Caroline Kouassiaman is the Executive Director for Initiative Sankofa d’Afrique de l’Ouest. Caroline has 15+ years of diverse professional experiences in philanthropy, human rights activism, social justice and education to ISDAO. Previously Caroline was Senior Program Officer at the American Jewish World Service (AJWS), managing the sexual health and rights grants portfolio in West and East Africa. While at AJWS, Caroline was involved with ISDAO throughout the first four years of its journey, where she contributed to resource mobilization, communications and outreach to other funders and activists, and developing ISDAO’s programs, initially as a member of the Brain Trust and later of the Interim Governing Body. Prior to joining AJWS, Caroline was the Program Officer for Sub-Saharan Africa at the Global Fund for Women, where she coordinated grantmaking to over 100 women’s rights organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa annually, from 2011-2014. She serves as an advisor to the Queer African Youth Network.

Caroline is a queer Pan-African feminist of Ivorian and African-American heritage, and has lived in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Uganda. She holds a B.A. in Economics and Diplomacy & World Affairs from Occidental College, a Master of Public Administration degree and a master’s in international relations from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University (US). Caroline works for a world where LGBTQI persons – in their full and beautiful diversity – have the opportunity, autonomy and resources to live full, healthy and violence-free lives on their own terms.

Justus Eisfeld is the Strategy and Impact Lead for Hivos’ flagship program on LGBTIQ+ economic development. Before joining Hivos in 2019, he worked as a consultant at the corner of philanthropy, LGBTI rights and international development, including on the UN Development Programme’s LGBTI Inclusion Index, a scoping study on impact investing in LGBTI communities and co-authoring ‘Transformative Philanthropy’ with Ise Bosch and Claudia Bollwinkel. A trans man himself, he co-founded GATE, Transgender Europe and the Dutch Transgender Network. He holds an M.A. in political science/gender studies from the University of Amsterdam and the Free University of Berlin and is currently pursuing an MBA from Central European University.

Medina Haeri is a Programme Officer with the Oak Foundation’s Issues Affecting Women Programme. In that role, Medina connects feminist and women’s organisations and movements around the world with resources to strengthen their work and help advance their agendas. Medina leads the anti-trafficking and exploitation portfolio and supports global movement building work. Prior to working for Oak Foundation, Medina worked in the Women and War unit of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), ensuring that the organisation’s interventions better reflected the needs, vulnerabilities and capacities of women and girls in conflict and post-conflict settings. She has also worked with the International Rescue Committee supporting refugee resettlement in Thailand and with indigenous women’s collectives building economic development projects in Guatemala. Medina was born in Iran and immigrated to the US at a young age – following the path of many migrants in search of a brighter future. She immigrated again as a young adult to Switzerland to build a family and purse her professional ambitions. Medina holds a master’s degree in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Prachi Patankar is the Program Officer, South and Southeast Asia, at Foundation for a Just Society. Born and raised in rural India, Prachi was raised by a freedom-fighter grandmother and parents deeply involved in anti-caste, feminist, and peasant movements. Over two decades in New York City, she has been an activist, educator, grantmaker, and writer involved in social movements which link the local and the global, police brutality and war, migration and militarization, race and caste, women of color feminism and global gender justice. Prachi most recently served as the Program Director for social justice at the J.M. Kaplan Fund, leading grantmaking for criminal justice reform, immigrant rights, and locally led work in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Prior to that, Prachi was the Senior Program Officer at Brooklyn Community Foundation, where she helped create and implement grant programs through a racial justice lens. Prachi currently serves on the Board of CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities and on the Advisory Board for Grantmakers for Girls of Color. Throughout the last two decades, she has been involved in organizing to link social justice movements between the United States and Asia. Prachi believes in the vital power of intersectional and international visions and strategies, which resonate across Dalit rights and Black lives, migrant justice and gender justice, to build bottom-up change from the local to the global.

Adrian Coman has worked for over 20 years in human rights advocacy, philanthropy, education, and politics. Since 2013, he coordinates the International Human Rights Program at the Arcus Foundation in New York. Adrian was the first executive director of ACCEPT, the national LGBT organization in Romania, which contributed to the repeal of the anti-gay criminal law and the adoption of antidiscrimination provisions in Romania, served as program director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (now OutRight International), and worked for a Member of the European Parliament on human rights protection and anti-corruption. Adrian holds degrees in chemistry and human rights, and is fluent in English, Spanish, French and Romanian.

Ise Bosch, founder and CEO, has 15 years of funding experience in human rights, women and sexual minorities. Her book Transformative Philanthropy – Giving with Trust was published in 2018, including topics such as “Social Investments”.

Viviane works as Program Officer at the International Trans Fund. She is a transfeminist activist, researcher and economist based in Brazil, and is currently studying issues related to gender identities and expressions as a Ph.D. candidate in Women, Gender and Feminist Studies at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA).

Felix is the Senior Program Associate for the Mesoamerica Program at Foundation for A Just Society. Born in Ecuador, Felix has worked in arts administration and philanthropic organizations that support multidisciplinary artists, including the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, North Star Fund, and Open Society Foundations. He is a queer trans filmmaker who documents the preservation of LGBT historical spaces, champions activists who catalyze social change, and disrupts the insidious narratives that deny the humanity of marginalized communities. Felix recently joined the Board of Working Films to support work to bring together documentary filmmakers and grassroots activists to advance social justice. He previously worked with Detroit Narrative Agency, Tribeca Institute, and the New Orleans Film Festival.