Chilande Kuloba-Warria is a development leader with over 20 years of experience strengthening the effectiveness, resilience, and leadership of civil society organizations across Sub-Saharan Africa. She is the Founder and Managing Director of Warande Advisory Centre and Co-Founder of the Local Coalition Accelerator (LCA), both of which champion locally-led, community-driven sustainable solutions. Her work focuses on shifting power dynamics, advancing equitable partnerships, and strengthening multistakeholder collaboration within the humanitarian and development sectors. She has worked extensively across Africa, Europe, and North America, promoting dynamic accountability, effective philanthropy, equitable partnerships and institutional resilience. Her expertise spans organizational development, governance, coalition-building, and advocacy, with a strong emphasis on ethical storytelling and feminist leadership. She brings her cumulative experience to various nonprofit and social enterprise boards and has a special interest in advancing women’s leadership in development.

Geraldine currently serves as the Grants Compliance Manager at AmplifyChange, a UK-based charity dedicated to supporting civil society advocacy for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) across Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. In this role, she provides strategic leadership and oversight of a diverse portfolio of over 300 grants, with a focus on due diligence, financial monitoring, and organisational strengthening of grantee partners. With more than 15 years of experience in audit, compliance, and internal controls, including eight years at Deloitte, Geraldine brings deep expertise in risk management and capacity building. She has held this position for over five years, contributing significantly to the charity’s impact and operational transparency and accountability. Originally from France, Geraldine began her career there before relocating to New York and later to London.

Mario is an influential figure in the civic society sector, having co-founded Civic House, Kubadili, FITS and Donar Online, where he is currently the CEO. Always working in the intersection of digital technology and long-term financial sustainability, over the last 10 years he and his team at Donar Online have helped +9,000 non-profits to raise +US$100 million, from more that 600,000 individuals, becoming the largest fundraising platform in the region. Currently, he also serves as a Board Member and Treasurer at the Civicus Alliance and has been awarded with the Chevening Scholarship to study a MSc on Societal and Environmental Psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Mark Sidel is Doyle-Bascom Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Vice Chair at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL). He is a longtime specialist in philanthropic and civil society regulatory and policy issues and has worked extensively in Asia, particularly in China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, and Hong Kong. Sidel served with the Ford Foundation on the team that established the Foundation’s office and programs in China in the 1980s and 1990s and as Ford’s first program office for law and governance in China; then managed all of Ford’s programs in Vietnam; and led a regional program to help strengthen philanthropy and the voluntary sector based at Ford’s regional office in New Delhi. He consults frequently with foundations, other donors and international NGOs on philanthropic work in China, India and Vietnam, and writes extensively for academic and policy audiences.

Anne-Marie Storch is the Director, Opportunity Grants, leading Open Society Foundations’ work on Opportunities, supporting Rapid Response teams, enabling Network Grants and providing funding to National and Regional Foundations and Offices of Open Society Foundations. Born and raised Berliner, Anne-Marie traveled various off-roads before joining OSF. She lived in Cairo for two years where she worked as an international legal consultant at a law office. A lawyer by profession, she did not find satisfaction in pursuing typical avenues in Germany. She subsequently transitioned to the humanitarian sphere and worked with the German Federal Foreign Office as a policy adviser on humanitarian financing, quality assurance and innovation in the humanitarian sector, overseeing compliance with the German budget law. Prior to joining OSF Berlin, she headed the international programs and institutional partnerships department of Action Against Hunger’s newly established Berlin section, where she supervised the implementation of humanitarian projects in Africa and the Middle East and developed institutional relationships with donors, NGOs, academia and the private sector.