Experts List

Ms Birdsey is the Chief Executive Officer of Investing in Women (IW), an initiative of the Australian Government.

As IW’s CEO, she will lead the initiative’s efforts to promote women’s economic empowerment in Southeast Asia. Ms Birdsey brings over 20 years of experience working in international development, as well as skills in diplomacy, leadership, international relations and public policy.

Prior to her appointment as CEO of Investing in Women, Ms Birdsey served as Australia’s Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian High Commission Kuala Lumpur, where she was responsible for overseeing all aspects of the Australian Government’s bilateral relationship with Malaysia.

As Assistant Secretary at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ms Birdsey led teams responsible for development policy and programming in governance, sustainable development, and humanitarian response, as well as DFAT’s response to the COVID-19 global pandemic. She served overseas in Jakarta, Indonesia and in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

Ms Birdsey holds a Masters in International Relations from the University of Sydney, and a Graduate Diploma in Economics from the University of New England.

Greg joined Investing in Women in February 2019 as the Operations Director and Deputy CEO.

Prior to joining Investing in Women, Greg was the Chief Operating Officer of Fairtrade International, based in Bonn Germany. Greg has extensive senior level experience working in finance, operations and governance in a range of government and non-government organisations.

Philippa Venning is Vice President at Abt Associates. Based in Canberra, she leads Abt’s technical team to provide quality advice and implementation across the breadth of Abt’s programs. In addition to being Abt’s contractor representative on Investing in Women, Philippa leads DFAT-funded programs in governance and health across Asia and the Pacific.

Prior to joining Abt, Philippa worked for DFAT, the World Bank, United Nations Development Program, and several NGOs. Her most recent role at DFAT was Deputy Head of Mission in Timor-Leste. For DFAT and the World Bank, Philippa designed and implemented governance, service delivery and gender programs in Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands and Indonesia. She has spent 12 years working in the Asia-Pacific region in addition to over 14 years’ experience in Australia.

Before becoming a development professional, Philippa spent several years as a corporate lawyer working for Allens Linklaters in Sydney and Singapore. She serves on the board of ChildFund Australia in a voluntary capacity.

Maya is the Workplace Gender Equality Director at Investing in Women. Prior to IW, Maya was the Executive Director of Indonesia Business Coalition for Women Empowerment (IBCWE). Along with the board members, she initiated the establishment of IBCWE in October 2016.

Maya has master’s degree in business law from University of Gadjah Mada in Indonesia and she is an HR professional with more than 20 years of experience, both in private sector and development sector. She has experience in facilitating various training programs such as leadership, people management program, gender bias, anti-sexual harassment, and discrimination. As HR practitioner, she has the experience in managing overall people processes including organisational design, diversity and inclusion, and change management. With her experience, Maya led the assistance program to IBCWE members in transforming their policies and practices using the gender lens, including diversity and inclusion aspects.

In collaboration with UN Women Regional Program, Maya is currently seating as legacy judge for Women Empowerment Principles (WEP) Award, for Asia Pacific region.

Maya was appointed as one of advocates for G20 EMPOWER 2022, representing Indonesia in G20 forum, along with other business leaders from Indonesia. She also served as policy manager in Women in Business Council of B20 Indonesia presidency 2022 to develop policy recommendation from business perspective.

Maesy Angelina is the Director for Policy and Reforms and head of the Indonesia office of Investing in Women. Maesy has nearly 20 years of experience in designing and implementing programs, leading teams, and conducting action-research and policy advocacy to advance gender equality and social inclusion in Indonesia. She is particularly accomplished in applying behavioural insights and systemic design to advance women’s economic empowerment and digital transformation, with experience on topics ranging from enabling safe transit for women night-shift workers to supporting digital and financial inclusion of women micro-entrepreneurs. Her work with international organizations, such as the United Nations Global Pulse and DFAT Australia, has successfully led to recommendations to advance gender equality being taken up by various stakeholders, from local and national governments to the biggest ride hailing company in Indonesia.

Maesy holds a bachelor degree in Psychology from Atma Jaya University, a master degree in International Development from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam’s International Institute of Studies, and trained on designing social systems by Stanford d.School.

Kim Patria is Director for Campaigns and Communities of Practice at Investing in Women (IW), an initiative of the Australian Government. He leads a team that works with partners in Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia to promote positive examples of gender equality to strengthen public support for women’s economic empowerment. Kim joined IW in 2018 in a communication role but was immediately involved in managing partnerships for locally led campaigns. Prior to joining IW, Kim has worked as a journalist, a publicist for a Philippine senator-turned-presidential aspirant, and a marketing director for a Jakarta-headquartered startup. He holds a Master of Marketing degree from the University of Sydney (completed through an Australia Awards scholarship) and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of the Philippines.

Eleanor T. Keppelman is the Impact Investing Director with Investing in Women. As Impact Investing Director, Ms. Keppelman leads a team to carry out IW’s investing activities, with the ultimate goal of increasing investment capital to women-led or supporting businesses across Southeast Asia. Prior to joining IW, Ms. Keppelman was an investment officer with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), where she led debt transactions into social enterprises and impact funds operating in low and lower middle-income countries. She was also part of the DFC team implementing the agency’s 2X Women’s Initiative.

Ms. Keppelman is a passionate investment professional who has spent much of her career focused on promoting women’s economic empowerment through the mobilization of capital. She holds a B.A. with honors in Political Science from the University of Chicago and an M.A. with distinction in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Eduardo is Investing in Women’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning director. In that role, Eduardo oversees IW’s ambitious research and learning agenda, the continuous improvement of IW’s use of data, and the evaluation of IW’s interventions.

Eduardo is experienced in providing evidence-based strategic advice to development agencies, government, and businesses. Eduardo combines public sector experience with the Australian Public Service, development contractors, and the World Bank with a private sector background in legal practice at large multinationals, start-ups, and international law firms.

Eduardo has over fifteen years of experience in research, monitoring, evaluation and learning, policy development, program design, legal analysis, and business development which he enjoys applying in adaptive environments to meet the demands of a diverse range of projects.

Nicole joined us in 2021 as the Investing in Women Program Manager based in Canberra. Nicole works across the Pathway team and with DFAT to support the delivery of the program.

Nicole has a background in program management with over 15 years of experience in program development, delivery and evaluation. She has worked across government, academia and the not-for-profit sector with a focus on health and disability in rural and remote Australia.

Binh has more than 25 years of experience working in international development, international education programs and in foreign services. Before joining Investing in Women, Binh spent over 7 years working for Pact Inc., an international NGO, where she held multiple leadership roles, including Vietnam Country Representative, Deputy Country Director, Deputy Chief of Party and Grants and Contracts Manager. She successfully led the overall operations of Pact’s Vietnam country office, including program development, program management, finance management, administration and Human Resource Management, etc. Binh effectively managed nearly 50 sub-grants and sub-contracts under Pact’s USD 45 million Community REACH program on HIV/AIDS and an annual portfolio of about USD 5 million at the Vietnam Education Foundation. For 11 years, Binh worked for the Vietnamese Government coordinating INGOs’ work in Vietnam and leading exchange programs between Vietnam and the United States of America.

Binh holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Language from Hanoi National University and a Master’s Degree in Development Management from the Asian Institute of Management in Makati, the Philippines.

Binh has strong passion for development work and has successfully raised funds for programs and projects of multi millions U.S Dollars value and effectively led or managed several development programs in various sectors including health, gender, livelihoods/economic growth, environment, education and governance/policy reform.

Gerelyn (or “Ging”) joined Investing in Women (IW) in February 2023 as the Philippines’ Technical and Policy Reform Lead. Before joining IW, Ging has worked for the USAID-assisted Advancing Basic Education in the Philippines (ABC+) Project as Education Systems Strengthening Advisor and as Education Policy, Planning and M&E Manager for the AusAid-assisted Basic Education Sector Transformation (BEST) Program. Prior to engaging in development work, she has extensively served the government in both director and technical positions at the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC). Ging is is passionate about public service with focus on economic development, social protection and human capital development.