Mara Russell has been working in the fields of food aid and food security for over twenty-five years. She has been with Land O'Lakes International Development for eight years and is currently the Practice Manager for Food... more Security, Livelihoods and Gender Task Force. In this capacity, she provides technical leadership to projects that address vulnerability and food insecurity, and ensures that gender considerations are integrated into all division projects. She facilitated the development of the division’s Gender Policy that requires all projects to conduct gender analyses to identify gender constraints and to train staff to fully understand and effectively address gender constraints. Ms. Russell provided support to CARE’s global food assistance programs from 1986-1991. Then, from 1991-93, she assisted CARE emergency operations in northern Iraq, southern Somalia, and the Former Soviet Union. From 2000 to 2004, Ms. Russell coordinated Food Aid Management (FAM), a technical consortium of organizations conducting food assistance projects around the world. Ms. Russell holds a Bachelor’s Degree from UCLA and a Master’s Degree from Columbia University, both in Anthropology. less

Greta is the Senior Economic and Entrepreneurship Policy Advisor for the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI) focusing on programs, policies, and public-private partnerships that support women’s economic... more inclusion and entrepreneurship. She manages economic policies, programs, and initiatives for South and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Policy Partnership on Women and the Economy. In 2011, she was a core team member in the development of the APEC Women and the Economy Summit in San Francisco and the San Francisco Declaration. Additionally, Greta serves as the Liaison Officer for the Secretary’s International Council on Women’s Business Leadership for the Subcommittee on Access to Capital and is the lead on several initiatives linking women’s entrepreneurship and agriculture. Prior to joining the Office of Global Women’s Issues, Greta worked for USAID/Tanzania on Health and HIV/AIDS issues and for the Inter-American Development Bank’s Multi-lateral Investment Fund. Before receiving her Master in Science and Foreign Service from Georgetown University, with a concentration on International Development, Greta worked as a consultant in the United Arab Emirates where she focused on local work force development, business process improvement, human resources, change management, technology, and communications for public and private sectors entities in the Middle East, Northern Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Greta has a post graduate certificate in entrepreneurship, conducted graduate work in economics at John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin. less

Wenchi Yu is a Senior Advisor of the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues in the U.S. Department of State. The Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues reflects President Obama and Secretary Clinton's priority to... more mainstream women and gender issues in U.S. foreign policy. Ms. Yu supports the Department's effort on women's empowerment through programs and initiatives that ensure women's and girls' equal access to full participation in society. Ms. Yu has led the launch of key initiatives such as the APEC Women and the Economy Summit, the Secretary's International Council on Women's Business Leadership, the US-China Women-LEAD Initiative, the Secretary's Innovation Award for the Empowerment of Women and Girls, and the mWomen Initiative that uses mobile technology for effective development and women's empowerment. Ms. Yu is also leading the White House Equal Futures Partnership initiative for the Department of State and manages the 57th UN Commission on the Status of Women meetings for the United States. Prior to joining the Department of State, Ms. Yu worked on China's human rights in the U.S. Congress and women's human rights issues at Vital Voices Global Partnership. She has testified before the U.S. Congress. Ms. Yu received an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago. less

Lindsey Jones is ACDI/VOCA's Global Gender Advisor. She leads the Gender Integration and Women's Empowerment unit at ACDI/VOCA and is responsible for advising projects on how to do gender equitable development and implement... more women's empowerment initiatives. Lindsey specializes in training and facilitation, gender analysis and assessment, learning and dissemination, and building communities of practice. She has designed and conducted workshops on topics such as operationalizing gender analysis; gender, rights, empowerment and community development; and strategic planning for gender integration. She has led ACDI/VOCA in conducting more than 15 gender analysis studies and assessments. Her eight years of development experience include work in 12 countries: Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, Tajikistan, India, Philippines, East Timor, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Paraguay. She has an M.A. from Georgetown University in Arab Studies with a concentration in women and gender studies. She received her B.A. in international studies from Meredith College in North Carolina. Lindsey is a native English speaker and is also proficient in written and spoken Arabic. less

Sylvia Cabus is the gender advisor for the Bureau of Food Security at USAID and for the Feed the Future Initiative. She worked for Catholic Relief Services in Kenya, Morocco, Mali, and Burkina Faso. In the U.S., Sylvia worked as a... more program officer with Heifer International, Handicap International, and USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. Before joining USAID, Sylvia was a gender analyst with DevTech Systems, an international development consulting firm. She received a BA with Honors in History from U.C. Berkeley and an MA in international relations from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University, and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon. less