersecting key priorities.

Ankita Panda is a Program Advisor with the Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality team at The Asia Foundation. She is interested in gender policy, and has worked across women’s economic empowerment and gender-based violence. Previously, she lived and worked in Mumbai, where she provided capacity building support to help early-stage social enterprises scale their organizations and interventions. She also previously worked with the World Bank, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and the Results for Development to conduct research, policy analysis, and manage diverse programs across gender and public health.

Ankita has a Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a B.A. in Economics from Rutgers. Originally from New Jersey, she is also an avid baker and Francophile.

Elizabeth Barajas-Román is the President & CEO of the Women’s Funding Network, the largest philanthropic network in the world devoted to gender equity and justice. In this role, Elizabeth leads strategy to strengthen the collective power of the network as a unified platform for change.

Previously, she was CEO of the Solidago Foundation. For more than 20 years she has been a leader in progressive movements, including advocating at the national level for the health and rights of immigrant women and their families. She has also served as the CEO of the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts. Under her leadership, the Women’s Fund was part of several strategic initiatives that resulted in systems-level change impacting millions of women and their families. She was previously a manager at The Pew Charitable Trusts, and before that, the Director of Policy at National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health where she opened and directed the organization’s Washington, D.C. office.

Elizabeth serves on the advisory board of the Ida B. Wells society and the Asian American Women’s Political Initiative. The Massachusetts Treasurer appointed Elizabeth to serve on the state’s Economic Empowerment Trust Fund Board, and the statewide Advisory Board on Wage Equality. Elizabeth previously served on the national Board of Directors for Emerge. Elizabeth is a certified Project Manager Professional (PMP), a graduate of Oberlin College, and she received her master’s degree in international policy from Harvard University.

Faith Lemon is the Program Director for the Disability Rights Fund, where she leads a program team of local activists supporting grassroots advocacy throughout Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean. Faith brings to this role extensive experience supporting diverse teams to realize rights, economic justice, gender equity and inclusive development. In her previous life as a social impact consultant, Faith helped foundations and nonprofits improve the efficacy and durability of their efforts by providing technical and strategic grantmaking support, integrating learning into policy and practice, building stronger teams, and developing catalytic partnerships. Through opportunities to learn from marginalized communities in Haiti, Myanmar and Tibet, she gained a deep appreciation for the imperative of “Nothing About Us Without Us.” In alignment with that mission, Faith chaired the US board of ATD Fourth World Movement, an organization that fights poverty by lifting up the voices of people experiencing it, creating space for their knowledge and expertise to inform policy and practice. Faith holds Masters’ degrees in Human Rights and Social Work from Columbia University.

Jane Sloane is Senior Director, Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality with The Asia Foundation based in San Francisco. In this role, she provides intellectual and programmatic leadership for The Asia Foundation’s programs to empower women and advance gender equality in Asia and the Pacific, working with a team in San Francisco and Washington and with the foundation’s 19 country offices in the region.

Jane’s previous roles include Vice President of Programs, Global Fund for Women, Vice President of Development, Women’s World Banking, and Executive Director, International Women’s Development Agency. Jane is on the global advisory board of the Atlantic Institute in Oxford, is a Senior Atlantic Fellow with the Inequalities Institute at London School of Economics (LSE), an advisory board member with the Centre for Women, Peace, and Security at LSE, on the development committee of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (US) and on the program committee of Episcopal Relief and Development.

Jane is a recipient of a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Adelaide, an Alumni Award for Services to Humanity from the University of Sydney, a Global Ambassadors Award from the Advance Foundation, a Woman of Distinction Award from the Asia Pacific Women’s Business Council, a Churchill Fellowship, an Australian Award, and a Human Rights Medal from the Vietnam Women’s Union. She is one of the original 75 Australian climate change presenters trained by Al Gore.

Jane holds a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Sydney and a bachelor’s degree in History (Hons) from the University of Adelaide.

Kate Francis is a Senior Gender Advisor for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality at The Asia Foundation where she is coordinating and building the organization’s care economy programming and approaches. A gender expert with over 15 years of experience designing and implementing women’s empowerment, gender integration, and social inclusion programs, Kate’s subject matter expertise spans women’s economic empowerment, human trafficking, child labor, gender budgeting, and women’s leadership and political participation. She has led advocacy, strategy development, and thought leadership initiatives with leading international organizations, including the Gates Foundation, Global Health Visions, Plan International, Freedom Fund, and GoodWeave International. Preferring to collaborate with community leaders, government officials, and colleagues in diverse contexts and countries, Kate is always looking for new ways leverage and adapt innovative gender and inclusion strategies across borders and sectors. She is also passionate about social entrepreneurship and business engagement, working with philanthropists, business leaders, and government funders to support new approaches to foster market-driven social good. Kate holds an MA in international development and gender studies from the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

Maria S. Floro is Professor Emerita of Economics at American University (AU) in Washington DC. She is Senior Advisor for the APHRC-based Care Economy Africa Replication Project and is part of the University of Toronto-based Care Economies in Context Project. She served as co-Director of the Program on Gender Analysis in Economics (PGAE) at American University until 2021 and led the 2017-21 Care Work and the Economy (CWE-GAM) Project (www.careworkeconomy.org) . Her publications include co-authored books on Informal Credit Markets and the New Institutional Economics, Women's Work in the World Economy, and Gender, Development, and Globalization: Economics as if All People Mattered. She also published journal articles, monographs, and book chapters on care and unpaid work, time use and well-being, gender and climate change, demand for care, gender norms and long-term care, vulnerability, food security and migration, household savings, credit, and the informal sector.

Dr. Marina Durano is a visionary and strategic leader with a deep knowledge of economic growth and development in multiple social-economic contexts and geographies complemented by a strong record of human rights and feminist activism for social justice. Combining subject matter expertise in feminist economics with advocacy in multilateral settings, Dr. Marina Durano has been bridging scientific research and analysis with social movement activism to open new pathways to policy design and implementation, particularly in the areas of international trade, gender budgeting, and financial crisis response.

Mary Borrowman is a Senior Economist based out of the ICRW-US office, where she works with the advocacy team to serve as a technical adviser for coalition partners and a leader in building, synthesizing, and amplifying the global evidence base on women’s economic empowerment. In her current role at ICRW, Mary’s expertise in gender and economics has also been utilized in curriculum development for a Generation Equality Forum inspired course on gendered economic justice and rights for Apolitical, a brief on gender and trade, writing and advocacy on care work, and in the creation of a methodology for tracking funding flows for women’s economic empowerment.

Mary has explored a wide range of issues related to economic inequality throughout the world from an intersectional feminist lens in her work, research and publications for two decades. Most recently this included updating and teaching a course for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in conjunction with the Rutgers’ Center for Women and Work on gender and inclusive and sustainable industrial development. Prior to joining ICRW, Mary’s work includes the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School on elderly poverty, The Brooks World Poverty Institute: Capturing the Gains Project on trade policy issues related to distribution within global value chains, and the Courant Research Centre at the University of Göttingen on drivers of gendered occupational and sectoral segregation in developing countries. Beyond research and academia, Mary has been committed and involved with advocacy at the community level, particularly LGBTQIA+ advocacy, and was recently honored as an Out in National Security and Foreign Policy 2021 LGBTQIA+ leader.

Megan O’Donnell is a policy fellow and assistant director for gender at CGD. She works on issues related to women’s economic empowerment, care, social protection, financial inclusion, gender data and measurement, and development effectiveness. Prior to CGD, O’Donnell worked at the ONE Campaign, an international advocacy organization focused on sub Saharan Africa, where she led the development of ONE’s gender and inclusive growth-focused policy recommendations to donors and country governments. Before joining ONE, she coordinated CGD’s gender research program and has also worked with the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Center for Research on Women, CARE USA, Banyan Global, and the Middle East Institute. She has a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford and a bachelor’s degree in Politics and French from the University of Virginia.

Venge Nyirongo supports the Generation Equality Forum as Thematic Lead for the Economic Justice and Rights Action Coalition at UN Women. He joined UN Women's Economic Empowerment Section in March 2014 to support the organization's strategic and policy focus on the nexus between gender equality and sustainable development. His work builds on his experience in advancing women's economic empowerment, using prior experiences in UN Environment and UNDP. He is an economist with research interests in the economic agency of women and girls, particularly the microeconomic modeling of gender equality in labour markets, access to and control over productive resources and services, and the impact of gender-responsive policies.

Wendy Walker is the Chief of the Sustainable Development Thematic Group at the Asian Development Bank and currently co-leads the implementation of ADB Strategy 2030's first operational priority on Addressing Remaining Poverty and Reducing Inequalities. She provides technical leadership in social development and social protection and facilitates collaboration across sector and technical groups in ADB and with external partners. Wendy has worked to develop a focus on care services, disability inclusion, aging and long-term care in ADB operations and technical assistance programs. She is a team leader for regional technical assistance programs on Strengthening Capacity for Developing Members Capacity in Elderly Care and Developing Innovative Community-Based Long-Term Care Systems and Services