The team

Nicola has been campaigning to prevent and protect people in crises for more than 15 years and associated with Crisis Action since 2006, when she joined as a board member.

At that time, she was the first Head of Oxfam International’s New York office, leading Oxfam International’s advocacy on conflict and humanitarian action across the world. Nicola’s prior roles included being a policy adviser on the Great Lakes for Oxfam GB, and one of Oxfam International’s representatives in their Washington DC advocacy office. Nicola also had periods as a consultant for the UN in Rwanda and a fellow at the Overseas Development Institute’s Humanitarian Policy Group in London. From 2008–2010, she was the Director of Advocacy at the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and in 2011 was an adviser to online campaigning organisation Avaaz.

nicola.reindorp@crisisaction.org

+ 44 7539 44 23 11

Janah Ncube has been the Deputy CEO since 2021, serving as the Global Campaigns Director for 5 years prior to this. Before joining Crisis Action, she was Pan Africa Director for Oxfam. Her work in the last 10 years has had particular focus on Africa’s regional integration with a particular focus on African institutions such as the African Union, the African Development Banks and Regional Economic Communities; working on civil society development and engagement with other non state actors on the continent. Her career spans over 20 years working on human rights with a particular focus on women’s rights; conflict reduction and peace building; reducing poverty and injustice with organisations such as the SADC Secretariat, the Centre for Citizens’ Participation on the African Union, Women in Politics Support Unit amongst others. In 2005 the University of Bradford presented her with the Hilary Rose Award for her contribution to issues of diversity and inclusion; 2006, she was nominated as a Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellow of the Africa Leadership Institute (Afli). In 2011, Janah was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons in Zimbabwe by the Junior Chamber International.

janah.ncube@crisisaction.org

@janahncube

vijay.patel@crisisaction.org

Sacha is with Crisis Action since 2012. Before being appointed as Strategic Engagements Director he has held several positions within the organisation, including as Germany Director and EU Director.  Before joining Crisis Action Sacha worked as a consultant advising companies on political and regulatory frameworks for investments in new markets. Previously, Sacha worked for a Berlin-based communications agency where he worked with various political institutions, think tanks and NGOs focusing on strategic positioning and communications strategies. Sacha holds a Bachelor’s degree in Modern European Studies from the University College London, a Master’s degree in Contemporary European Studies from the University of Bath and Humboldt University Berlin as well as a PhD in Political Science.

sacha.dewijs@crisisaction.org

Divya is an experienced strategist, changemaker, and storyteller, with nearly two decades of demonstrated leadership and impact in journalism, human rights, strategic campaigning, and advocacy for change. She joined Crisis Action in January 2022 as our inaugural Director of Emergency Response, Learning and Innovation (DERLI).

Before joining Crisis Action, she was with Amnesty International for nine years, holding several leadership positions including Senior Adviser, Asia Pacific, Senior Research and Policy Adviser, and Director of Research. She is specialised in leading from the frontlines and working with marginalized and vulnerable communities, with a particular focus on structural inequality, criminal justice, women’s rights, justice and accountability issues. In the last decade, she has led and advised on impactful, innovative, and fearless human rights campaigns and advocacy; provided strategic leadership and training on human rights investigations and complex and multidisciplinary strategies for change; and built and mentored diverse, multi-cultural, and globally dispersed teams.

Passionate about gender rights, equality, and justice, she is a strong believer of harnessing the power of people, evidence, and storytelling to pilot solutions and advocate for change.

Prior to joining the human rights sector, Divya was an award-winning, bi-lingual broadcast journalist for a decade, reporting across leading national and international media networks in India. She holds a Master’s in Journalism from Symbiosis University in India, and in Human Rights Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in the UK.

divya.iyer@crisisaction.org

Sylvia has over 15 years of experience in fundraising. Before joining Crisis Action, she was Managing Director at Philanthropy and Fundraising International where she advised non-profits around the world on growth strategy and change management. She was previously CEO of the UK based charity Bread and Water for Africa UK, and also headed the development of innovative non-profits and social enterprises in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Fluent in French, English and Italian, Sylvia holds a Masters’ from the Institut de Traducteurs, d’Interprètes et de Relations Internationales (ITI-RI) of Strasbourg and a Certificate in Fundraising from the Association Française des Fundraisers and the ESSEC Business School in Paris.

sylvia.costantini@crisisaction.org

With over a decade’s experience working for INGOs in a variety of senior fundraising, project management and strategic roles, Laura Whitby joined Crisis Action in 2016 as Senior Development Manager. The last ten years have seen Laura working in a diverse array of contexts including Sierra Leone, Arctic Alaska, Qatar and Aberdeen and she has particular expertise in environments impacted by oil and gas development. Laura has most recently worked at Living Earth, an international NGO that works on environmental and development issues from Nigeria and Mali to Russia and Iran.

Laura holds an MA in Cultural Heritage Studies from University College London, where she focused on Indigenous people’s rights, and has since taken every opportunity to further brush up on her international knowledge with additional study at Birkbeck University.

laura.whitby@crisisaction.org

+44 207 269 9450

Laura has 10 year experience of engaging with donors for NGO projects in the Middle East and in Africa, both for development and humanitarian projects.

Prior to joining CA, she worked with MSF in Paris on developing MSF portfolio for restricted funding, in particular for humanitarian programmes in Uganda and Gaza. Previously she worked as programme partnership manager with Oxfam (Oxford) and was in charge of business development for Oxfam’s global youth programme She also worked between 2011 and 2015 as funding coordinator with Oxfam in Niger, Liberia and the West Bank.

Laura holds a Master in International Humanitarian Action of the NOHA (Bilbao, 2007), an MA in mass Communication (University of Leicester, 2012). She also holds a diploma of Arabic of INALCO.

laura.couderc@crisisaction.org

Alexandra joined Crisis Action in 2023 from JUSTICE, a UK-based human rights organisation working to reform the UK justice system. As a development administrator, her work straddled fundraising, events, memberships and communications. She was previously a Philanthropy intern at the International Crisis Group in London, where she assisted the Director of Philanthropy with prospect research, proposal writing and database management.

Alexandra has an MA in International Peace and Security from Kings College London, where she focused on conflict-related sexual violence in the DRC and the protection of women from violence, as well as completing a BA in Geography.

alexandra.howard@crisisaction.org

Pam is an experienced Human Resources (HR) business partner and Organizational Development (OD) practitioner. Her work experience is drawn from private, public, and civil society sectors. She has worked at local, regional, and international levels in HR-OD.

Prior to her appointment at Crisis Action, she worked as an independent contractor for Global People and Culture at BDO Worldwide Services (Brussels). Her consultancy projects over the last 5 years include working with teams at ActionAid International, WaterAid Zambia and Rwanda, SoS Children’s Villages International (Addis Ababa), the Royal College of Anesthesiology (Ottawa), the International Parliamentary Union (Geneva), CIVICUS and the National School of Government (SA). Her work includes HR-OD policy and strategy development, board inductions, leadership development, learning curation, DEI, team development, staff engagement and wellbeing. Pam is passionate about restorative HR and the safeguarding of staff and organizations alike.

Pam has a BA Social Science degree from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. She lives in Johannesburg with her daughter, Perusha and their dog Taco.

pam.gounder@crisisaction.org

Michelle has 10 years’ experience in Information Systems. Prior to joining Crisis Action, Michelle worked as a Senior Systems Analyst at KenGen PLC where she was responsible for customization, support, maintenance and development of the HR System.

She is passionate about  Digital HR Transformation  and Analytics to boost the efficiency and quality of HR Services and drive better people decisions.

She holds a Bachelor of  Business and Information Technology from Strathmore University and a Master of Business Administration- Operations Management from the University of Nairobi.

michelle.oduor@crisisaction.org

Robbie joined Crisis Action in 2018 directly from KPMG, where he worked in the Banking Audit department on the audits of large, international clients including Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon. Prior to this, he qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Goodman Jones LLP, working with SME clients across a range of industries during the course of his training contract. Robbie holds a master’s degree in Theoretical Physics from the University of Durham.

robbie.baruch@crisisaction.org

Rida has recently graduated from Brunel University in London with a first-class degree in Accountancy. She completed a year in industry during her degree as a Finance Assistant for the Communications, Marketing and Student recruitment directorate within the University. She was recently working as an Accounts assistant for JISC, which a publishing organisation in the Education and Research sector.

Rida enjoys reading, especially Mohsen Hamid novels, and enjoys travelling.

rida.nazir@crisisaction.org

Peter Duffy is a media and communications strategist with Crisis Action. He previously spent five years with AIDS-Free World, an international advocacy organization dedicated to tackling the inequalities that allow HIV to flourish. He has worked in newspaper and magazine journalism and published four books of narrative nonfiction. His freelance journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Politico, The New Republic, Slate, The Atlantic, and other publications.

peter.duffy@crisisaction.org

Maya El Ammar joined Crisis Action in October 2018 as a media campaigns manager. She is a feminist activist, journalist, and campaigner from Lebanon who worked on supporting local civil society organisations in their communications and media actions, and gave several training and awareness raising sessions on issues related to gender, feminism, and the media based on handbooks she produced.

Maya also contributes to different Arab media outlets as a journalist, writer, and translator. She holds a BA in journalism and an MA in communications studies. She previously managed the media and communications activities in KAFA organisation (Arabic word for “Enough”), where she worked for seven years and coordinated nationwide feminist media campaigns.

maya.elammar@crisisaction.org

@mayaammar

Georges has a decade of international experience in Information Technology solutions, service delivery and management. He worked in delivering complex IT infrastructure solutions for a range of customers in the Telecom, Governmental and Banking sectors mainly in Middle Africa and the Persian Gulf. Georges holds a Bachelor in Computer and Telecommunication Engineering from Holy-Spirit of Kaslik University and is fluent in Arabic, French and English.

georges.zailah@crisisaction.org

Before Joining Crisis Action, Lynette has more than 20 years’ experience in providing executive support in a variety of sectors.

Her career has included stints at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, South Africa, where she completed postings in Brussels, Lesotho, Mozambique and Botswana before venturing into the private sector and moving to the UK.

She is also a trainee counsellor and is currently pursuing a BA in Integrative Counselling.

Lynette.Searle@crisisaction.org

+44 207 2699450

Mohamed M Diatta is a Policy, Political Science, and International Relations analyst. His work in and on Africa has focused primarily on issues of governance, peace and security, and regional organisations. Prior to joining Crisis Action, he was at the Addis Ababa office of the Institute for Security Studies, working on human security questions confronting Africa and how to improve continental and regional responses to these challenges.

Mohamed taught Political Science and International Relations from 2016 and has been an adjunct lecturer since 2020 at Sciences Po Paris (France).

He is a graduate of the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. Mohamed holds a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from Sciences Po Paris (France).

mohamed.diatta@crisisaction.org

Hany Wahila joined Crisis Action as a Campaign and Research Assistant prior to becoming the Research and Advocacy Associate. Her area of interest is on peace and security in the Horn of Africa, particularly Ethiopia and the African Union. Prior to joining Crisis Action, she worked in international development as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia implementing development policies and projects in the health and education sector. She also served as an East African Community Outreach where she liaised between the East African Community in the city of Minneapolis for the YWCA and the Minneapolis Public School District.

Hany holds an MSc in International Relations – African Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) – University of London and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Minnesota.

addis1@crisisaction.org

Jacqueline Hale has 15 years experience influencing the EU on human rights and humanitarian issues. Prior to Crisis Action she was Head of EU Advocacy for Save the Children, leading the organisation’s advocacy towards the EU on protecting children in conflict and  crisis, as well as on multilateral processes such as the UN sustainable development goals and the G7 & G20.  Jacqui has also worked as an analyst with the Open Society Foundations, focusing on the Former Soviet Union. She continues to support local civil society organisations dedicated to human rights and accountability through her board membership of an INGO focused on the region. In addition to her work with NGOs she has held research roles at the European Parliament and with UNHCR as well as advisory roles with the British Council and a number of thinktanks.

Jacqui is passionate about justice, gender equality and feminist leadership. Frustrated by the lack of gender balance in foreign policy debates she co-founded the Brussels Binder, a database of women policy experts, and serves as a mentor for younger women professionals. Jacqui is a graduate of Cambridge University where she studied languages, and speaks 6 languages in addition to her native English. She holds an MA in International Relations from Sussex University.

jacqueline.hale@crisisaction.org

Aditi joined Crisis Action as the Campaigns and Advocacy Manager in Johannesburg in February 2020 after having spent 8 years as a foreign policy analyst at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). Prior to this, Aditi worked in political communications – first as a speechwriter for President Mbeki and then as the Media Liaison Officer at SAIIA. Aditi has published extensively on peace and conflict issues, including on themes like peace-building and conflict prevention in Africa – focusing on South African foreign policy. She’s conducted extensive fieldwork research in post-conflict and fragile contexts including the Bosnia, the DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. Her Master’s thesis concentrated on grassroots peacebuilding and state formation in Somaliland. She holds an M.Litt in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of St Andrews (2011) and in 2010 was awarded the Chevening Scholarship.

aditi.lalbahadur@crisisaction.org

Before joining Crisis Action in 2015, Hayley built her career leading campaigns for fairer health, social care, welfare and education systems in the UK, most recently with Save the Children UK and Macmillan Cancer Support. She’s passionate about building partnerships for social change and has led a number of major coalitions, including the Disability Benefits Consortium of over 60 disability charities, and the Richmond Group of leading health charities. In 2013, she spent a year volunteering in the Johannesburg townships as a strategy and communications adviser for community development NGOs.

Hayley holds a law degree from Cambridge University. She spent an Erasmus year studying international law at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where she also worked as a Research Assistant at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights analysing the international response to gross human rights violations. She is a proud trustee and board secretary for Elizabeth House Community Centre in Islington, London.

hayley.davidson@crisisaction.org

+44 207 2699450

Sarah has campaigned at multiple human rights and international development NGOs in the UK – including the UK Committee for UNICEF, Save the Children, and ActionAid. At the global level, she was Plan International’s Head of Youth, Movements, and Campaigns. Her focus has been women’s and girls’ rights (in all their diversity), along with youth voice and participation.

Sarah has an MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics, and an MA in Art Psychotherapy from Goldsmiths. She is a proud Trustee for the Donmar Warehouse theatre, as a champion for their young people’s program. And she currently volunteers with young women who’ve survived sexual violence at the grassroots Women and Girls Network. She is a committed intersectional, anti-racist feminist.

sarah.carson@crisisaction.org

Joe Keyrouz is a political science and international affairs specialist, dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights. He studied political science and international affairs and has an MA in Studies about Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism from UNIR in Spain.

Since June 2017, Joe is the elected chair of the Global Network of Domestic Election Monitors (GNDEM) which is a network of 250 election-monitoring organisations in 89 countries across the globe. Moreover, he is an elected member of the Board of Directors since June 2013 at the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE), which is a rights-based organisation that works to promote electoral rights in Lebanon and the MENA region. LADE has extensive experience in monitoring the Lebanese elections, awareness raising, legal research and in advocating and lobbying for electoral reform.

Moreover, Joe has been fully engaged in the promotion and protection of refugee rights in Lebanon and Jordan since June 2011. Among others, he led a team of more than 200 individuals (100 paralegal staff, 15 lawyers and 120 volunteers) to provide legal aid and support evidence-based advocacy across Jordan, as part of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s (NRC) Syria response.

joe.keyrouz@crisisaction.org

Racha joins Crisis Action having served most recently as the Yemen Researcher with Amnesty International where she investigated human rights and international humanitarian law violations in Yemen, she notably authored a report on restriction to humanitarian access. Prior to that, she worked with Human Rights Watch in Beirut and Physicians for Human Rights in New York where she conducted research and related advocacy on a range of human rights abuses in Syria. Racha holds a master’s degree in Social Development and a BA in law from the Sorbonne University.

racha.mouawieh@crisisaction.org

Karim joined Crisis Action’s MENA office in Beirut as a Campaigns and Research assistant in 2020, before becoming the Advocacy and Campaigns officer in 2021. At Crisis Action, Karim’s work focuses on civilian protection advocacy across the Middle East and North Africa region, covering countries like Syria, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territories, Libya, Iraq, among others. Since 2021, he has been working on Crisis Action’s global campaign for Yemen.

Prior to joining Crisis Action, Karim engaged in a wide scope of human rights and humanitarian initiatives in Lebanon which included youth-based organizations and relief programs for Syrian refugees. He also worked in the finance and banking sector in Beirut.

Karim holds an MA in International Affairs from Yale University, and a dual BA in Business from the Lebanese University. Karim is a recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship (2017) and the US Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference award (2018). His article, with a former Syrian detainee, on the impact of Covid-19 on political detainees in Syria was published in the Yale Journal for International Affairs in 2020.

karim.khalifeh@crisisaction.org

Mouhamadou joined Crisis Action as a Partner Engagement Consultant for the Sahel Campaign in 2020, before becoming the Nairobi Advocacy and Campaigns Manager in 2022, based in Dakar, Senegal.

Prior to Crisis Action, Mouhamadou has worked with several organisations such as UNOWAS, OSIWA, FES, Girls Not Brides on issues related to peace and security issues in West Africa and the Sahel,  child marriage, governance, human rights and security sector reform.

He holds a BA in International Law and a MA in Strategic Studies from Sorbonne University. He is currently working on his PhD on: “The Role and Place of CSOs organisations in Security Sector and Governance Reform (SSG/R) in Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria

mouhamadou.moustapha@crisisaction.org

Gareth manages Crisis Action partner advocacy at the UN in NY. Gareth was formerly Global Advocacy Manager at Transparency International (TI), representative to the UN in New York and Geneva, Chief Editor of the Global Corruption Report and Head of the Corruption in Sport Initiative. He was previously Deputy Manager of the Human Rights Defenders Programme at the International Service for Human Rights (2006-2010) and Senior Legal Officer for the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre (2003-2006). He has also consulted on governance challenges in global climate finance. He holds an MLitt (history) from University College Dublin and LLM (IHRL) from the National University of Ireland.

gareth.sweeney@crisisaction.org

Hannah joined Crisis Action full-time in 2022, having previously served as a consultant for the Washington and UN offices supporting the Yemen and Sahel campaigns. During the 2020 U.S. presidential elections, she worked as the Deputy Director of the Voter Protection Hotline for the DNC in Michigan to promote voting rights and ballot access across the state. Prior to that, she was a research fellow for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) constitution-building team based in Tunisia, providing support to the UN Special Envoy to Yemen developing mediation strategies. From 2016-2017, Hannah was a Fulbright research scholar in Morocco where she completed a case study of the new Mohammed VI Contemporary and Modern Art Museum in Rabat, examining the institutional politics of artistic production and human rights.

Hannah holds a MA in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University and a BA in Art History and African Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also completed two-years of study at the Corcoran College of Art & Design in Washington D.C. with a concentration in Photojournalism and Museum Studies.

hannah.clager@crisisaction.org

Sylvain Biville brings twenty years of experience in strategic communications, advocacy and journalism to Crisis Action. Most recently, he has worked as senior advisor to the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, after having worked for World Summit Climate & Territories and The Climate Group. He was previously Media Manager at The Elders, where he worked with Martti Ahtisaari, Kofi Annan, Lakhdar Brahimi, Jimmy Carter, Mary Robinson and Desmond Tutu to promote peace, justice and human rights worldwide. Before that, Sylvain spent 15 years covering global news for Radio France Internationale. He also worked as a press officer for the United Nations in New York and the French Institute of South Africa in Johannesburg.

sylvain.biville@crisisaction.org

Sophie joined Crisis Action in 2020 as a consultant before becoming Advocacy and Campaigns Manager in 2021. Previously she has consulted on issues notably related to human rights, peace and conflicts and gender equality for several entities. She was formerly the head of the Advocacy Division of Reporters Without Borders. She also worked several years as a diplomat for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as for the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).

Sophie holds a lawyer’s certificate (CAPA – admitted to the Paris Bar), a master’s degree in international law from the Jean Monnet Faculty and the Sorbonne University (Paris) and a LLM from the Fordham University School of Law (New York).

sophiebusson@crisisaction.org

Fatima Ayub is Washington Director of Crisis Action. She is a political analyst with almost two decades of experience researching conflict, crisis, human rights and foreign policy, with a focus on the Middle East and Asia. Throughout her career she has worked on multiple continents for prominent organizations including International Crisis Group, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the Open Society Foundations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

fatima.ayub@crisisaction.org

Carolyn joined Crisis Action in 2018 directly from Physicians for Human Rights, where she coordinated advocacy on war crimes accountability, sexual violence, torture, and medical neutrality.  Prior to that, she was responsible for research and analysis relating to protection of human rights defenders at Human Rights First; provided legal support for judges at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, the Superior Court of Massachusetts, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); and served as a paralegal specialist at the U.S. Department of Justice.  Carolyn holds a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and a B.A. in Political Science (magna cum laude) from Bates College, and is a member of the advisory board of the American Bar Association’s Atrocity Prevention and Response Project.

carolyn.greco@crisisaction.org

Juliana Lord joined Crisis Action in 2022 after graduating from Georgetown University Law Center with a J.D. as well as a Certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies.  During law school, Juliana interned at Women’s Refugee Commission and Corporate Accountability Lab.  She also worked as a student attorney in Georgetown Law’s Civil Rights Clinic and helped develop and carry out an investigation into attacks on healthcare by the Syrian regime causing forced displacement in the Human Rights Institute’s Human Rights Fact-Finding Practicum in 2020-2021.  Prior to law school, she worked as a legal assistant for an immigration attorney, taking on clients with both family and humanitarian cases.  She has work and research experience in the areas of international criminal law, U.S. civil rights litigation, U.S. and international business and human rights, U.S. asylum and refugee law and policy, and international humanitarian law/law of war.  Juliana holds a B.A. in International Studies from Macalester College and is fluent in Spanish.

juliana.lord@crisisaction.org