Najla listens as a student in her 4th grade class reads an excerpt from a book February 25, 2002 in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Najla listens as a student in her 4th grade class reads an excerpt from a book February 25, 2002 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. © Joe Raedle/Getty Images

ABOUT

IWPR governance, staff & offices

Governance

The Institute for War & Peace Reporting is governed by senior journalists, specialists and business professionals. Board committees focus expertise on finance, development and other areas.

Show More

IWPR Ambassadors, drawn from the fields of diplomacy, media and business, contribute expertise and extend IWPR’s partnerships and networks of support. All Members serve on the IWPR International Board, to provide strategic guidance, expertise, and outreach assistance.

INTERNATIONAL BOARD
Show All

Adrienne van Heteren

Co-Founder & Director, Small Media Foundation

UK Governance Committee

i

Adrienne has an extensive track record in media development. In 1993 she was one of the founders of Press Now and has held senior positions at the OSI Network Media Program, IWPR, the OSCE, USAID and BBC Media Action across a range of projects. Adrienne has worked in the former Yugoslavia, Serbia, Kosovo, Hungary and Russia, and for the past eight years on west Asia. Her varied experience includes roles as director of development for the underground radio station B92 during the Balkan Wars, managing a special assistance program for independent media in Russia and founding Jadid Media, a multimedia journalism development organisation.

Anthony Borden

IWPR Executive Director

US & NL Governance Committees; Finance Committee; Nominations Committee

i

Christina Lamb

Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Sunday Times

i

Christina is an award-winning journalist and currently Foreign Affairs Correspondent for the Sunday Times. After graduating from Oxford, she reported on the mujaheddin war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan and went on to cover wars from Iraq to the Siachen Glacier, interviewed dictators like General Pinochet and heroes like Nelson Mandela. In 2006, she narrowly escaped with her life when the Taleban ambushed British troops in Helmand, and in 2007 she was on Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto's bus when it was bombed. As well as the Sunday Times, Christina’s work has appeared in the Financial Times, Sunday Telegraph, New York Times, New Statesman, Spectator and Time magazine. She has also written many books including The Africa House; House of Stone (on Zimbabwe), Waiting For Allah – Pakistan's Struggle for Democracy; The Sewing Circles of Herat, My Afghan Years, and Small Wars Permitting: Dispatches from Foreign Lands.

Clarissa Ward

Chief International Correspondent, CNN

i

Clarissa is chief international correspondent for CNN. With a career spanning nearly two decades, she has reported from conflict zones including Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt and Ukraine. For her reporting, Clarissa has won nine Emmy Awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards, three Alfred I duPont-Columbia Awards, two Edward R. Murrow Awards and a George Polk Award. She is the author of the memoir On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist. Her investigative work has been instrumental in shedding light on global events, including her coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and her Emmy-winning 2019 investigation into Russia's use of mercenaries.

Consuelo Saavedra

Senior Correspondent, Radio Duna, Chile

i

Consuelo is a Chilean journalist based in London. She hosts a daily live show on Radio Duna providing news analysis and economic and political commentary on Chilean and Latin American affairs. A 25 year-veteran of prime-time newscasts, she has also produced documentaries and investigatiions for the Chilean Public Broadcast Corporation throughout Latin America. A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard and a Poynter Fellow at Yale university, she has twice received the Excellence in Journalism award from Universidad Alberto Hurtado.

Sir David Bell

Former Chair, Pearson Plc & Financial Times

Chair, Int'l Board & UK Governance Committee; US & NL Governance Committees; Chair, Nominations Committee

i

Formerly CEO then Chair of the Financial Times and a Director of the Pearson Group. Sir David is currently Co-Chair of The Foundation for FutureLondon; Chair of Coram; The Talent Foundry;  Rare Recruitment; Bath Mozartfest; The Chapel Street Community Schools Trust, a senior independent Director on the Cambridge Press & Assessment Board and a Trustee of Cornerstone Property Assets.  Other former appointments include: Non Executive Director, The Economist; Chair of Crisis, The London Transport Museum, University of Roehampton, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, The Millennium Bridge Trust, The Media Trust, a Trustee of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and an Assessor to the Leveson Enquiry.  David was knighted in 2004 for services to industry, the arts and charity.  Educated at the University of Cambridge and the University of Pennsylvania, David began his career as a journalist with the Financial Times, serving as Washington correspondent and managing editor and launching the international edition of the FT.

Eileen O'Connor

Senior Vice President for Communications, Policy, and Advocacy, Rockefeller Foundation

i

Eileen O’Connor joined the Rockefeller Foundation in 2019 as Senior Vice President for Communications, Policy, and Advocacy, a member of the President’s Executive Team, overseeing strategic communications and policy for all programs. Previously, Eileen led Garnet Group Public Affairs, specializing in crisis management, and served as Vice President for Communications at Yale University. She served in the Obama Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia, living in Kabul in 2011-12 and managing $400 million in public diplomacy programs. Early in her career, O’Connor was a journalist at ABC News and CNN, serving as a national and White House correspondent and based in London, Tokyo, and Moscow.  O’Connor was awarded the Peabody, DuPont, multiple Overseas Press Club awards and numerous other awards for political, investigative and war zone work. She holds a J.D. and B.A. from Georgetown and a post-graduate diploma in world politics from the London School of Economics.

Frans Makken

Ambassador (Ret.)

Chair, NL Governance Committee

i

George Packer

Author & Staff Writer, Atlantic

i

Gillian Tett

US Managing Editor, Financial Times

i

Gillian Tett is US managing editor of the Financial Times, and a weekly columnist. In 2014, she was named Columnist of the Year in the British Press Awards and was the first recipient of the Royal Anthropological Institute Marsh Award. Her other honors include a SABEW Award for best feature article (2012), Journalist of the Year (2009) and Business Journalist of the Year (2008) by the British Press Awards. Her book Fool’s Gold won Financial Book of the Year at the inaugural Spear’s Book Awards (2009). She has also reported for the FT from Tokyo, Russia and Brussels.

Ian D. Highet

Managing Partner, Court Square Capital Partners

US Governance Committee

i

A veteran business executive, Highet serves as managing partner of Court Square Capital Partners, an investment firm headquartered in New York City that manages over six billion US dollars in capital.

Prior to joining Court Square, Highet held the post of vice-president of corporate development of K-III Communications Corporation, now known as PRIMEDIA. He has also served on the boards of Fibertech Networks, CompuCom Systems, Auto Europe Group, Worldspan Technologies, Express Messenger Service, F&W Publications and NAC International.

Highet also supports the Henry Street Settlement, a non-profit assisting economically disadvantaged residents of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Janine di Giovanni

Senior Fellow, Jackson Institute, Yale University

i

Jay Winthrop

Managing Member, Principal, Douglass Winthrop Advisors

i

Jay is a principal in Douglass Winthrop Advisors, LLC. Previously, Jay was a Vice President in the Mergers and Acquisitions group at JP Morgan Chase, where he provided financial and strategic advice to companies in a range of industries. Jay also worked at Hambrecht & Quist LLC, helping early stage companies raise capital in private and public markets. Jay is active in environmental and economic policy.  He was chairman of the Conservation Fund until August 2022 and is a past chairman of American Farmland Trust.  Jay served on the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy (ACIEP) from 2014 through 2016. Jay received an AB from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

John Ridding

CEO, FT Group

i

John Ridding is the chief executive officer of The Financial Times and FT.com. Having overseen the FT’s acquisition by Nikkei in 2015, he serves as a special executive director on the Nikkei board. John was formerly editor and publisher of The Financial Times, Asia, as well as chairman of Pearson in Asia. John led the launch of the Asia edition of the FT in 2003. It won the award for the best newspaper from the Society of Publishers in Asia in its launch year and received top awards for business reporting, scoops and newspaper design in 2006. He graduated from Oxford University with a first-class honours degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

John-Allan Namu

Investigative journalist & co-founder, Africa Uncensored

i

John-Allan is a Kenyan investigative journalist and co-founder of Africa Uncensored. A journalist for 17 years, he is based in Nairobi and reports on national and regional affairs focusing on politics and investigative journalism. John-Allan was the 2015 and 2017 joint journalist of the year in the Annual Journalism Excellence Awards, a 2019 Global Shining light award winner, a 2019 Trace International Prize on investigative journalism winner, and the 2009 CNN African Journalist of the Year. He was a 2009 CNN fellow and a 2017 Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellow. He is married and lives in Nairobi with his wife and four children.

Michael Immordino

Partner, White & Case

UK Governance Committee

i

Michael Immordino is a lawyer with significant experience in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions and private equity. His practice is based in London and Milan. He is frequently called upon to work with companies and investment banks, especially in connection with complex, international M&A and securities transactions.

Niva Yau

Nonresident Fellow, Global China Hub, Atlantic Council

i

Niva Yau is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub. Her research work focuses on China-Central Asia relations and China’s new overseas security management infrastructure and initiatives including foreign bases and stations, the politics of foreign infrastructure, private security companies, intelligence network, in-China security training programs, governance export, information operations, and others. Between 2018 and 2023, Niva was based at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where she worked on commissioned research on China’s foreign policy, trade, and security in its western neighborhood, covering Central Asia and Afghanistan. 

Niva commentary and analysis have been featured in BBC, the Independent, Nikkei Asia, the Economist, Vice, Le Monde, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera and others. In May 2022, Niva testified in Washington, DC, for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Originally from Hong Kong, she graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a degree in political science and is a native speaker of Cantonese, Mandarin, and English and is learning Russian. 

Ole Johan Bjørnøy

Norwegian Ambassador to Central Asia (ret.)

i

Ole Johan Bjørnøy worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway for more than 25 years, holding numerous senior roles with a focus on Eurasia and Southeast Europe. This included serving as long-standing Norwegian Ambassador to Central Asia, covering Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. He also served as Chargé d’affairs to Albania and North Macedonia (then FYROM), and other roles in Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia and Denmark, as well as senior advisor at the Foreign Ministry in Oslo. Ole retired from the Norwegian MFA in 2020.

Oleksandra Matviichuk

Head of the Center for Civil Liberties, Ukraine

i

Ralph H. Isham

Founder & Managing Director, GH Venture Partners

Chair, US Governance Committee

i

Ralph is founder and Managing Director of GH Venture Partners LLC, (GHVP), a New York private merchant bank formed in 1998. Before joining GHVP, Ralph worked as a consultant to corporate management with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and with Strategic Planning Associates (Mercer Consulting acquiree). Ralph was formerly a Fellow with the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the SALT II treaty hearings. He also served on the staff of Congressman James W. Symington of St. Louis, Missouri and Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts.

Ramsey Walker

Senior Vice President, Jordan Park

Chair, Fundraising Committee

i

Ramsey works at Goldman Sachs where he and his team advise a select number of entrepreneurs, private equity partners, families and institutions on all aspects of asset and wealth management. Prior to joining Goldman, Ramsey worked as founder/CEO of two companies in the Technology & Media (TMT) industry. Ramsey received his BA with honours from Yale University and his MBA from Harvard Business School. He is co-author of Profit Plan Decisions, a case study published by and taught at Harvard Business School.

Richard Caplan

Professor, Int'l Relations, University of Oxford

Monitoring & Evaluation Liaison

i

Richard Caplan is professor of international relations in the department of politics and International relations at the University of Oxford. He has been editor of World Policy Journal, a specialist advisor to the select committee on foreign affairs in the UK's House of Commons, a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and New York director of IWPR. He has also served as a consultant to the United Nations and to various governments, and as a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Fragile States. He has been a visiting professor at the European University Institute (EUI), SciencesPo, Princeton University, and the University of Konstanz. He is the author and editor of several books, including Europe's New Nationalism: States and Minorities in Conflict (Oxford University Press), Europe and the Recognition of New States in Yugoslavia (Cambridge University Press),International Governance of War-torn Territories: Rule and Reconstruction (Oxford University Press), Exit Strategies and State Building (Oxford University Press), and The Measure of Peace (forthcoming). 

Scott Malcomson

Int'l Security Fellow, New America; Media Fellow at Carnegie Corporation

US Governance Committee

i

Scott Malcomson has worked as an author, reporter, civil-society executive and government official in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North and South America. He is a senior fellow for international security at the New America Foundation and director of special projects at the Strategic Insight Group. As a journalist and the author of five books, he has focused on the real-world fortunes of civilizational organising ideas such as globalisation, the Muslim ummah, international civil society, race, nationalism and cyberspace. Malcomson was foreign editor of the New York Times Magazine and has contributed to the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Guardian, The World Post and many other publications. He has been an executive at two global NGOs and was a senior official at the United Nations and the US State Department. His fifth book, Splinternet: How Geopolitics and Commerce Are Fragmenting the World Wide Web, was published in 2016.

Simon Hersom

Consultant, Value Retail Plc

Treasurer, UK & NL Governance Committees; Chair, Finance Committee; Nominations Committee

i

Simon is a senior investment banking executive with extensive general management, project finance, venture capital and real estate expertise. He has worked in various senior banking and corporate roles, creating and managing businesses across the UK, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific. He is a long-standing senior consultant at Value Retail, PLC, the global luxury retail outlet, and also serves as chair of Rivercourt Homes, Ltd, a residential property management firm. He has previously held long-standing positions as regional managing director for real estate finance at Royal Bank of Scotland, global banking and markets division, and assistant director at N.M. Rothschild & Sons, Ltd. 

Sonya Vekstein

CFO, Int’l Science and Technology Center

Treasurer, US Governance Committee; Finance Committee

i

Sonya is the Chief Financial Officer at the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC). Before joining ISTC in November 2014, she worked at the International Republican Institute (IRI) for 18 years in senior positions. As a part of diverse teams Sonya managed multi-million dollar budgets across international offices in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia. She also worked at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) as a Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer.

Stephen Jukes

Dean, Media School, Bournemouth University

UK Governance Committees; Security & Risk Liaison

i

Stephen Jukes is Professor of Journalism in the Faculty of Media & Communication at Bournemouth University. He worked in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas as a foreign correspondent, regional editor and Global Head of News for Reuters before moving into the academic world. His research focuses on areas of objectivity and emotion in news with an emphasis on conflict journalism and trauma. He is a trustee of the Dart Centre for Journalism & Trauma in Europe and Vice President of the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund, a charity which supports local journalists, freelancers and fixers worldwide.

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

Global Energy & Climate Innovation Editor of The Economist

i

Vijay is the global energy and climate innovation editor of The Economist as well as the author of three well-received books.

Vaitheeswaran joined The Economist in 1992 as its London-based Latin America correspondent, and opened its first regional bureau in Mexico City in 1994. From 1998 to 2006, he covered politics, economics, business and the technology of energy and the environment. He opened the magazine’s first Shanghai bureau in 2012, and served as its China business editor until 2017 before going on to become the New York-based US business editor. 

Vijay is a life member at America’s Council on Foreign Relations and a Visiting Lecturer at Northwestern University. Previously, he created and taught the first interdisciplinary class on energy and environment offered at NYU Stern School of Business. He has also served as an advisor on sustainability and innovation to the World Economic Forum/Davos.  

Zoran Pajić

Visiting Professor, Department of War Studies, King’s College, London

i
Show More Show Less
ADDITIONAL BOARD MEMBERS

 

 

The IWPR International Board benefits from expertise and input from additional individuals from countries with human rights concerns. Due to risks, these names cannot be made public. 

Frontline Updates

Staff

IWPR employs a range of staff to support our activities, with skills in programme, finance, development, journalism and editorial, new media and other functions essential to our success.

Show More

Small central teams in London and Washington, D.C., support the large majority of our personnel who are national hires based in our countries of programme operation.

Filtered by
All Staff
Departments
Programmes
Show All

Abakhon Sultonnazarov

Central Asia Programme Director

i

Akbota Sheriyazdan

Go Viral Project Manager, Central Asia

i

Akbota is a project manager with university degrees in international relations and political science, who has previous worked on projects with the World Bank and OSCE.

Alan Davis

Asia & Eurasia Director

i

Alireza Eshraghi

Director of Programmes

i

Angela Conroy

Global HR Director

i

Angela joined IWPR in September 2020 as Global HR Director and leads the people agenda across the organisation. Having worked previously in a range of senior HR and recruitment roles, both in the profit and not-for-profit sectors she is focused on ensuring the HR function offers support and guidance to our staff whilst ensuring our people activities support the organisational missions.

Anne Benda​​​​​​​

Middle East, North Africa, & South Asia Project Officer

i

Anne oversees monitoring, evaluation, management and design of a portfolio of projects on civil society capacity building, media development, and government accountability. She has nearly a decade of experience working at prominent conflict resolution and human rights organisations.

Anne holds an MA in Conflict, Peace and Security from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. She also has a diploma in Monitoring and Evaluation from New York University and a BA in History and International Studies from Northwestern University.

Anthony Borden

IWPR Executive Director

US & NL Governance Committees; Finance Committee; Nominations Committee

i

Ayan Oryntay

Project Manager

i

Ayan is project coordinator of IWPR’s Religious Freedom for Kazakstan project. With an MA in Religious Roots of Europe from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, he is among the first religious studies scholars from Kazakstan to hold a master’s degree from a European university.

Aziza Mukhametova

Project Manager

i

Aziza is project manager of the Kazakstan Uncensored and Civil Society for Kazakstan programmes.  With bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in management. Aziza has ten years of experience working on projects funded by international organisations including the EU and USAID.

Beka Bajelidze

Caucasus Regional Director

i

Carolina Méndez Valencia

Organisational Development Manager

i

Carolina is a Bolivian journalist who specialises in fact checking in television and print media. A co-founder of the Bolivian Feminist Journalism Network, she has a master's degree in Latin American Social Studies and was a fellow of Periodistas por el Planeta.

Caroline Preece

HR Specialist

i

Caroline joined IWPR in September 2022 as an HR specialist covering all global locations. She has an Honours Degree in International Business and Economics, a postgraduate qualification in HR, and is MCIPD accredited. Prior to joining IWPR she had over 20 years experience in building and strengthening HR departments, in both the private sector and in international development organisations.

Carrie Benis

International Compliance Manager

i

Carrie joined IWPR in 2021 as International Compliance Manager. She is responsible for ongoing donor regulatory guidance and support to staff. With over 15 years of experience in the international development sector, specialising in USG rules and regulations. Carrie holds an MA in Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford and a BA in International Development from Clark University.

Cecilia Gandarilla

Digital Manager for Social Movements

i

Cecilia is a Digital Communications Expert with more than 16 years of experience and passionate about human rights, gender perspective and sustainability. For the last four years, her work has focused on supporting vulnerable groups in the Caribbean.

Cecilia Ruberto

Principal Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Manager

i

Cecilia is IWPR’s Principal Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) manager, with more than a decade of professional experience in this field. She oversees the development and implementation of IWPR's MEL system and has introduced qualitative participatory evaluation methods. Cecilia has restructured IWPR's MEL practices, enhancing the ability of staff and partners to understand and learn from project impacts. She prioritises inclusive and participatory approaches that empower marginalised groups to influence decision-making processes while fostering a culture of organisational learning and accountability.

Dahlia Khoury

Syria Country Director

i

Dahlia has over 20 years of experience working with global organisations, civil society and governmental institutions, in coordination with a wide variety of international donors both in Lebanon and across the Middle East. She has experience in projects focusing on democracy and good governance, counter-terrorism, citizen participation, education and youth. A Lebanese national, Dahlia is fluent in Arabic, English, and French.

Daniella Peled

Managing Editor

i

Dhaniella Falk

Latin America & the Caribbean Programme Director

i

Edmalynne Remillano

Project Assistant

i

Elvira Durglishvili

Finance Manager

i

Elvira has worked in the NGO sector for nearly 25 years and has extensive experience in grants, financial management and administrative skills. An English graduate, she is also fluent in Russian and her native Georgian.

Gabriela Brenes

Training & Media Development Manager

i

Gabriela is a multimedia journalist and product manager dedicated to telling useful, relevant, and compelling stories that cut through the noise and cultivating resilience, agility, and inclusion in news organisations. At IWPR, Gabriela helps beneficiaries develop their audiences, pilot business initiatives and navigate the complex challenges of media management.

Gehan Fernando

Head of Programme Finance

i

Gehan joined IWPR in 2022 as the Head of Programme Finance. He is responsible for all donor financial reporting including proposal budgeting where he leads a team supporting programmes and teams across IWPR. He has over 15 years of experience working in both the corporate and not-for-profit sector overseeing resource mobilisation, grant management, and financial reporting.

Handa Chuluunbaatar

HR Systems & Benefits Coordinator

i

Handa joined IWPR in 2018 and is the HR systems and benefits coordinator. She is responsible for the administration of all HR related systems and is the first point-of-contact for company-wide benefits and leave arrangements. Handa graduated in Business Administration from Strayer University in the US and has over eight years of experience in the field of HR. 

Jefferson Rodríguez Olivares

Certified Public Accountant

i

Jefferson is a public accountant specialist in project management with extensive experience in the evaluation, planning, execution and control of projects under PMI and MGA methodology. Financial experience includes budget control, costs, portfolio, treasury, database, quality, investments and inventories.

José Luis Benítez

CAPIR Project Manager

i

José Luis is a Salvadoran academic, journalist and media development expert. For more than 15 years he was a professor of communication and journalism at the Central American University (UCA) in El Salvador and has worked on numerous projects with organisations including UNESCO, UNDP and Media4Democracy to media pluralism, and freedom of expression in Latin America.

Len Daniel

Finance & Administration Manager

i

Len joined IWPR in 2007 for its first human rights project in the Philippines, funded by the US State Department. She handles all the financial aspects of field project activities, and prior to joining IWPR worked in the finance department of one of the leading accounting firms in the Philippines.

Lola Kholikjanova-Olimova

Central Asia Editor & Project Manager, Tajikistan

i

Maftuna Abdugaffrova

GoViral Country Ambassador, Uzbekistan

i

Maftuna is a graduate of Amity University’s economics faculty. She is an active volunteer at Youth Union Uzbekistan, GoViral.

Manal Moussa

Operations Manager

i

Manal joined IWPR in 2019 as a procurement associate and is now the operations manager for MENA regional programmes. Manal has 20 years of experience in the business world and launched her career in the humanitarian sector at the Lebanese Red Cross. She holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration and a CMA and speaks fluent Arabic and English.

Merdijana Sadović

Senior Project Manager

i

Naidelyn Sibaja

Research and M&E Analyst

i

Naidelyn is a political scientist who leads IWPR’s monitoring, evaluation, and learning processes of Latin America and the Caribbean programming. She has worked with think tanks, consulting firms and academia on applied research, international knowledge networks and regional political analysis. Her areas of expertise include research methods, data analysis for social projects, press freedom and the strengthening of democracy.

Nino Pachuashvili

Country Coordinator, Georgia

i

Nino is the BREN project country coordinator for Georgia. With a PhD in Law from Tbilisi State University, she has more than 14 years experience in planning, implementing and coordinating programmes for international organisations. She has served as a project officer and pro-consul at the British Embassy in Tbilisi as well as working for the UN Association of Georgia as a legal counsellor of the refugee and migration programme.

Reza H. Akbari

Middle East, North Africa, & South Asia Program Manager

i

Reza has more than 16 years of experience in international development, programme design, monitoring, evaluation and management. He has been responsible for developing and managing over a dozen accountability, media, research and civil society capacity building projects for IWPR.
 
A PhD candidate at American University where he studies the history of modern Middle East and critical theory, Reza is a frequent media contributor and has written for publications including Foreign Policy, the Guardian and CNN. He holds an MA in Middle East Studies from The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

Rorie Fajardo-Jarilla

Asia Programme Coordinator & Philippines Country Director

i

Sarah Willis

Finance Director

i

Sarah is a Chartered Accountant with over 10 years experience in the INGO sector.  Having qualified with Deloitte, she left in 2010 to focus her career on utilising her accountancy skills for the benefit of charities. Prior to joining IWPR in 2020 she worked at Save the Children International for 8 years in various finance roles.

Seth Meixner

Middle East & North Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean Regional Director

i

Seth Meixner has led media and development programming in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America for 22 years. He has built and managed award-winning multimedia news operations and delivered projects supporting social and gender equality, free media, and access to information in post-conflict countries. Prior to becoming Regional Director for MENA and LAC, Seth served as IWPR's Senior Country Director in North Africa, and investigations manager and Interim Country Director in Afghanistan.

Srđan Pajić

Designer & Website Manager

i

After completing a degree in architecture, Srđan became interested in photography, graphic and product design. While doing freelance work, he completed several web design courses at Chelsea College of Art & Design and St Martins. He joined IWPR in 2001. Srđan is responsible for managing the content of IWPR’s website while also acting as an in-house web and graphic designer. In 2020, Srđan redesigned and oversaw the development of IWPR's current website.

Stephen Ramsey

Chief Operating Officer

i

Stephen joined IWPR as COO in 2020, committed to maintaining the highest standards of performance, accountability and compliance. He has a background in finance and international development in the public and private sectors, working with governments, donors, financial institutions and companies to drive sustainable outcomes.

Tamar Kapanadze

Project Coordinator

i

Tamar is project coordinator for countering gender disinformation in Armenia, Georgia, and Poland. A human rights lawyer with an LLM from the University of London and an MA from Ilia State University, she has extensive experience of working in academia and human rights organisations, with a primary focus on gender and identity issues.

Tanya Hassan

Global Director of Development

i

Tanya has over 20 years’ experience in international development within fundraising, communications and senior management. Following an earlier career in advertising agencies, Tanya is committed to international development that is locally-driven and sustainable. She has a wide range of fundraising experience from institutional donors, the private sector and high net-worth individuals.

Vonda Wolcott

Senior Project Manager

i

Vonda has more than 30 years of experience in international development, law, and journalism. She has managed contracts and grants on behalf of governments, and international and private sector organisations involving research and capacity building programmes. Her areas of focus include rule of law, transnational organised crime, anticorruption, accountability, media rights and disinformation. As a lawyer, she has served as a justice advisor to the US Department of State.

Waheed Hanware

Finance Business Partner

i

Waheed joined IWPR's Finance Department in 2022 and works closely with colleagues in the Caucasus region and Moldova.

Yhiba Carmichael-Ginindza

Recruitment & HR Advisor

i

Yhiba joined IWPR in April 2023 as a recruitment & HR advisor. With over 13 years of experience in the field, Yhiba has worked with HR teams at global companies, providing talent management, compliance and training support.

Show More Show Less

Offices

Filtered by
Head Offices
Show All
No result
youtube video thumbnail for video MKjAfrCh5w8
Anthony Borden interviews Oleksandra Matviichuk, 2022 Nobel Peace Prize co-recipient & Head of the Centre for Civil Liberties, Ukraine
youtube video thumbnail for video GMOZtgo06JE
Video report by Anthony Borden and Mykhaylo Shtekel in Zaporizhzhia region, south-eastern Ukraine, 2 Nov 2023.

Disinformation is a major global threat , especially in conflict and post-conflict areas. IWPR performs a vital mission, building up local voices as a bulwark against this challenge.

Dr Karin von Hippel

Director General, Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies

Democratic accountability comes from journalists investigating their own societies – IWPR provides a much needed platform and support for those reporting from some of the most dangerous and difficult places in the world.

Lindsey Hilsum

International Editor, Channel 4 News

IWPR fills a critical gap by helping local journalists to focus on human rights and justice issues. In the process, it contributes to democratic transitions, and demonstrates that the best war reporting is not about military conflict, but human consequences.

Samantha Power

Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations; Pulitzer Prize-winning author
BULENT KILIC/AFP via Getty Images
Newsletter

IWPR's Frontline Updates

Subscribe to our Frontline Updates, your go-to source to hear from journalists and local voices at the front lines of conflict and change.
Subscribe
Support local journalists