Governance and ownership

Amitabh Behar, Executive Director of Oxfam International, is a global civil society leader with decades of experience in human rights, economic inequalities, governance accountability, philanthropy, democracy, social justice and building citizen participation. Prior to this role, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Oxfam India. Mr. Behar was the Vice Chair of the Board of CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organisations and activists dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society across the globe. He has also served as the Chair of Navsarjan (Ahmedabad) and the President of Yuva in Mumbai. He also serves on the boards of several other organisations, including the Global Fund for Community Foundation and the Norwegian Human Rights Fund. Prior to Oxfam, Mr. Behar was the Executive Director of National Foundation for India and served as the Convener of National Social Watch Coalition and the Co-Chair of Global Call to Action Against Poverty, a network of over 11,000 civil society organisations.

CEO/General Secretary of YWCA

Since 2019, Casey has been the 15th CEO/General Secretary of World YWCA, a 175-year-old movement of grassroots women leaders in 100+ countries. Casey has been driving the realisation of the global YWCA Goal 2035, 100 million young women transforming power structures, and tackling exciting operational, governance, and partnership opportunities to ensure the vitality and relevancy of YWCA in the 21st century. She demonstrates a commitment to transparency, authenticity, and inclusion, and a closely held aspiration for World YWCA to be accountable to the leaders of the YWCA global movement, especially younger leaders. Casey joined the YWCA movement 25+ years ago and through varied executive and leadership positions, has shown how to harness a movement that is rich and wide-reaching in its diversity toward a common goal for collective impact, including a multi-year transformative process toward the YWCA USA mission of racial justice, and with World YWCA the creation of narratives, funding mechanisms, signature tools, and methodologies for use by feminist, women’s and youth movements. Casey is active with other entities such as the governing board of ACT Alliance, the United Nations Multi-Faith Advisory Council, the #ThursdaysInBlack campaign, and the Planned Parenthood of America board.

Cherian Mathews is Chief Executive of HelpAge International, leading the organisation’s global work to promote the wellbeing, dignity, and rights of older people. Cherian has more than 30 years of international development experience in leading and managing humanitarian, long term development and advocacy work at country, regional and global levels. Previously, he worked with Oxfam GB as International Programme Director and before that as Asia Regional Director where he led major humanitarian responses in the Philippines and Nepal and led regional campaigns on economic justice and inequality. Before joining in 2003, Cherian worked with Action Aid. Prior to that he worked with local and national level civil society organisations on the rights of indigenous people and other marginalised communities in India. Cherian also has engaged in wide range of research and policy issues like Food Justice, Climate Change, Inequality and Humanitarian action. He is currently pursuing policy agenda on population ageing and promoting the rights of older people, especially looking at intersectionality with gender, disability, and climate change. He is passionate about localisation and decolonisation of aid architecture. Cherian completed his post graduate degree in development studies in India and completed advance management and leadership courses at Oxford and Harvard universities.

Dr Rainer Brockhaus joined CBM in 2009 as CEO of CBM Germany. With the merger of CBM Germany and CBM-International in 2020 he became CEO of the newly formed CBM organisation. He has been responsible for fundraising, communications and programmes during this time. Rainer holds a Masters degree in Business Administration and a Ph.D. in Applied Computer Science. Prior to joining CBM, he worked in various leadership positions in finance, marketing and sales in the IT industry. Rainer combines his commercial and NGO expertise with a strong motivation to drive change – in CBM and in society – and is committed to making international development truly inclusive. The guiding principles for all his work are the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the human rights-based approach underpinning the CRPD as well as the Sustainable Development Goals and their principle to ‘leave no one behind’.

Kathrin leads the business development at the Centre, which includes finances and human resources as well as fundraising. She joined the Centre in early 2017 and since then worked in the role of the Flagship Event Project Officer and as Development Manager. Before joining the Centre, Kathrin was a freelance journalist who worked mainly for political talk shows in German media institutions. She has also worked at a foundation in Tanzania as well as in an MP office in the German parliament. Kathrin holds a M.Sc. in International Relations with distinction from the University of Amsterdam with a focus on international political economy, and a B.A. in Political Science from the Free University Berlin.

Rachel leads the Centre’s programmes. She joined the Centre in January 2023, initially leading the Futures and Innovation programme before becoming Director of Programmes. Rachel has more than 15 years of experience working for civil society organisations on a national and international level, working for various ICSOs in international development and human rights in both London and Berlin. Rachel has an interest in digital technology and its impacts on civil society, futures thinking, and finding innovative participatory ways of working for CSOs. Rachel holds an honours degree in Political Science from Newcastle University and an executive post-grad certificate in Digital Governance from the Hertie School of Governance.