Her Power 2024

Ms. Amina J. Mohammed is the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Chair of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group.

Prior to her appointment, Ms. Mohammed served as Minister of Environment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria where she steered the country’s efforts on climate action and efforts to protect the natural environment.

Ms. Mohammed first joined the United Nations in 2012 as Special Adviser to former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with the responsibility for post-2015 development planning. She led the process that resulted in global agreement around the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Ms. Mohammed began her career working on the design of schools and clinics in Nigeria. She served as an advocate focused on increasing access to education and other social services, before moving into the public sector, where she rose to the position of adviser to four successive Presidents on poverty, public sector reform, and sustainable development.

Ms. Mohammed has been conferred several honorary doctorates and has served as an adjunct professor, lecturing on international development. The recipient of various global awards, Ms. Mohammed has served on numerous international advisory boards and panels. She is the mother of six children and has four grandchildren.

Dr. Stacey A. Dixon was sworn in as the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence (PDDNI) on Aug. 4, 2021. She currently serves as the sixth Senate-confirmed PDDNI. Possessing over 20 years of intelligence experience, Dr. Dixon has led the Intelligence Community at the highest ranks. Dr. Dixon joined ODNI after serving as the eighth Deputy Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) from 2019-2021, where she assisted the Director both in leading the agency and managing the National System for Geospatial Intelligence.

From 2018 to 2019, she was the fourth Director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), after serving as its Deputy Director from 2016 to 2018. Before joining IARPA, Dr. Dixon served as the Deputy Director of NGA’s research directorate, where she oversaw geospatial intelligence research and development. She held additional leadership roles at NGA as the Chief of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs and Deputy Director of the Corporate Communications Office. Prior to serving at NGA, Dr. Dixon was a staff member for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She first started her intelligence career at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2003, where she was assigned to the National Reconnaissance Office’s advanced systems and technology directorate.

An accomplished leader, Dr. Dixon holds both a doctorate and master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. She was also a chemical engineer postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Dixon serves as a presidentially nominated member of the Board of Visitors to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and is ODNI’s liaison to Spelman College’s Center for Excellence for Minority Women in STEM. Dr. Dixon is a native of the District of Columbia, where she currently resides.

Senator Tammy Duckworth is an Iraq War Veteran, Purple Heart recipient and former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs who was among the first handful of Army women to fly combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Duckworth served in the Reserve Forces for 23 years before retiring at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 2014. She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016 after representing Illinois’s Eighth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for two terms.

In 2004, Duckworth was deployed to Iraq as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot for the Illinois Army National Guard. On November 12, 2004, her helicopter was hit by an RPG and she lost her legs and partial use of her right arm. Senator Duckworth spent the next year recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where she quickly became an advocate for her fellow Soldiers. After she recovered, she became Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs, where she helped create a tax credit for employers that hire Veterans, established a first-in-the-nation 24/7 Veterans crisis hotline and developed innovative programs to improve Veterans’ access to housing and health care.

In 2009, President Obama appointed Duckworth as an Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs, where she coordinated a joint initiative with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help end Veteran homelessness, worked to address the unique challenges faced by female as well as Native American Veterans and created the Office of Online Communications to improve the VA’s accessibility, especially among young Veterans.

In the U.S. House, Duckworth served on the Armed Services Committee and was an advocate for working families and job creation, introducing bills like her bipartisan Friendly Airports for Mothers (FAM) Act to ensure new mothers have access to safe, clean and accessible lactation rooms when traveling through airports, which is now law. She helped lead passage of the bipartisan Clay Hunt SAV Act, which enhanced efforts to track and reduce Veteran suicides. She also passed the Troop Talent Act to help returning Veterans find jobs in the private sector and worked to cut waste and fraud at the Pentagon and throughout government, including passing a common-sense provision that was projected to save taxpayers $4 billion by reducing redundancy in military uniforms.

In the U.S. Senate, Duckworth advocates for practical, common-sense solutions needed to move our state and country forward like rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, protecting Illinoisans from lead poisoning, growing manufacturing jobs while supporting minority-owned small businesses, investing in communities that have been ignored for too long and making college more affordable for all Americans. She co-founded the Senate’s first-ever Environmental Justice Caucus and also continues her lifelong mission of supporting, protecting and keeping the promises we’ve made to our Veterans as well as ensuring that we stand fully behind the troops our nation sends into danger overseas. In 2018, after Duckworth became the first Senator to give birth while serving in office, she sent a message to working families across the country about the value of family-friendly policies by securing a historic rules change that allows Senators to bring their infant children onto the Senate floor.

As Senator, she advocates for practical, common-sense solutions needed to move our country and our state forward. Senator Duckworth serves on several influential committees that give her an important platform to advocate for Illinois’s working families and entrepreneurs: the Armed Services Committee; the Foreign Relations Committee; the Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee; and the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee. The first Senate bill she introduced—which supports Illinois jobs by helping prevent bureaucratic delays in infrastructure projects—became law in record time. As a result of her achievements, Duckworth has been recognized by the Center for Effective Lawmaking as among the top five most effective Democratic Senators overall and the most effective on transportation issues in the 116th Congress. She was also recognized as the most effective freshman Democratic Senator in the 115th Congress.

Duckworth is fluent in Thai and Indonesian. She attended college at the University of Hawaii and earned a Master of Arts in International Affairs from the George Washington University. Following graduation, Duckworth moved to Illinois and began pursuing a Ph.D. in Political Science at Northern Illinois University and later worked for Rotary International. To this day, the Senator volunteers at local food pantries and participates in community service projects in her free time.

Senator Duckworth and her husband Bryan are the proud parents of two daughters, Abigail and Maile.

Ambassador Geeta Rao Gupta is the fourth Ambassador-at-Large for the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State and the first woman of color to hold the position. She previously served as Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation and Senior Advisor to Co-impact, a global collaborative philanthropy for systems change. From 2012 to 2016, Ambassador Rao Gupta served as Deputy Executive Director, Programmes at UNICEF and prior to that as a Senior Fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Earlier, Gupta served as President of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) for more than a decade. Ambassador Rao Gupta has also chaired numerous boards including the Global Advisory Board of Women Lift Health, an initiative to promote women’s leadership in global health and served as a member of WHO’s Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee for Health Emergencies, the Board of UBS Optimus Foundation and the Advisory Board of Merck for Mothers. She also served as a Commissioner for the Lancet-SIGHT Commission on Health, Gender Equality and Peace. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including InterAction’s Julia Taft Award for Outstanding Leadership, Harvard University’s Anne Roe Award and Washington Business Journal’s “Women Who Mean Business” Award. Ambassador Rao Gupta holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Bangalore University and an M.Phil. and M.A. from the University of Delhi in India.

Congresswoman Young Kim is proud to represent California’s 40th District, which includes parts of Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, in the U.S. House of Representatives. An immigrant, small business owner, community leader, former California Assemblywoman, mother, and grandmother, Young is proud to be one of the first Korean American women ever to serve in Congress and is fighting to help all Americans have the chance to achieve their dream just like she did. In the House of Representatives, Young serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee – where she serves as Chairwoman of the Indo-Pacific Subcommittee and as a member of the Africa Subcommittee – and on the House Financial Services Committee – where she serves as Vice Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions and as a member of the Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy Subcommittee. Young also serves as co-chair of the Women in STEM Caucus, the Financial Literacy and Wealth Creation Caucus, and the Maternity Care Caucus. In her first term, Young had nearly 30 bills pass out of the House of Representatives and more than a dozen signed into law. Her record was ranked among the most effective of members of Congress according to the Center for Effective Lawmaking, the Common Ground Committee, the Lugar Center and McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, and data by Quorum Analytics. She also received the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Legislative Action Award. Young and her husband Charles live in Anaheim Hills in CA-40 and are the proud parents of Christine, Kelly, Alvin and Hannah and grandparents of Mia and Caleb.

Dr. Mayesha Alam is vice president of research at FP Analytics where she oversees the research team and leads research development for clients and partners. She previously helped establish and served as deputy director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and has also worked with the United Nations, World Bank, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and various nongovernmental organizations. Dr. Alam is the author of two books, Women and Transitional Justice and, with Robert Egnell, Women and Gender Perspectives in the Military, as well as reports on conflict, climate change, health, and gender. Her commentary has appeared in the Washington Post, CNN, NPR, Newsweek, and elsewhere. A nonresident senior fellow of the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, Dr. Alam is a professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Myra Betron, MA, has worked at the intersections of gender inequity, gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health, for the past 20 years, spanning 20 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Originally from the Philippines, Ms. Betron has a passion for helping the most marginalized. As Director, Gender, at Jhpiego, she is leading the integration of strategies that promote gender equity in Jhpiego’s programs worldwide, including global programs on maternal health, family planning and HIV prevention. In doing so, she works to ensure technical excellence by always bridging research with practice. She has a Faculty Associate appointment at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where she lectures on gender and health systems. She holds a Masters in International Development/International Economics from The Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies.

Allison Carlson is the Executive Vice President of FP Analytics & Events at Foreign Policy. She oversees FPA’s cross-cutting research at the intersection of policy, technology, and global markets as well as Foreign Policy’s global dialogues and convenings. Prior to these roles, Carlson led FP Analytics’ energy and technology team for more than a decade, evaluating evolving policies, regulations, and market factors to identify opportunities for project development and advanced technology deployment internationally. Before joining FP, she led the Latin America program for a boutique consulting firm assisting European companies on investing in emerging markets’ energy and financial sectors. Carlson has presented her work at a variety of international conferences and before the U.S. Senate. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, where she received a master’s degree in international relations and international economics.

A policy advocate and attorney with experience in global health and human rights, Sarah Craven currently serves as the Chief of the North American Representation Office of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.  In this role, Ms. Craven serves as UNFPA’s representative with key counterparts in the U.S. and Canadian governments as well as the media, private sector and civil society.  Prior to her work at UNFPA, she held positions in the U.S. Department of State and on the legislative staff to U.S. Senators Tim Wirth of Colorado and Spark Matsunaga of Hawaii. She served as policy advisor to CEDPA during the 1994 International Conference on Population and the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China.

She holds a B.A. from Macalester College, a M.Phil from Cambridge University (UK) and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center where she was a Public Interest Law Scholar. In 2020, she was named one of Apolitical’s Most Influential Leaders in Gender Policy.  Sarah is the proud mom of three young adults and a rescue beagle named Eddie. 

Dr. Roopa Dhatt, WGH Executive Director and Co-Founder, is a leading voice in the movement to advance gender equality and redress gender disparities in leadership in global health. She is also a practicing Internal Medicine physician at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. and has faculty appointments as an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University. Dr. Dhatt’s unwavering commitment extends to confronting the issues of power dynamics, privilege, and intersectionality that hinder numerous women from accessing positions of global health leadership. She endeavors tirelessly to create inclusive spaces where the voices of these women can resound. Determined to build a movement to transform women’s leadership opportunities in health, Dr. Dhatt co-founded Women in Global Health in 2015. Today, Women in Global Health boasts 51 chapters in 47 countries with continued demand to expand. Through collective action, Dr. Dhatt, the global team, and the Chapter network drive change by mobilizing a diverse movement of emerging women health leaders, generating evidence and thought leadership for informed policy change, pressing governments and global health leaders to fulfill their commitments, and holding them accountable. Accumulating nearly 15 years of experience in global health, she has engaged with over 120 countries and assumed numerous advisory and board roles. She advises global health institutions on issues concerning the health workforce, gender equity, and universal health coverage. She earned recognition in the Gender Equality Top 100 as one of the most influential figures in global policy and served on the Lancet COVID-19 Commission. Additionally, she acted as a former W7 Germany Advisor and presently serves as a W7 Japan Advisor, advocating for feminist agendas before G7 governments in 2023. Dr. Dhatt contributes her expertise as a member of the Economist Impact Health Inclusivity Index Expert Advisory Committee and the Global Council on SDG3. Furthermore, she holds a position on the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Scientific Advisory Board, serves on the Virchow Prize Committee, and is designated as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (YGL). In March 2021, she was invited as a public delegate to the historic U.S. Delegation to the United Nations 65th Commission of Status of Women Meeting, led by Vice President Kamala Harris. Dr. Dhatt’s contributions to academic discourse have resulted in publications in renowned journals such as the Lancet, British Medical Journal (BMJ), Devex, and Forbes. Furthermore, she has been featured in interviews by National Geographic, Nature, NPR, BBC, EuroNews, and numerous other prominent media channels.

Jennifer is a Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the Global Policy & Advocacy Division reducing structural and systemic barriers – through policies, laws, regulations, and standards, as well as business policies and practices – to women’s economic empowerment and power globally and in Kenya, Nigeria, and India. She has almost 20 years of experience in economic growth policy and programming. Previously, she was a U.S. Government Senior Advisor leading a USAID Economic Growth and Gender Equality Team, providing technical leadership on over half a billion in policy and programming under two U.S. Presidential Initiatives. Investments were designed to leverage billions in private sector capital so that business profits and development results would continue after donor funding ended. In addition, Jennifer led the Agency’s contribution to the first-ever U.S. Global Women’s Economic Security Strategy developed by 12 Departments/Agencies and released to the public on January 4, 2023. She led drafting of the Economic Growth section in the 2023 USAID Gender Equality Policy and was a Private Enterprise Foreign Service Officer in Cairo, Egypt. Jennifer has worked in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, and lived in Ecuador, Egypt, England, Spain, and the United States. She completed the MIT Sloan Executive Education program in Understanding and Solving Complex Business Problems and holds an MSc in Poverty Reduction and Development Management from the University of Birmingham, England where she was a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.

Krista Jones Baptista is the Executive Director of Data2X. She is a data and digital inclusion specialist with 20 years of experience in the international development sector. Previously, as Global Director of DAI Global LLC, she led the organization’s Center for Digital Acceleration (CDA). In that role, she led DAI’s work in data initiatives and digital development and oversaw a portfolio of digital projects and offerings across verticals and clients, including donors, private sector customers, and foundations. Krista serves on the UN Foundation Digital Impact Alliance’s Advisory Committee for the Principles for Digital Development supporting industry and sector engagement and capacity building related to the Principles for Digital Development. A regular speaker on topics including women in tech, digital for development, the Principles for Digital Development, and leading technology teams, Krista has served as a mentor and judge for innovation challenges and competitions. Krista is also an adjunct professor at SAIS where she teaches graduate students on Digital Development: Innovative Uses of Technology in Emerging Markets. Previously, Krista worked in management consulting where she worked with organizations on data driven leadership and management competency projects. She holds a Master of Arts in international economics from the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and an undergraduate degree in cultural geography from Clark University.

Amelia Lester is the executive editor at Foreign Policy. She has worked as a journalist on three continents, most recently reporting in Japan for publications including the Economist, the New York Times, and the New York Review of Books. Previously, she was the editor in chief of the weekend magazine of the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age newspapers and, before that, managing editor and an executive editor at the New Yorker. Lester lives in Washington, D.C., and is a graduate of Harvard University.

Amy Mackinnon is an award-winning national security and intelligence reporter at Foreign Policy. She has reported from across Eastern Europe and was previously based in Moscow and in Tbilisi, Georgia, as senior editor for the crisis reporting site Coda Story. Mackinnon is a recipient of the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia award for her reporting on homophobic vigilantes in Russia. She speaks Russian and has a master’s degree in journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and a dual master’s in Russian, Central, and East European studies from the University of Glasgow and Corvinus University of Budapest.

Diana Marrero is the chief partnerships officer at Foreign Policy. She works with a wide variety of public and private sector partners on high-profile events, analytics projects, and major global initiatives. Before joining FP, she developed strategic initiatives at the Hill and the Washington Post. A media industry veteran, she began her career as a journalist at the Miami Herald and went on to cover politics, the criminal justice system, and current affairs for a number of American news outlets. Marrero holds a master’s degree in business administration from Georgetown University. She is fluent in English and Spanish.

Ruvendrini Menikdiwela is the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection with UNHCR, taking up her appointment in January 2024. 

Ms. Menikdiwela was the Director of the New York Office from February 2020 until December 2023. She was UNHCR Representative in Pakistan, from September 2017 until February 2020. Prior to this appointment she was the UNHCR Representative in Thailand. 

Ms. Menikdiwela’s career with UNHCR spans 36 years and includes a range of functions at UNHCR Headquarters as well as country operations in Thailand, Turkmenistan and the United States. 

Ms. Menikdiwela obtained her LLB and LLM in European Community and Public International Law from the University of Paris II. She is fluent in English and French.

Reena hosts the Foreign Policy podcast The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women. She is also a television journalist who has worked as a White House correspondent, foreign reporter, and news anchor for ABC, CBS, and Fox News. Reena has reported around the world from India to Israel, Libya to Lebanon. She was the anchor, most recently, of the CBS evening news on Saturday nights. Reena is the founder of Good Trouble Productions, a media company focused on creating content with purpose.

Papa Alioune Seck is the Chief of UN Women’s Research and Data Section at UN Women. He leads the organization’s on research, data and statistical, and technology and innovation, including UN Women’s flagship Women Count global gender data programme, the planning and development of research and strengthening the production, dissemination and use of knowledge to enhance UN Women’s competence and credibility as a global broker of knowledge on gender equality and women’s empowerment. Since joining UN Women in 2009, Papa has co-authored several editions of UN Women’s Flagship Reports and contributed to various other research products. Prior to joining UN Women, Papa worked in UNDP’s Human Development Report (HDR) Office, co-authoring three global HDRs and a book on risk, vulnerability and human development.

Wendy Teleki is the Head of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) Secretariat, which is housed in the World Bank and supports women entrepreneurs in over 60 developing countries around the world. We-Fi works with multilateral development banks and local institutions to increase women entrepreneurs access to finance, markets, skills and technology through investments, technical assistance and policy reforms.  It has allocated over $360 million and helped catalyze $3.6 billion in financing for women entrepreneurs since its creation in 2017.

Prior to joining We-Fi in 2019, Ms. Teleki worked at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. At the IFC, Ms. Teleki spearheaded efforts to help private and public institutions in emerging markets expand financing and support for small businesses and women entrepreneurs. Ms. Teleki led programs to privatize and build the small business sector in Ukraine in the early 1990s, developed solutions for SMEs in Indonesia during the Asian Financial Crisis, launched innovative SME finance and advisory offerings, and pioneered blended finance efforts.

In 2022, Ms. Teleki was named one of Forbes’s “50 Over 50” women in finance for her leadership in advocating for women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship. She is the co-author of Rebalance: How Women Lead, Parent, Partner and Thrive and has written on SME finance, entrepreneurship, and gender equality. Ms. Teleki is also a sought-after speaker at high-level events, where she shares her insights and experiences to inspire action towards gender equality and economic empowerment for women in developing countries.

Ms. Teleki holds an MA in International Economics from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business.

Mona Yacoubian is vice president of the Middle East and North Africa center at USIP. She brings more than 30 years of experience working on the Middle East and North Africa. Her work has centered on conflict analysis, governance and stabilization challenges, and conflict prevention.

Since returning to USIP as a senior advisor in 2017, her work has focused on Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Additional research interests include Russia’s role in the Middle East and violent extremism. In 2019, she served as executive director of the Congressionally-appointed Syria Study Group, which USIP was mandated to facilitate.

Yacoubian joined the U.S. Institute of Peace after serving as deputy assistant administrator in the Middle East Bureau at USAID from 2014 to 2017, where she had responsibility for Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Prior to joining USAID, Yacoubian was a senior advisor at the Stimson Center focusing on the Arab uprisings with an emphasis on Syria. Prior to joining the Stimson Center, she served as a special advisor on the Middle East at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where her work focused on Lebanon and Syria as well as broader issues related to democratization in the Arab world. From 1990 to 1998, Yacoubian served as the North Africa analyst in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

Yacoubian was a Fulbright scholar in Syria where she studied Arabic at the University of Damascus from 1985 to 1986. She has held an international affairs fellowship with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and is currently a CFR member. She earned a master’s in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s in public policy from Duke University.

Emma is president of Ploughshares Fund.

Prior to arriving at Ploughshares, Emma spent nearly a decade at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where she led the foundation’s Nuclear Challenges grantmaking program. There, she developed and built the foundation’s Nuclear Challenge Big Bet team—from ideation to planning to management of a nearly $20 million budget.

Emma served as a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She also served as an advisor in Australia’s Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet on national security and international affairs and as a public affairs officer at the Australian embassy in Washington, DC.

She has a background in international security (Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, PhD and MALD; University of Melbourne, BA [Hons]). While completing her PhD, she was a fellow in the International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

In the Spring of 2019, Emma delivered a TED Talk on the importance of confronting, humanizing and ultimately solving the existential threat of nuclear weapons. Between 2014 and June 2020, Emma served on the advisory committee of N Square—a multi-funder initiative to promote innovation in the nuclear realm. She was a 2014-2016 Emerging Leader at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Dayna Dion is Chief of Staff and Senior Director of Operations and Communications at the Northwestern Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs. Prior to joining Northwestern, Dayna served as Senior Director of National and Global Engagement at the University of Chicago’s Urban Labs and Urban Education Institute, where she earned an American Educational Research Association Outstanding Publication Award for “Communicating Research, Accountability, Evaluation or Assessment to Lay Audiences” and co-directed and produced the documentary film The Second Window. Dayna also spent more than a decade developing brand and communications strategies at global creative and media agencies, including Ogilvy, where she served as a senior partner and strategic planning director, and OMD, where she established a communications strategy team. She also served on the boards of Project Explorer, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing the world into K-12 classrooms through multimedia content, and MENTEE. Dayna holds an MS in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School, an AM in international relations from the University of Chicago and a BA in marketing from Michigan State University.

Raja Jandhyala is a founder and President of YAATRA Ventures, an investment platform that develops solutions for complex economic challenges and deploys capital in economic infrastructure investment opportunities critical to economic productivity and growth. Ms. Jandhyala has over 28 years of leadership experience in transitions; establishing, directing, and managing organizations, companies, and institutions to develop and implement policies and projects in national and sub-regional levels. She has provided strategic cuttingedge solutions in power, energy, financial services, health, agriculture, and education sectors. Ms. Jandhyala is a highly respected leader, whose rare combination of diverse expertise in the public sector where she developed national security and economic development and strategies with her deep knowledge of investment risk-return profiles and delivery capabilities of the private sector.

She established and currently leads the Albertine Graben Energy Consortium (AGEC) including Baker Hughes, YAATRA Africa, Saipem and others; as the Head/CEO of AGEC Ms. Jandhyala concluded an estimated $US 4.5 Billion Joint Equity Venture agreement with the Government of Uganda leading the East Africa Community Countries. The initiative and investment are a regional energy security and transition objectives of the East Africa Community in shared infrastructure with significant economic impact for its population.

Ms. Jandhyala was the principal architect of the $7 billion presidential Power Africa initiative that sought to increase access to power in sub-Saharan Africa and became Presidential initiative. She founded and established the Private Capital Group for Africa and led the team with partnerships with J.P. Morgan, Citibank, Carlyle Group, Zephyr Capital Management, Cambridge Associates, Symbion Energy, and others to accelerate private investments in the power sector in Africa. The two initiatives led to the US government mobilizing and securing an estimated US $20 billion in private investment commitments towards G8/G20 Africa energy agenda.

Ms. Jandhyala was senior national security official in the President Obama Administration serving as Deputy Assistant Administrator for Africa in UAID) leading policy and investment strategies and managing day-to-day operations of more than USD $7 billion of US investments in Africa.

Prior to this, Ms. Jandhyala was a senior diplomat in the U.S. State Department, serving as Head of the Peace and Security for the President Obama’s Special Envoy to Sudan where she provided leadership to the US-led mediation on economic and security agreement negotiations between South Sudan (Juba) and Sudan (Khartoum) for the establishment of an independent South Sudan.

As a trained economist and public sector finance expert, she joined the World Bank, where she led economic investments with African governments to implement development goals in the ministries of finance, defense, health, education, agriculture, mines, and led the postconflict recovery strategies and investments.

Following her time with the World Bank, she worked for over two decades in and with governments across Africa to plan, establish, and direct national security and economic strategies in the office of prime ministers and Heads of State. She was the lead negotiator/mediator and implemented cease-fire, disarmament, and peace agreements and managed crises fueled by political transitions and competition for natural resources. She held senior leadership, advisory and chief operations appointments within multiple African and non-African governments, including Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sierra Leone, Uganda, Angola, Niger, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Liberia, and Cambodia, Mozambique. Ms. Jandhyala served at the African Union in the Office of the President, as advisor and head of operations for the establishment of the Darfur peacekeeping operations and United Nations as senior advisor and head of the national security reforms for the transition in Democratic Republic of Congo in the office of Special Envoy.

She holds a Bachelor of Science from Purdue University as well as a Masters from Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies and completed two years of national service with the United States Peace Corps as advisor on State Owned Enterprises with the a West African Ministry of Finance and Rural Development to support agricultural trade value chains.

She is dedicated to building and investing in ideas and institutions which add value to human capital and natural resources for security, stability and prosperity.

Merit E. Janow is an internationally recognized expert in international trade and investment. She has extensive experience in business, academia and government, and has had lifelong involvement with Japan and the Asia-Pacific region.

Janow became Dean of the faculty of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) in July 2013, a position she concluded in December 2021. She remains on the Columbia faculty.  As Dean of SIPA, she has strengthened the school by launching new academic programs, expanding the faculty, creating new research programs, and completing two ambitious capital campaigns. [See:  https://www.sipa-dean-janow-legacy.org] For the past 27 years, she has been a professor at SIPA and affiliated faculty at Columbia Law School. She is co-Director of the APEC Study Center at Columbia Business School and affiliated faculty of the Center on Japanese Economy and Business, Columbia Business School. Professor Janow has had three periods of government service: In December 2003, while at Columbia University, she was elected as one of the seven Members of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Appellate Body.  In the course of her four years of service, she reviewed more than 30 appeals. From 1997-2000, Janow served as the Executive Director of the first international antitrust advisory committee to the Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust of the US Justice Department.  From 1989 to 1993, prior to joining the Columbia faculty, Janow served as Deputy Assistant USTR for Japan and China in the Executive Office of the President.  In that capacity she was responsible for developing, coordinating, and implementing U.S. trade policies and leading sectoral trade negotiations with Japan and China.  Janow has also had extensive corporate and nonprofit board experience. She currently serves as Chair of Mastercard and serves on several boards within the American Funds/Capital group, and Aptiv. She was previously Chair of the Nasdaq Stock Market for nearly a decade.  Janow also serves on the Board of non-profit organizations such as Japan Society (chairman) and the National Committee on US China Relations, the Peterson Institute for International Economics and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  Early in her career, Janow was a corporate lawyer specializing in cross-border mergers and acquisitions with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York. She grew up in Tokyo, Japan and speaks Japanese. She has a JD from Columbia Law School where she was a Stone Scholar and a BA in Asian Studies with honors from the University of Michigan.

Suzanne Kianpour is an Emmy-nominated journalist and anchor specializing in national security and the Middle East. As the founder and CEO of Helmet to Heels™, a digital brand blending news, travel, and fashion, she elevates the voices of extraordinary women globally, drawing inspiration from her impactful BBC career and the award-winning series she created and hosted “Women Building Peace,” a collaboration with the Georgetown Institute of Women, Peace, and Security. Her anchoring, including documentaries “Out of the Shadows” and “America’s Place in the World,” earned her a shortlist nomination for Presenter of the Year by the Association of International Broadcasters in London.

Kianpour is the host of ‘News with Suz,’ an audience-driven social media show offering nuanced insights into the headlines. Her extensive experience with the BBC includes postings from Washington, D.C., London, Beirut, and Los Angeles. She covered the US-Cuba detente in Havana extensively, traveled with US Secretary of State John Kerry during the Iran nuclear negotiations, the first female US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during the historic 2016 election, and served as the congressional correspondent for BBC’s ‘The Context.’

Her groundbreaking coverage on BBC’s ‘The Inquiry’ highlighted emerging trends such as NFTs and AI in warfare.

With a career spanning over a decade, Kianpour has traveled to more than 60 countries, securing exclusive interviews with notable figures including Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, President Obama post the Iran Nuclear Deal. Her documentary work features sit-downs with Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Mike Pompeo, Senator Mitt Romney, Head of Mossad Tamir Pardo, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and other global leaders.

A respected moderator and public speaker, Kianpour has engaged with audiences at the World Economic Forum, COP28, UN General Assembly, Milken and also shared her expertise as a professor of Public Diplomacy at UCLA and as a fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service. She authored “Iranian Digital Influence Efforts: Guerrilla Broadcasting for the Twenty-First Century” as part of her commitment to countering disinformation.

Kianpour’s accolades include an Emmy nomination, recognition as a successful alum under 40 by her alma mater, and features in Washington Life magazine’s “Power Issue.” She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Meridian International Center’s Rising Leaders Council, and serves on the board of the Friends of the American University in Afghanistan.

Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, with Persian and Sicilian heritage, Kianpour is fluent in Farsi, conversational in Spanish, and has basic proficiency in Italian, French, and Arabic. An Emory University graduate who studied abroad at University of Oxford, she furthered her education at Georgetown University for postgraduate studies.

Henriette Kolb is the Global Manager of the Sustainable Infrastructure Advisory Group at the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Prior to this role, Henriette led IFC’s Gender and Economic Inclusion Department. Before joining IFC in September 2013, Henriette was the CEO of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women. Earlier in her career, Henriette served as the UN representative in the Middle East Quartet team advising Tony Blair in Jerusalem. She also worked for the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) and for the European Commission delegation in Tanzania. Henriette graduated with an MSc in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and received her MA from Freiburg University, Germany. She was also a Harvard Kennedy School Women in Public Policy Program nonresident fellow. 

Deniece Laurent-Mantey serves as the Executive Director of the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States and the senior State Department representative for the U.S.- Africa Leaders Summit. From April 2021 – February 2023 she served as the Director for Africa at the White House National Security Council where she led over 18 U.S. government agencies and coordinated with various stakeholders to execute President Biden’s priorities for the 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit and was the policy architect behind the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement.  Laurent-Mantey led efforts to help generate $15 billion to support trade and investment across Africa, and a $55 billion commitment to advance U.S.- Africa shared priorities. Under her guidance, the White House launched the $800 million Digital Transformation with Africa initiative. Since 2008, Laurent-Mantey has served on the Secretary of State’s policy planning staff, held the position of Acting Deputy Director and Desk Officer in the Bureau of African Affairs, served as Special Assistant to Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry, and worked as a Staff Assistant and intern in the Bureau of Oceans, Environment, and Science; the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; and the Bureau of African Affairs from 2008-2012. Laurent-Mantey is the recipient of two Department of State Superior Honor Awards and two Meritorious Honor Awards. She was named one of the Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) in 2018.  She has an MA in African Studies and Public Policy from Howard University and a BA in International Relations from Syracuse University. 

Elisa Massimino is Visiting Professor and Executive Director of the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, where she recently served as the Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Chair in Human Rights. She also serves as a senior fellow in national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress. Before joining the Georgetown faculty, Massimino was a senior fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a practitioner-in-residence at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously, Massimino spent 27 years—the last decade as president and CEO—at Human Rights First, one of the nation’s leading human rights advocacy organizations.

Massimino has a distinguished record of human rights advocacy in Washington. She has testified before Congress dozens of times; writes frequently for mainstream publications and specialized journals; appears in major media outlets; and speaks to audiences around the country. During her leadership at Human Rights First, the influential Washington publication The Hill consistently named her one of the most effective public advocates in the country, and Washingtonian Magazine has repeatedly recognized her on their list of the most influential people shaping U.S. foreign policy. 

Massimino is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Supreme Court Bar. She holds a law degree from the University of Michigan, a Master’s in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University, and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Trinity University where she was recently recognized with the Distinguished Alumni Award.

Dr. Julia Nesheiwat is Vice President, Policy and Insights at TC Energy and a board member and corporate energy advisor at the Atlantic Council.  She is a recognized expert for energy, environment, climate change, and national security issues as a public servant, academic, former military officer, and US diplomat. Since December 2020, she has served as commissioner on the US Arctic Research Commission reporting to the White House and Congress on domestic and international Arctic issues.  

Nesheiwat brings unique experiences having served over twenty years in international energy diplomacy, critical infrastructure protection, climate, environmental science, and national security serving in the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden-Harris administrations. From July 2019 to February 2020, she served as Florida’s first chief resilience officer, launching a new office dedicated to addressing the environmental, physical, and economic impacts of climate change and emergency preparedness for the state.

From February 2020 to January 2021, Nesheiwat served as the deputy assistant to the president for Homeland Security & Resilience, and from 2011 to 2014, she served as deputy assistant secretary of state where she worked to build the first Energy Resources Bureau at the Department of State. Prior to holding those positions, she served as chief of staff to US Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy as well as the under secretary for energy, environment, and business. Her PhD dissertation from Tokyo Tech, “Post-Disaster Reconstruction in Energy Policy & Resiliency,” focused on post-disaster reconstruction of coastal towns suffering from lack of power, flooding, and rising sea levels. She served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Advisory Council on low-carbon energy transformation as well as an international affairs fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. Nesheiwat is a visiting professor at the Naval Post Graduate School on Energy Security and has lectured at Stanford University and the University of California San Diego.

Victoria Rames is a Gender Expert on USAID’s Engendering Industries program. Before joining Tetra Tech, Ms. Rames was the Chief of Party for the USAID Gender Integration Technical Assistance Task Order. The Task Order carried out country, sector, and gender and social inclusion analyses for USAID missions and provided technical advisory services to the USAID Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GenDev) Hub. She is an expert on GBV prevention, mitigation, and response; democracy, rights, and governance; agriculture, food security, and nutrition; and economic growth/women’s economic empowerment. She holds a Master of Science in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a bachelor’s in political science from Oberlin College. She is fluent in French, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Sandra Scoseria Katz joined Shopify’s Global Revenue Partnerships team in 2021. An American, Uruguayan and French national, she is accomplished, results-driven business leader who helps companies accelerate growth through data-driven strategy design, collaborative partnerships and technology enablement. Prior to Shopify, Sandra worked at Deloitte Consulting in the Retail and Consumer Practice, leading programs in in-store and digital experience design, go-to-market and technology infrastructure.  She is passionate about developing talent and creating collaborative, inclusive high-performing teams. Sandra is from Bethesda, MD and holds an MBA from Chicago Booth, Masters from the College of Europe, and B.A. from Princeton University. 

Aparna Shrivastava is DFC’s Deputy Chief Climate Officer. She is a climate adaptation and international development specialist with a decade of experience including sustainable development and humanitarian work across East Africa, Central America, and South & Southeast Asia. This experience has given her a foundational understanding of the opportunities and challenges faced by communities on the frontlines of climate change. Most recently, Ms. Shrivastava worked at the intersection of climate change and finance to ensure a just transition to a low-carbon economy.

Prior to joining DFC, Ms. Shrivastava worked as the Climate Finance Lead at Mercy Corps, where she oversaw a wide range of efforts including adaptation finance research and development, private sector engagement, and high-level representation at COP24 and COP25. Along with serving on a technical expert group of UN Climate Change, she was the strategic director of a renewable energy investment group, Fettl, serving emerging markets.

A daughter of first-generation Indian immigrants, Ms. Shrivastava committed herself to understanding and deconstructing systemic injustice with a long-term vision to bridge gaps between resource-holders and the realities of those most vulnerable. Ms. Shrivastava began her career working on a wide range of sustainable development projects internationally. Alongside designing public health campaigns and gender empowerment advocacy work, her experience has ranged from the technical design of water and sanitation systems in post-conflict northern Uganda to livelihoods programs that made village women’s groups in rural India economically self-sufficient. In Kenya, Ms. Shrivastava established the regional office of a water and sanitation international NGO, which included building a lean team to oversee programming across Sub-Saharan Africa. She also advised small and medium enterprise owners in East Africa on their business models and investor strategies. Building on these experiences, she co-founded an online platform, LensShift, that facilitates critical reflection on power, privilege, and systemic injustice in the impact sector.

Ms. Shrivastava is recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Global Shaper and has been a guest lecturer at Cambridge University, the London School of Economics, and Columbia University. Ms. Shrivastava holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Environmental Engineering from Oregon State University and an MBA from Oxford University.

Jane Sloane is Senior Director, Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality with The Asia Foundation based in San Francisco. Jane’s previous roles include Vice President of Programs, Global Fund for Women (San Francisco), Vice President of Development, Women’s World Banking (New York), and Executive Director, International Women’s Development Agency (Australia). Jane is a Senior Atlantic Fellow with the Inequalities Institute at The London School of Economics. She is an editor of a forthcoming book to be published this year by Routledge London on the global women’s funding movement. Jane is a recipient of a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Adelaide, an Alumni Award for Service 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, and a Human Rights Medal from the Vietnam Women’s Union. Jane holds a bachelor’s degree in history (Hons) from the University of Adelaide and a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Sydney. In May 2024 the University of Adelaide has announced it will award her an Honorary Doctorate.

Alexandra Toma has over 15 years of leadership experience in philanthropy and policymaking, and was recognized by Inside Philanthropy as the “Affinity Group Head with the Most Hustle.” Prior to joining the Peace and Security Funders Group, Alex was Executive Director of the Connect U.S. Fund, a donor collaborative focused on incentivizing collaboration on human rights, climate, and nuclear weapons. While a Director at Ploughshares Fund, Alex founded the Fissile Materials Working Group, a global coalition providing solutions to stop nuclear terrorism. Alex serves on the boards of the Compton Foundation and Welcoming America, advises several foundations, and – most importantly – is a proud refugee. She enjoys Skyping with her 101-y.o. grandmother and traveling (she’s been to over 50 countries).