Board

Regan Ralph is the founder and former CEO of the Fund for Global Human Rights. In her twenty years at the Fund, Regan was responsible for channeling more than $110m to over 800 frontline activists, groups, and movements worldwide. Before that, Regan was Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington D.C. From 1992-2001, Regan helped build and ultimately directed the Women’s Rights division of Human Rights Watch. Regan graduated from Harvard University and Yale Law School and studied international law at the London School of Economics and Arabic at the American University in Cairo.

Currently, Regan is the Executive Director of the Blaustein Philanthropic Group, a constellation of family foundations that support organizations focused on some of the most pressing social, environmental, health, and education challenges of our time.

Preethi Herman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Nguvu Collective, a social impact enterprise that helps emerging women changemakers to become strong social change leaders and drive positive impact at scale in Africa and Asia. Preethi has spent the last 2 decades working with marginalised communities across the world and supporting their efforts in citizen-led social change. Prior to setting up Nguvu Collective, she was the head of the Change.org Foundation where she led a team engaging over 100 million people in citizen-led campaigns across Asia, Europe and Latin America. She also set up Change.org as the people’s platform for driving impact in India. Preethi is an inaugural Obama Fellow and Skoll Senior Fellow with a never dying enthusiasm and passion for women’s leadership, helping startups, technology for social change, and citizen led social impact around the world.

Bruno Stagno Ugarte is Chief Advocacy Officer at Human Rights Watch (HRW). Before joining HRW, he was Executive Director of Security Council Report from 2011-2014, Foreign Minister of Costa Rica from 2006-2010, Ambassador to the United Nations from 2002-2006 and Chief of Staff of the Foreign Ministry from 1998-2000, among other foreign service postings. He also served as the President of the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court from 2005-2008 and Co-President of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Article 14 Conferences from 2007-2009. He is a graduate of Georgetown University, the Sorbonne and Princeton University and author or editor of several books, chapters and articles, including The UN Security Council in the Age of Human Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Chris Gallagher is CFO of Product & Supply Chain at RS Group, a leading, FTSE-listed Industrial Distribution business. Before joining RS Group, Chris was VP of Finance at European Insurtech ManyPets, after working as an Executive Director in J.P. Morgan’s Investment Banking Coverage team, assisting clients with a wide range of financing and strategic solutions. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a Law and Accounting graduate from Queen’s University Belfast.

Khaled is a writer and analyst with 30 years of experience working in conflict and transitional situations including South Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and the Sudan as a journalist and then a UN spokesperson. In the 1990s, he reported on US politics in Washington DC and the transition away from Apartheid in South Africa. Before becoming a full-time writer, Khaled served as the Executive Director of Egypt’s leading human rights organization, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, in 2013-2014. He is a member of several boards including the Meta Oversight Board as well as the General Assembly of Action for Hope. He holds degrees in Engineering, Archaeology, Sociology and International Relations from Mansoura and Cairo Universities (Egypt), Witwatersrand (South Africa) and Tufts Fletcher School (Boston, USA). He has published eight books, including two books of fiction, a biography as well as two edited collections of articles on Egypt-Israel wars. He keeps a blog at khaledmansour.org

Martin Griffiths has fifty years of professional experience with the United Nations and other global institutions. He served most recently as the leader of the global humanitarian system as well as the UN’s principal troubleshooter in the conflicts and crises of today.

Martin is recognized as one of the most accomplished international mediators of conflicts around the world. He founded the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva in 1999, which has since become the world’s leading and largest private diplomacy institution. To date he has led mediations in every continent, from Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar and Afghanistan, to Spain, Sudan and Venezuela. He reached the top of the profession as the UN mediator in Yemen from 2018 to 2021.

Martin’s humanitarian experience started as a frontline aid worker in the UNICEF Thai/Cambodia Border Operation in 1979. He went on to regional and then global responsibility for humanitarian action in both the non-governmental sector and within the United Nations.

In his most recent position as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths led humanitarian negotiations, both for principles and for access to those in need. He also led the global advocacy for humanitarian funding and for the rights of people and communities affected by crises. In mid 2024, 300 million people required humanitarian assistance at an estimated minimum cost of 56 billion US dollars a year.

Mona Younis is an independent consultant in strategic planning, evaluation and human rights. Her extensive experience in the Arab region includes as program director in a refugee women’s organization in Lebanon, researcher in Palestine and Syria, university instructor in Jordan, and advisor to NGOs across the region. In philanthropy she served as human rights program officer at the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, coordinated the International Human Rights Funders Group, and co-founded the Arab Human Rights Fund and Fund for Global Human Rights. She also directed the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Mona holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley and is author of Liberation and Democratization: The South African and Palestinian National Movements (University of Minnesota Press, 2000).

Tania brings to the Crisis Action board over 20 years of senior commercial, operational and financial management experience, including serving as Finance Director of Siemens Energy for the UK and North Western Europe, and Director of Finance and Operations for the International Rescue Committee UK, before concentrating on a portfolio of non-executive roles.

Tania is currently non-executive director at Thrive Renewables plc (a mid-sized renewable energy developer and operator), the UK Infrastructure Bank (UK policy and development bank focused on green infrastructure and levelling up), The Energy Systems Catapult (an organisation driving innovation and decarbonisation across the UK’s energy system), and until recently the Private Infrastructure Development Group (a sustainable infrastructure developer and investor in the poorest countries of Africa and Asia). She is also the Chair of ViaNiños UK, a charity she established in the UK in 2009 to support projects helping street and working children in Ecuador, pursuing a longstanding passion for economic and social issues in developing countries.

Tania is a qualified commercial and community mediator and fluent in six languages. She grew up in cities across Africa and has travelled widely in Latin America and the Middle East. She has a Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Rome.

Dr. Tawanda Mutasah is Vice President, Global Partnerships and Impact at Oxfam America, where he oversees global programs and partnerships, advancing the humanitarian, development, and policy mandates of Oxfam. Formerly at Amnesty International, he provided global leadership on Amnesty’s formulation of human rights policies, as well as its development, interpretation and application of International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law. Previously, Dr. Mutasah was Global Director of Programs for the Open Society Foundations (OSF).

Dr. Mutasah is a member of the Advisory Council of Physicians for Human Rights, and a Board member of the Centre for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC). He has previously served as a member of the Advisory Board of the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) and the Advisory Board of Rutgers University’s Center for Women’s Global Leadership.

Admitted to the Bar in 1995, Mutasah is a recipient of the International Bar Association’s International Rule of Law Award. He earned a doctorate in juridical science from New York University School of Law, and a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School.