About Us

Eliza has 15 years of diverse international development, operations and project management experience. Eliza has worked in the private, NGO and development sectors throughout Asia, Australia and PNG, including three of the Investing in Women countries – Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Eliza has been with Abt Associates, the Investing in Women Implementing Service Provider, since 2007.

Nene is a Certified Public Accountant with extensive experience in financial management, business planning, project development, monitoring and evaluation. She completed high level project engagements on behalf of USAID, EU, ADB, WorldBank, GiZ, UNDP, Oxfam GB, Caritaz Switzerland and SNV Netherlands in advising local and national governments on public finance and good governance.

She’s a certified financial consultant of the Institute of Financial Consultants in Canada and holds a Master’s in Business Administration from a joint Ateneo De Manila University and REGIS University Colorado programme.

Johannes studied BS Civil Engineering at Technological Institute of the Philippines. He worked for almost 27 years as driver and administrative staff in various projects

In the areas of environment, empowerment and good governance supported by  different funding agencies such as UNDP, EU and USAID. His family lived in Australia for two years and has experienced working in a multicultural environment.

Michelle is an accomplished HR professional with over 13 years of private sector human resources experience. Her passion is providing leading edge HR solutions for her clients by helping them build their HR infrastructure through technology, compliance and people.

Michelle is responsible for implementing human resource management strategies for IW which includes recruitment, payroll, benefits and policies.

Michelle holds a BS in Psychology degree from Our Lady of Fatima University.

Julia is a globally acknowledged leader, social innovator and advocate for women’s empowerment. During her nine years as CEO of CARE Australia, Julia drove the case for gender equality and women’s empowerment across complex political and social environments in the 23 countries in which CARE worked.

Julia has held various senior positions across different geographies over her 25 years in international development, including Advisor to the Board at The World Bank and Assistant Director-General at AusAID. Her board memberships have included the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) and CARE International. She is a Westpac AFR 100 Women of Influence Award Winner (Global Category 2103); Member of the General Division of the Order of Australia (awarded in recognition of services to International Development and Women in 2014) and former Telstra ACT Business Woman of the Year (2013).

Julia has a PhD in Materials Science from Imperial College London. She was appointed as CEO of Investing in Women in November 2016.

Jacqui is an international development leader and the Vice President for Strategy and Technical Services of Abt Associate Australia – the managing contractor of Investing in Women. Prior to joining Abt’s executive team, she was with the Australian Department Foreign and Trade as the Head of Australian Aid in Indonesia leading the implementation of Australia’s largest bilateral aid program. Jacqui represented the Australian Aid program in multiple senior roles, including head of the Food Security Branch, Global Crisis Response Coordinator, and Head of the PNG Branch in Canberra. She was also a former Vice-President of the UNICEF Executive Board and has extensive experience representing Australia on different high-level meetings including ASEAN, APEC, and the G20.

She led policy dialogues, coalition building and advocacy efforts at a regional, national and subnational levels in a wide range of technical areas, including social protection, women’s empowerment, health, HIV/Aids, education, climate change, infrastructure, decentralisation, economic governance, and electoral reform and legal reform.

Jacqui holds a B.A. in Economics (Hons) from the University of Queensland, Australia.

Kathy Mulville has 30 years’ experience in establishing and leading networks and coalitions to challenge social injustice and inequalities around the world. Kathy was formally Executive Director of Womens Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR), an organisation of over 1000 members in 83 countries advocating and campaigning to advance the sexual and reproductive rights of Women and Girls. She successfully led WGNRR’s transition from the Netherlands to the Philippines, expanding the organisation through the establishment of offices Tanzania and Mexico.

As CEO of the Telephone Helplines Association Kathy led the development of the first quality standard for telephone services, and established a training and consultancy Unit providing services to National Governments and the private sector, both within the UK and abroad.  Originally from the UK, Kathy studied in London gaining her BA and MA in Social Legal Studies. Kathy is currently a board member of the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition.

James currently acts as the Impact Investing Partnership Director at Investing in Women, an Initiative of the Australian Government. Prior to joining Investing in Women, He held senior roles with USAID, as a Foreign Service Officer (Private Enterprise), where he received a number of awards and distinctions.

Spanning the public and private sectors, James has over 15 years of experience in economics, finance, trade, investment and microfinance – across the Asia Pacific, West Africa, and North America. He honed his analytical skills as a Quantitative Analyst on Wall Street (Moody’s Investors Service, Credit Suisse) before transitioning to international development work. His passion for humanitarian causes has taken him from the Peace Corps (as a mathematics teacher), through the United Nations (internship at UNDP), into the field of microfinance, and many stops in between (non-profit work, impact investing, and development consultancy).

A Lao-American, James holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering; a Master’s degree in Development Planning; and a Ph.D. in Political Economy – all from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He is fluent in English and French and conversant in Thai and Lao.

Jane is an International Human Rights Consultant who has committed her life to gender equality. Until mid-2014 she was the Director of the Gender Equality Bureau of the International Labour Organization, and was a member of the ILO’s Senior Management Team. Since then Jane is on the Advisory Board with the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and edits the International Labour Law Reports. Jane now joins Abt-JTA team‘s Investing in Women as Gender Equality Coordinator.

Jane has over 30 years’ broad experience of engaging in high-level policy advice in international and comparative human rights law and labour relations practice. With the specialization of working in ILO’s tripartite context to get buy-in for implementing international labour law, she has designed and delivered training programmes in fundamental principles and rights at work, gender equality, freedom of association, disability inclusion, human rights and HIV/AIDS. She has represented the ILO in many United Nations and multilateral fora during her career, advocating for international labour standards with the treaty bodies and the Commission for the Status of Women and Human Rights Council. She is the author of many articles and has edited and contributed to many books concerning workers’ rights as human rights.

Prior to joining the ILO, she practised law in Sydney, Australia as a Solicitor, Notary Public and Trade Marks Attorney.

Donna-Jean is the newly appointed Advocacy and Communications Director for Investing in Women. Previously, Donna-Jean advised the OECD Secretary General’s Special Counsellor, Chief of Staff and Sherpa on strengthening global governance, including gender equality, through supporting the G20 and APEC agendas. Formerly, at the Australian Department for the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Donna-Jean headed the International Policy Unit supporting the Prime Ministers’ G20 Sherpa and cross portfolio International Economic Policy Group, as well women’s economic security in the Office for Women, and international policy and outreach during Australia’s G20 Presidency.

Donna-Jean served in Australia’s diplomatic missions in Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea, and holds degrees in commerce and international studies from Melbourne University and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, and a Master of Policy and Politics from Deakin University.

Erika has been in the development sector for almost two decades, mostly working for the Australian Government’s aid program.  She has managed a wide range of sectoral portfolios that includes governance – including land administration, civil society engagement, human resource management, and local infrastructure.  Her last involvement with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was managing the partnership with The Asia Foundation on the Coalitions for Change program, an innovative aid modality that uses Thinking and Working Politically approaches to influence policy reform.  Through the years, she has developed her skills in procurement processes and contract management.

Amel is currently serving as Gender Equality Training and Development Manager for Investing In Women.  She comes with 14 years of operational management experience from the BPO industry having served as Service Delivery Manager for Stream Global Services. She then transitioned to Program Management for another BPO company tasked to strengthen its Recruiting and Acquisition business segment.  Building on this experience, she was acquired thereafter to lead the Project Management segment of Global CEO Alliance (GCEOA), one of the non-profit social impact organization under ADEC Innovations. Amel completed her bachelor’s degree in Behavioural Science at the University of the Philippines.

Marie speaks the language of both finance and development work. She was part of various donor and private sector initiated programs across Southeast Asia and has extensive experience in inclusive finance and local economic development in the Philippines. A blend of leader and team member, Marie is able to undertake assignments such as community organizing, fundraising, and disaster response. Her passion for entrepreneurship led to collaboration with enterprises and capital providers at different stages — from idea generation, incubation and growth.

Marie holds a degree on Development Studies from University of the Philippines and Diploma on Corporate Finance from Ateneo de Manila University. She is completing her Master’s on Women and Development from University of the Philippines.

Jenny Clement is a passionate advocate for women’s empowerment and social justice. She has worked in the development sector for three decades across a range of roles and agencies including non-government organisations, UN agencies, managing contractors, and as a private consultant. Her areas of expertise are design, monitoring, and evaluation; gender equality and women’s empowerment; training and organisational development; and community-led development. She has lived much of her professional life overseas – with her family and their much-loved and well-travelled Labrador – in Vietnam, the Philippines, PNG and Malawi.

She is responsible for the payment processing and all finance related requirements of Investing in Women in the regional level. Her background includes 20 years’ experience in external and internal audit and finance consulting in the country, Cambodia and Vietnam. Immediately prior to joining Investing in Women, she was a small entrepreneur involved in vehicle servicing while at the same time doing Finance work with a social enterprise in the Philippines.

Jonell is a licensed Electronics and Communications Engineer specializing in Information and Communications Technology (ICT). He has 12 years of Engineering and ICT work experience in both private and government sectors. Jonell joined the IW Manila office in September 2016 as one of the first hires.

For the past eight years, Hera has been working in operations and project management in the government and project funded development sectors. This included working in the Office of the Solicitor General, Philippine-Australian Alumni Association (PA3i), MDG-F 1656: Joint-Programme of UNDP-NEDA-Spanish Embassy — Strengthening the Philippines’ Institutional Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change — and in the International Labour Organization. Hera joined Investing in Women in 2017.

Binh has more than 20 years of experience working in international development, education and foreign services. In her over 7 years working for Pact, she held multiple leadership roles, including the Country Manager. She successfully led the overall operations of Pact’s Vietnam country office, including program management, finance management, administration and Human Resource Management. Binh managed several grants: $8 million under the PEPFAR-funded Community REACH on HIV/AIDS program, Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF) programs with portfolio of about $5 million. For 11 years, Binh worked for the Vietnamese Government coordinating INGOs working in Vietnam and leading exchange programs between Vietnam and the United States of America.

Binh holds a Bachelor Degree in English Language from Foreign Language College of the Hanoi National University and a Master’s Degree in Development Management from the Asian Institute of Management in Makati, the Philippines. She has a deep passion in women economic empowerment and believes it will enable women to achieve their full potential to become leaders in the society.