Trustees of Family for Every Child (UK)
Rita Panicker
Chair of the Board, India
Rita Panicker is the founder director of Butterflies, a non-governmental organization in New Delhi, working to protect & empower street connected children since 1989. Rita earned her MSW from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and a Masters in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies, Netherlands. She was a faculty member in the Women’s Studies Unit, at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and from 1988-1992, served as the Director of the Board of ChildHope. She has published several papers on child rights issues and also co-authored a study on children in conflict with law.
Miguel Lopez
Member Trustee, Guatemala
Miguel Lopez is a human rights advocate for children and adolescents, trained as a
psychologist, with over thirty years of professional experience in the area of child survivors
of violence, political advocacy, university teaching, community and political psychology.
Focused on processes of protection and restoration of the rights of children and adolescents
in vulnerable situations. A promoter of inter-institutional collaboration and coordination. A
member of the National Association Against Child Abuse (CONACMI) since 1997, and
executive director since 2010. A former president of the Board of Directors of the National
Commission for Children and Adolescents of Guatemala. A member of the Social Movement
for the rights of children, adolescents, and youth in Guatemala.
Chamreun Yaim
Member Trustee, Cambodia
Chamreun Yaim is the Executive Director of First Step Cambodia, a local non-governmental organization based in Phnom Penh, working to ensure all children in Cambodia live and grow up in a safe environment and are able to fulfill their potential. Chamreun has spent 20 years in the social sector in Cambodia, working at grassroots levels to provide mental health, social welfare, and child welfare services to vulnerable populations throughout Cambodia. Chamreun has contributed to numerous national and international alliances of civil society organizations working together to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families, sharing FSC’s expertise and initiating new research projects, both independent and collaborative.
Chaste Uwihoreye
Member Trustee, Rwanda
Chaste Uwihoreye is a Clinical Psychologist with 16 years of experience working with children, youth and families in Rwanda, and he is the Country Director of Uyisenga ni Imanzi.
Chaste is a strong advocate for children’s rights, and is trained in trauma healing, individual transformation, family cohesion, community participation and team and peace building. Chaste has led rehabilitation trauma recovery programs for genocide survivors, women, young girls who have been raped, children from armed groups and those in conflict with the law.
Iván Zamora
Member Trustee, Chile
Ivan Zamora Zapata is the Executive Director of ONG Paicabi, having 35 years of experience. He holds a Social Worker Degree and has done his Masters in Social Management with specialisation in Social Communication. Ivan is based in Vina Del Mar, in Chile.
Nick Scott
Co-opted Trustee, Spain
Nick has over 15 years experience a a senior digital leader in third sector organisations as diverse as Médicins Sans Frontières, UNISON the trade union and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) think tank. For his work building a digital team at UNISON he was listed in the Digital Leaders 100 list in the UK, while at ODI his digital strategy was awarded Digital Strategy of the Year at the European Digital Communications Awards.
Ron Gutierrez
Member Trustee, USA
Ron is the Clinical Director at Legal Services for Children (LSC) a non-profit based in San Francisco, California, US. LSC employs a holistic team approach utilizing legal advocacy and social work services to empower children and youth to be actively involved in critical decisions impacting their lives. Ron is a licensed clinical social worker and earned his MSW from Columbia University and his BA from Wesleyan University. In addition to 30 years of direct practice serving children, youth and families, Ron has led training in the areas of cultural competence, Latin American identity in the US and the impact of trauma on immigrant children and families.
Agnes Leung
Co-opted Trustee, UK
Based in London, Agnes is a banking professional with 26 years experience, having held senior roles with global banks including HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank, specialising in digital transformation within the payments and transaction banking space. Her global leadership spans across multicultural teams where cross-regional strategies need to be aligned in matrix organisations to ensure both regulatory compliance and performance excellence.
Agnes holds an MBA from the University of Cambridge and professional accreditation in Cash Management from the Association of Corporate Treasurers. She is fluent in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese. Outside of work she is a mother of three and an enthusiastic marathon runner.
Suman Majji
Co-opted Trustee, India
Suman is a finance professional with over 14 years of global experience across asset management, trading, strategy, and advisory. He is currently Senior Treasurer at Pictet Asset Management, where he is responsible for finance trading and analytics for the hedge fund franchise. His previous roles include Senior Trader at Citi, Quantitative Strategist at Goldman Sachs, and Consultant at PwC, where he advised public utilities on financial strategy and reform.
Suman holds an MBA in Finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and an Engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He is passionate about equity of opportunity and firmly believes that access to opportunity is one of the greatest socio-economic levellers.
Trustees of Family for Every Child Trust (NZ)
Cassandra Dickinson
Chair, Family for Every Child New Zealand, New Zealand
Cassandra studied international business and non profit management and has undertaken postgraduate research in international development. She is passionate about seeing communities and families thrive and has run community programmes for disadvantaged youth in Fiji and the USA, and has supported asylum seeker families and refugee children in Australia. Cassandra is currently based in New Zealand working as the Quality Assurance Manager on engineering projects in South East Asia.
Danica Waiti
Trustee, Family for Every Child New Zealand, New Zealand
Danica Waiti is Maori (indigenous to Aotearoa New Zealand) and mother to two daughters. Her experience in indigenous development and international programming spans over 20 years. With a speciality in research, monitoring and evaluation she has provided technical advice to projects in the Pacific, South East Asia, the Caribbean, and North and East Africa, working alongside governments and civil society groups. Danica is experienced in programming that places children at the centre and seeks to address familial and societal challenges to improve the lives of these children.
Fi McPhee
Trustee, Family for Every Child New Zealand, New Zealand
Fi is the Managing Director of Revolutionise, an accelerator for people with purpose, and a Director of The Benchmarking Project. Fi works Non-Profit and For Purpose Organisations throughout Australasia and North America from her base in the inspiring South Island of New Zealand. Having led Australia & New Zealand’s largest fundraising benchmarking and analytics programs for over 15 years, Fi’s insight into the fundraising market is unparalleled. After 24 years working with non-profits across fundraising, organisational culture and strategic planning, and with extensive program implementation experience, Fi drives culture change, strategic development and execution of strategic plans helping teams accelerate their fundraising growth
Selar Henderson
Trustee, Family for Every Child New Zealand, New Zealand
Selar is the Founder and Managing Director of Future Value Global, a regenerative investment company, and is a values-based business advisor. He is an advocate and catalyst for transformational shifts to greater sustainability in human activities and a more democratic economy that creates wealth for the many, not the few. He believes in the generation of social impact benefits through the implementation of material accountability in business, and the application of regenerative investment to achieve social and environmental outcomes, alongside financial return, for long-term community wellbeing.
Trustees of Family Alliance (US)
Charlotte Brandin
Trustee, Family Alliance, USA
Charlotte Brandin has been active within the nonprofit & philanthropic sector for almost 30 years. She began her career at Planned Parenthood S.F, and co-founded the Welfare Made A Difference Campaign for which she lobbied in the U.S. Congress. She continues to promote children’s rights and protection issues as an advisor for BRY, Hello Future and volunteer COO at Global Health Promise. Charlotte served as Executive Director for Childhood USA for thirteen years, and as Board member and Executive Chairperson at Charity Rating. Previously Trustee and then Consultant for Family Alliance, she is currently Strategic Facilitator at Natural Creativity Center. Most recently she completed certification training as a Doula.
Kristina Vér Foley
Trustee, Family Alliance, USA
Kristina Vér Foley is a partnership builder, fundraiser and strategic communicator. She has over a decade of executive-level experience in both US and international non-profits built across the fields of child rights and care, youth development and employability, education and healthcare.
Kristina currently serves as Managing Director, US for Salzburg Global Seminar, an independent non-profit organization founded in 1947 with a mission to challenge current and future leaders to shape a better world. Previously, Kristina served the National Court Appointed Special Advocate/Guardian ad Litem (CASA/GAL) Association for Children as Chief Communications Officer and was a member of SOS Children’s Villages International’s global leadership team, first as International Director of Communications and Brand and subsequently as Chief of Staff.
Sheela Bowler
Trustee, Family Alliance, USA
Sheela Bowler, MPH, MEd, is a social entrepreneur working at the intersection of early childhood development (ECD), child health, and child protection – focusing her career on building child wellbeing systems that enable families to thrive together. Sheela was the founding COO of Kidogo, Senior Program Consultant for the African Early Childhood Network, and Senior Advisor for Programs Strategy at NYC’s Administration for Children’s Services. She is currently Foster America’s first Director of Strategic Initiatives and Innovation, where she co-designs reform projects alongside public child welfare agencies to create transformative change for children and families nationwide.
Sonya Soni
Trustee, Family Alliance, USA
Sonya is a medical anthropologist and community organizer, working at the intersection between child health and child rights to decolonize child welfare systems in India and the United States, and helping build a movement to end the orphanage industrial complex globally. She is currently a fellow placed at the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health through Foster America, a non-profit organization that aims to build more just, holistic local child welfare systems across the United States. She has worked in the U.S., South Asia, and East Africa for various child-focused community-based organizations, with a commitment to building partnerships between community-led organizations and governments, and institutionalizing community voice in systemic policy change. She also co-leads the Akhil Bharitya Mahila Ashram, a multi-generational girls’ and widows’ rights NGO in Dehra Dun, India.
Tom Lent
President, Family Alliance, USA
A passionate advocate for the cause of children around the world, Tom Lent is an unrivaled expert in international development. He has over 40 years of experience in integrated development and advocacy in human rights, gender, disaster relief, and education-sector reform. Tom’s vast experience includes serving as an adviser to the Ministry of Education in Guatemala; running an international project for the Bernard Van Leer Foundation on early childhood development; founding the “Social Movement for Child Rights” In Guatemala, and forming “the circle of learning on child rights and municipalities” in Central America with UNICEF, Plan International and national-regional NGOs. He is currently a consultant and an Adjunct Professor at the American University.
