“The world is not a feminist place. And so every morning you are up trying to reinvent (…) It’s a much deeper work of helping other people have a different frame of reference of how one can lead, how one can bring about change.”
Laurie Adams, CEO of Women For Women International, April 2019
Laurie’s Bio:
Laurie Adams is the Chief Executive Officer of Women for Women International (WfWI), a leading global organization working across ten conflict affected countries to help women survivors of war to rebuild their lives.
Prior to joining WfWI, Laurie served as the Director of Women’s Rights for Oxfam Great Britain leading communications, fundraising, program development, and advocacy of Oxfam’s women’s rights work across the globe. Laurie had previously at Oxfam been stationed in Senegal, Kenya, and South Africa serving as Regional Manager or Director overseeing development, humanitarian and advocacy work in each of the three regions. Laurie also served ActionAid International for eight years, from the Johannesburg secretariat, leading efforts to measure impact, strengthen learning, and build accountability for over 40 countries. In each of these roles, Laurie brought a feminist perspective, a commitment to strengthening women’s rights across all the work, and took part in initiatives such as establishing feminist fora or women’s leadership training to strengthen women’s leadership and the women’s movement.
Laurie’s activist feminist work is grounded in South Africa, where she lived for more than twelve years, taking part in the 1 in 9 campaign to stop violence against women, serving on the board of the Forum for the Empowerment of Women to campaign against hate crimes, and also helping to found The Other Foundation, raising support from within South Africa for LGBTI movements in Southern Africa.
Ms. Adams holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy Management from the University of London, a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Women’s Rights from Dartmouth College, and completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School.
The Feminist Leadership Project 