Our Team.
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Dianne Pratt
Community Engagement Officer
Dianne joins us from Belize, a small Caribbean country known for its natural beauty and rich cultural heritage. After dedicating 16 years to a corporate setting, Dianne had an epiphany about her true purpose in life: to engage in meaningful work centred around helping people. Consequently, she resigned and has committed the remainder of her career to working for organizations that make a positive impact.
Throughout her corporate career, Dianne held various roles in Finance, Operations, Marketing, and Advertising. Her expertise includes administrative functions, lean management, and project management. In her leisure time, she finds joy in reading psychology books, cooking, and traveling to different parts of Belize. Dianne holds a Bachelor’s degree in Management.
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Hoey Crain
Chief Technology Officer
Chief Technology Officer
Hoey is responsible for leading technology innovation, including website, communication, and application platforms. He joined the team with a background in managing technology for several American schools as well as for several large commercial businesses. He is committed to using his expertise in technology to improve communication, so that Freedom United can reach more people in the fight against modern slavery. He has a bachelor’s degree in Construction Engineering and Management.
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Joanna Ewart-James
Executive Director and Co-Founder
Executive Director
Joanna is co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of Freedom United as well as its Executive Director, guiding and mobilising our community members to power up the global anti-slavery effort and drive real change. Joanna is also a trustee at Labour Behind the Label Trust – campaigning for workers’ rights in the clothing industry. At the end of 2021 she completed her term as Chair of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative UK, during which she received an innovation award for the newly created Commonwealth 8.7 Network on modern slavery. Joanna was previously with Walk Free and Anti-Slavery International, where she developed and directed their work on business engagement, leading the Cotton Campaign in Europe. Joanna is a contributing author to books including Vulnerability, exploitation and migrants: Insecure work in a globalised economy (Palgrave, 2015), and The SAGE Handbook of Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery. (SAGE, 2018). Her international human rights experience spans the UK diplomatic service, academia, and philanthropy, managing multi-million dollar budgets. Joanna holds a Masters in Understanding and Securing Human Rights from the University of London.
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Krysta Bisnauth
Advocacy Manager
Advocacy Manager
Krysta hails from Guyana where she previously served as the Policy Analyst for over seven years at the High Commission of Canada to Guyana and Suriname. Krysta has a passion for public policy – for the greater good. She considers it her life’s mission to support vulnerable communities and has spent over a decade advocating for the enjoyment of fundamental human rights by all. Her expertise lies in advocacy, project coordination, research and writing, and policy development. She holds a Master of Arts in Human Values and Contemporary Global Ethics from King’s College London and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College. Having lived in Trinidad, Barbados, Guyana, Switzerland, India, the United States, and the United Kingdom, she considers herself a citizen of the world – with a particularly soft spot for Guyana.
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Nicole Alexander
Finance Director
Finance Director & Treasurer
Nicki initially joined the board of Freedom United to pivot her technical skills into an opportunity to directly impact lives globally. In May 2020 she was appointed the Treasurer for Freedom United, developing robust analytics and solidifying processes. Her nearly 20 years of experience as a CPA spans a wide variety of industries including public accounting, eCommerce, construction, and manufacturing. She has managed budgets ranging from $3M to $500M, as well implemented a broad array of technology and ERP applications. She currently serves as Finance Director at NNE whilst volunteering at Freedom United in her free time. Nicki holds a B.A. in Psychology & Criminology from University of Miami and a Masters of Accounting from University of North Carolina – Kenan-Flagler Business School.
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Robert Boneberg
Senior Campaign and Policy Counsel
Senior Campaign and Policy Counsel
Robert has been an advocate for international human rights for many years, with a particular focus on seeking to end modern slavery in all its forms. Bob has served as Chair of the International Human Rights Committee of the NY State Bar Association, International Law and Practice Section. He is the former Board Chair of Free the Slaves. He serves as General Counsel to the NJ Coalition Against Human Trafficking, where he also served as Co-Chair of the Slave-Free Commerce Committee. In addition, Bob served as Board President of the Cornelia de Lange Syndrome Foundation. Bob has a B.A. from S.U.N.Y. Geneseo, a M.S.W. from S.U.N.Y. Buffalo, and a J. D. from New York Law School.
Our Board of directors.
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Dr. Aparna Ahuja, MD
Divisional VP Medical, Clinical and Scientific Affairs ID Rapid Diagnostics, Abbott
Aparna is a globally recognized physician-scientist, medical and clinical affairs executive with nearly three decades of leadership at the intersection of diagnostics, healthcare innovation and public health. She has held senior leadership roles at Abbott, Becton Dickinson, T2 Biosystems, SRL and has been a lifelong champion of diversity, equity, and inclusion – ensuring that science serves every human being, not just the privileged few.
It is precisely that conviction, that every life has equal worth and equal claim to dignity, that Aparna brings to Freedom United’s Board. -
Brandie Dieterle Raddadi
Human Trafficking Expert and Former Human Rights Commissioner
Brandie is an indigenous human rights advocate, cultural anthropology researcher, and human trafficking expert. She is the grant writer for the PNW Council of Water Protectors, cofounder of Native American Emergency Response Oregon, an active member of MMIW SEARCH & HOPE ALLIANCE, and an international advisor at Deep Nepal. Brandie specializes in building and expanding human trafficking awareness, services, and prevention in immigrant, refugee, and indigenous communities globally.She received her Bachelor’s in Anthropology at the University of Arizona, with post graduate work at George Fox University and Portland State University. Brandie was a Commissioner of Human Rights from 2016-2020 and is a consultant for Survivor Alliance.Link to my personal human trafficking story via the See Me Project : https://youtu.be/oOav4UihWOQ -
Elizabeth Salett
Founder, Human Trafficking Search
Elizabeth Salett has been a trail blazer in the field of international counseling and multicultural services for more than 30 years. As a Founder and past President of the National MultiCultural Institute, she focused the organization on increasing understanding and communication among persons of different racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. Her work drew more than 50,000 participants to the Institute through NMCI’s conferences and training programs on the issues of diversity and multiculturalism. As a Founder and past President of the International Counseling Center, she developed a multilingual mental health referral network with clinicians speaking many different languages to serve the Washington, D.C. area. It was one of the first such resources in the country helping to link schools, hospitals, mental health centers, and embassies with mental health practitioners who could speak different languages and understand diverse cultures.
Elizabeth is also a longtime member of the National Association of Social Workers and has spent much of her life working to shine a light on the issues that impact countless lives across the globe. Deeply concerned about the growing issue of human trafficking she was moved to create an extensive data base and resource to raise awareness and help prevent and eliminate modern forms of slavery and sexual exploitation, humantraffickingsearch.org
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Jeffrey Jennings
Corporate Executive and Consultant, Adjunct Instructor
Jeffrey Jennings is a nationally recognized corporate executive and consultant with a proven track record of leading the design and execution of enterprise ESG and sustainability strategies, with a strong focus on responsible sourcing, human rights, and ethical supply chains. His career spans various industries including retail, mining, energy, and information technology. Accolades include being named among the GreenBiz “30 Under 30” for leadership in the sustainability field and participating as an emerging sustainability leader in the Executive Education for Sustainability Leadership program through the Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment.
In the academic sphere, he is an adjunct sustainability instructor at the Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University. Jennings earned both his Master of Science degree in Science and Technology Policy from the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and bachelor’s degree in Sustainability from the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University (ASU). He is also a board member of Stardust Building Supplies and the ASU College of Global Futures Alumni Association.
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Josef Schmidt
Freedom United Co-Founder, Business Advisor & Investor
Business Advisor & Investor
Joe spent 20 years in digital marketing both as an entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded Canvas on Demand in 2003 and took it from a startup to the INC 500 list of fastest-growing companies in America. This earned him a spot as a finalist in the Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. In September of 2010, Joe sold his company to online custom products leader CafePress. While there, he continued his role on the executive leadership team as its Chief Marketing Officer until 2013. It was then that he had his heart broken by the realities of modern slavery and left his director position to do something audacious for humanity–working to end slavery, leading him to found Freedom United. Joe is an international speaker and consultant who has addressed audiences at institutions and industry events globally, including on modern slavery: https://josefschmidt.com/modern-slavery
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Kamil Gerard Ahmed
Chief Operating Officer, Agriculture & FMCG Group
Kamil Gerard Ahmed is a senior operating executive and board director with global experience across Asia, the Middle East, and North America. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer of an agribusiness and FMCG company, where he leads enterprise operations across supply chain, procurement, logistics, and corporate functions, with full P&L responsibility.
He previously held senior leadership roles at a sovereign wealth fund portfolio company in the Middle East, where he led legal, risk, and compliance functions across a large-scale, multi-stakeholder environment and was recognized as General Counsel of the Year. Earlier in his career, he was a partner at an international law firm, advising on complex, multi-jurisdictional financings, M&A, and other corporate transactions.
Kamil brings deep expertise at the intersection of operations, governance, and supply chain risk, with a particular focus on bridging the gap between board-level oversight and execution on the ground. His work focuses on transparency and the governance of complex global production networks, including risks that fall outside traditional board visibility.
He serves on multiple boards and governance bodies, with a focus on audit, risk, and governance oversight. He is a graduate of Columbia Law School and is completing the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
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Kendyl Huber
Board Secretary
Kendyl Huber is a pharmacist with additional degrees in health information technology and finance. Her passion for people led her to a solid career leading teams in talent acquisition for a Fortune 10 company with a focus on talent strategy, pipelining, reporting, and analytics. She was selected as the recipient of the 2023 CVS Health Partnership Pioneer Award, which is also known as the People Person Award and is given to an individual who puts people first and joins forces to achieve a common goal. After the birth of her daughter, she became determined to utilize her skill set for a cause greater than personal advancement. She currently serves as Secretary on Freedom United’s Board of Directors and focuses her time as a pharmacist on patients in need of addiction recovery.
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Lyle Gravatt
Board Chair, and Managing Partner, Michael Best & Friedrich LLP
Managing Partner at Michael Best & Friedrich LLP
Lyle has served as Freedom United’s Chair of the Board of Directors since February 2025 having joined the board in 2019. Lyle is a business and intellectual property attorney focused on partnering with growing companies who seek to turn ideas into scalable businesses. With a background serving non-profits, community organizations and entrepreneurs, his passions lie in effecting social change using an innovative and practical mindset.
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Michael Bramnick
Retired, Executive Management, NRG Energy Inc.
Michael retired from NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NRG) in 2024 as Senior Vice President, Chief of Staff and Chief Audit & Compliance Officer and as a member of the Executive Management Team, having previously served NRG as General Counsel, Chief Administrative Officer, and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer. Prior to joining NRG in 2004, he held senior roles in the legal departments of three other publicly traded companies. In addition to Freedom United, Michael serves on the boards of Penn State-Dickinson Law School, the D&R Greenway Land Trust, the LiveWell Foundation, and Porte Management Agency, Inc. He is a graduate of George Washington University and Penn State-Dickinson Law School.
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Prakash Rajan, MBA, CPA, CMA
Retired, internal audit at Kraton Corporation
Prakash Rajan, CMA, CPA, CA retired as the head of the internal audit function of Kraton Corporation, a $2 billion revenue, multinational specialty chemicals manufacturing company. He worked for more than 25 years in public accounting with a Big Four firm. Prakash also held in senior finance roles in internal controls and risk management in corporations in the pharmaceutical, biotech, semi-conductor equipment manufacturing, information technology, and specialty chemical industries, including an expatriate stint in Spain.
Prakash earned an MBA from Drexel University. He is also a qualified Chartered Accountant and Cost & Works Accountant in India. Prakash serves on Institute of Management Accountants’ Committee on Ethics, and was previously active on two other Committees. Prakash is currently a member of its Governance Standing Board Committee and is chair of its Performance Oversight and Audit Standing Board Committee.
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Joanna Ewart-James
Executive Director and Co-Founder
Executive Director
Joanna is co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of Freedom United as well as its Executive Director, guiding and mobilising our community members to power up the global anti-slavery effort and drive real change. Joanna is also a trustee at Labour Behind the Label Trust – campaigning for workers’ rights in the clothing industry. At the end of 2021 she completed her term as Chair of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative UK, during which she received an innovation award for the newly created Commonwealth 8.7 Network on modern slavery. Joanna was previously with Walk Free and Anti-Slavery International, where she developed and directed their work on business engagement, leading the Cotton Campaign in Europe. Joanna is a contributing author to books including Vulnerability, exploitation and migrants: Insecure work in a globalised economy (Palgrave, 2015), and The SAGE Handbook of Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery. (SAGE, 2018). Her international human rights experience spans the UK diplomatic service, academia, and philanthropy, managing multi-million dollar budgets. Joanna holds a Masters in Understanding and Securing Human Rights from the University of London.
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Rhoan Morgan
CEO and Co-Founder, DemandLab
CEO and Co-Founder – DemandLab
Rhoan is DemandLab’s CEO and Co-Founder. She is an award-winning digital marketing professional with more than 25 years of expertise and a strong track record of generating results for B2B and B2C marketing and sales teams through advanced integrated marketing automation campaigns. She is also the host of the Revenue Rebels podcast and the author of Change Agents: The Radical Role of Today’s CMO. Rhoan devotes time to gaining new insights and perspectives by keeping her spare time filled with relevant books, journals, papers, podcasts, and media to enrich her thinking on marketing, sales, and business growth for her team, DemandLab’s clients, and the marketing community.
Our Advisors.
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Angela Guanzon
Advisor, Advocate, Consultant and Survivor
Advisor, Advocate, Consultant and Survivor
Angela is an advocate, consultant, and survivor of labor trafficking. She serves as an Advisory Council for HEAL Trafficking and she’s also a member of the CAST Survivor Leadership Program where she serves in a leadership role to change systems and pass laws to protect victims. She advocated and worked closely to pass the California law SB 477, a law that regulates the services of foreign labor contractors, and it requires them to register with the Labor Commissioner. Angela provides training to healthcare providers, victim advocates, and law enforcement. She participated in the development of the 40 hour Human Trafficking Investigation course with the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards & Training (POST), and the Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime Professional Development for Human Trafficking Survivors pilot training. Angela is a 2016 Human Trafficking Leadership Academy Fellow of National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center (NHTTAC).
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Brooke Axtell
Advisor, Founder and Director, Survivor Healing + Empowerment
Founder and Director, Survivor Healing + Empowerment
Brooke Axtell is the Founder and Director of Survivor Healing and Empowerment (S.H.E.), a healing community for survivors of rape, abuse and sex trafficking. Through her Survivor Leadership Project, Brooke mentors women and girls to help them overcome human trafficking and become leaders in their community. Her work as a human rights activist led her to speak at The 2015 Grammys, the United Nations and the U.S. Institute for Peace. Her work as a writer, speaker, performing artist and activist has been featured in many media outlets, including the New York Times, LA Times, Rolling Stone, Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal and CNN. Brooke has published several award-winning poetry books and released three CDs of original music to critical acclaim.
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Cecilia Oebanda
Advisor, Founder, Voice of the Free
Founder, Voice of the Free
Cecilia Oebanda-Pacis is the Founder of Voice of the Free (then known as the Visayan Forum Foundation), an organization based in the Philippines, that began with improving the welfare of marginalized migrants. VF is now recognised for its work establishing innovative solutions to combatting modern slavery and human trafficking. VF initiatives include: iFight, a multimillion member youth movement; community watch mechanisms that protect victims and potential victims in transit areas; and holistic shelter-based services through which VF transforms the lives of survivors. Cecilia has helped secure improved international protection measures, including the Domestic Workers Convention, and influenced stronger legislation in the Philippines to offer protection from modern slavery and human trafficking. She is an Anti-Slavery International Awardee (2005), a Trafficking in Persons Hero (2008), recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2008), the World’s Children Prize (2011) and the Child10 Award (2015).
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E. Benjamin Skinner
Advisor, Founder and Principal, Transparentem
Founder and Principal, Transparentem
E. Benjamin Skinner is Founder and Principal of Transparentem. Skinner recently co-founded TAU, a private equity firm. Previously, he was Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism of Brandeis University. He was named one of National Geographic’s “Adventurers of the Year 2008.” His first book, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery (Free Press; 2008), was awarded the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction, a citation from the Overseas Press Club in its book category for 2008, and was a finalist for The Ryszard Kapuscinski International Award for literary reportage in 2011. Also in 2011, the World Economic Forum recognied Skinner as a Young Global Leader. He has also held a fellowship at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, served as Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and worked as Research Associate for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. His 50+ chapters, monographs, and articles have appeared in numerous publications including Bloomberg Businessweek, Time, Newsweek, Travel + Leisure, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, and others. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.
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Elizabeth Tang
Advisor, General Secretary, Int'l Domestic Workers Federation
General Secretary, International Domestic Workers Federation
Elizabeth Tang is the General Secretary of the International Domestic Workers Federation, a membership-based global organization of domestic and household workers, which aims to connect organizations into a global federation through capacity building, exchanging best practice, advocacy and awareness campaigns and leveraging support. Prior to IDWF, Elizabeth was the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions where she worked for 16 years. Elizabeth holds a postgraduate degree in the Sociology of Labour from the University of Warwick in the UK.
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Grace Forrest
Co-Founder and Director of Walk Free
Co-Founder and Director of Walk Free
Grace Forrest is Co-Founder and Director of Walk Free, an international human rights organization focused on the eradication of modern slavery globally. Grace is a communication strategist for the Global Slavery Index and uses photography and storytelling to shine a light on the issue, capturing stories of identity, struggle and resilience. Her recent series “Faces” featured survivors of slavery in India and was exhibited internationally.
Grace sits on the board of the Minderoo Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic groups in Australia. She is also an Ambassador for the Humanitarian Group and the Freedom Fund. Grace holds a Bachelor’s degree in Arts, majoring in Political science, International Relations and Social Justice and is currently completing her Master’s degree in strategic communications at the University of Western Australia.
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Greg Carney
Advisor, Entrepreneur / Film & TV Executive Producer
Entrepreneur / Film & TV Executive Producer
Greg Carney’s upbringing, as the son of missionaries who traveled the globe, helped shape the values that now dictate his personal and business ethics. Carney co-founded Seven Creation Entertainment, a development and production company for broadcast, cable and digital platforms in scripted and unscripted genres for television and film. He has executive produced film content for studios such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), he’s also produced and created TV content for networks like MTV and Netflix. Carney is also Founder of the Freedom United Foundation, which partners with other handpicked non-profits engaging the problems while raising awareness for the missions. The Foundation’s annual event “Art with a Cause” curated by Carney, is one of Hollywood’s most exclusive ‘Art-Pop-Up’ events in Los Angeles featuring a diverse lineup of celebrity artists and hosts, and raises awareness, educates and encourages people to join the fight against modern-day slavery and human trafficking. Carney is an ambassador for Operation Underground Railroad O.U.R. and the Garland County Human Trafficking Task Force.
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Kevin Bales
Advisor, Professor of Contemporary Slavery, University of Nottingham
Professor of Contemporary Slavery, University of Nottingham
Going undercover to meet slaves and slaveholders for his book Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, Kevin Bales exposed how modern slavery penetrates the global economy and flows into the things we buy. Disposable People was named by the Association of British Universities as one of “100 World-Changing Discoveries” and published in twelve other languages. In 2001 he co-founded the NGO Free the Slaves which has liberated thousands of slaves worldwide. Bales is the Professor of Contemporary Slavery at the University of Nottingham; and Lead Author of the WalkFree Global Slavery Index.
Bales has advised the US, British, Irish, Norwegian, and Nepali governments as well as the European Parliament on trafficking and slavery policy. His book Ending Slavery: How We Free Today’s Slaves, won the Grawemeyer Prize (2007). His newest book, Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World was published in January 2016.
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Nancy Esiovwa
Advisor, Survivor and activist
Survivor and activist
Nancy Esivowa is an anti-modern slavery campaigner in the UK. Nancy has contributed her expertise to advise on Freedom United’s campaign calling for better protections for all modern slavery victims in the UK and leads her own campaign on Freedom United’s platform.
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Neil Bagchi
Legal Advisor, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Bagchi Law
Legal Advisor, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Bagchi Law
Neil founded Bagchi Law in 2008 – a law firm that shifts the focus from the bottom line to customer service. Neil was inspired to offer sophisticated, global, and legal expertise as it relates to commercial transactions. He wanted to ensure these services were available to entrepreneurs, early-stage, and mid-sized companies alike. Bagchi Law’s ethos includes giving back to the community by doing pro bono work for entrepreneurs and nonprofits. Neil formed the Bagchi Group to provide other functions that legal counsel may not address, including business strategy and financial matters. As the founder of Bagchi Law and Bagchi Group, Neil has a reputation for delivering responsive, collaborative, and innovative solutions that challenge the default.
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Paula Pingel
Global Operations and Business Development Executive
Global Operations and Business Development Executive
Paula Pingel is a data-driven and results-oriented executive leader with 25+ years of experience in global health and wellness in the for-profit and non-profit sectors focusing on small and large business development, growth and operations, and innovative solutions. Paula has global work experience across multiple platforms and functions in healthcare. She has had leadership roles at Upstream USA, AmerisourceBergen, GE Energy, GE Healthcare, and Eastman Kodak Health Group.
Paula received a Master’s in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Finance, from the University of Rochester Simon School Executive Development Program, a Master of Science in Industrial Hygiene/Toxicology from the University of Rochester Medical and Dentistry School, and a Bachelor’s in Pre-Medicine from St. John Fisher College. She lives in Weddington, North Carolina, with her husband and three children. She enjoys reading, movies, and spending time with family.
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Payzee Mahmod
Campaigner and Child Marriage Survivor
Campaigner and Child Marriage Survivor
Payzee Mahmod is a British Kurd. A survivor of FGM and child marriage, who lost her sister Banaz in a tragic “honour” killing in 2006. As an IKWRO (Iranian and Kurdish Womens Rights Organisation) campaigner, she’s reached international audiences. She has spoken widely on the need for changes to the laws surrounding child marriage and “honour” based abuse in her TEDX talk, across radio, television and newspapers, including The Sunday Times and the BBC. Through speeches at Parliament and meeting with government officials and the Home Office Minister to explain first-hand why change is needed, Payzee campaigns for better education, training and legislation to finally make child marriage a crime in England and wales. She has launched a strongly backed campaign with various NGOs to call on the UK Government to end Child Marriage through a Private Members Bill in the House of Commons scheduled for its second reading in February 2021.
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Sophie Otiende
Advisor, Founder of Azadi Community Kenya
Founder, Azadi Community
Sophie Otiende describes herself as a feminist, teacher, and survivor advocate leader for human trafficking. She has worked with grassroots organizations for the last decade, primarily in program development, management, and fundraising. She is dedicated to women’s empowerment initiatives and growing grassroots organizations to develop programs that influence policy change founding Azadi Kenya Community. She served as the Chief Executive Officer for the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery from 2022 to 2024. Her background is in education, majoring specifically in business. Her advocacy on standards of care and survivor engagement has made her a standout leader in the sector and earned her recognition as the US Trafficking in Persons Report Hero 2020. She currently serves as Vice Chair of the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking.
Our Patrons.
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Amy Pirozzolo
Chair Emeritus, Freedom Patron
Chair Emeritus, Freedom Patron
Throughout her career, Amy has focused on developing an insight-driven culture built on a deep understanding of the audience and the business challenges at hand. Whether launching a new product, transforming a client engagement model, or driving market positioning she has proven these are the ingredients for success. For almost 30 years, she has embraced the rapid pace of change, developing agile, innovative, and high-performing marketing teams that deliver results.
Amy has experience in both consumer and business-to-business marketing at brands across a variety of industries, including LensCrafters, Easy Spirit, and Fidelity Investments. Amy assumed her current role in 2013, as head of marketing for Fidelity Charitable, a nonprofit organization offering a donor-advised fund, and one of the nation’s largest grant-makers. She is passionate about growing philanthropy and inspiring smarter giving.
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Richard Lui
Anchor, MSNBC
Anchor, MSNBC
Richard has accomplished many things in the business, political, and journalism spheres, most recently working for CNN and then transitioning to MSNBC. He is passionate about using media to bring awareness to the issues of human trafficking and slavery. He serves as an ambassador for Not For Sale, an anti-human trafficking group, and as a board advisor for Annie Cannons, which is an NGO that works to teach trafficking survivors to become coders.
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Erika Bustos
Chair Emeritus, Freedom United & Chief Operating Officer for Risk & Finance Technology, Bank of America
Chief Operating Officer for Risk and Finance Technology, Bank of America
Erika served as the Board Chair for Freedom United from 2022 until early 2025. Erika has over 20 years of leadership experience driving organizational change, optimizing costs and improving operations in the technology and financial services industries. She currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Risk and Finance Technology at Bank of America. Prior to this role, she held similar positions managing global operations for technology teams at JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank.
Erika is deeply touched by human suffering and joined the Board of Freedom United to help make a difference. She strongly believes that passionate individuals with a shared vision can influence meaningful change through the power of advocacy.
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Judy Toran Cousin
Legacy Patron, Board member emeritus
Investor and Advisor
Judy Toran Cousin is an executive, board member and intrapreneur with over 25 years of experience in strategy, marketing, business development and management of large corporations, start-ups and growth stage companies including Circle Graphics, Zeneca, Reebok and Procter & Gamble.
Judy joined the Board of Freedom United to continue her commitment to child advocacy. She has served as the Executive Director and Board Chair of Blue Sky Bridge, a Child Advocacy Center and victim assistance agency, was a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) with Voices for Children in Boulder, and was a founding member and Treasurer of the Everychild Foundation in Los Angeles.
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Abid Qureshi
Partner – Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
Partner – Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
Abid Qureshi is the partner in charge of the firm’s New York office. He is a dedicated financial restructuring litigator, giving him comprehensive experience in virtually every issue that arises in the course of a complex restructuring. Abid has litigated the most complex, cutting-edge issues in the highest-profile chapter 11 cases, and he also has extensive experience in cross-border insolvencies and chapter 15 proceedings. Abid is repeatedly called upon to lead restructuring litigation work in high-stakes reorganizations, such as those of PG&E, Travelport, Frontier Communications, Chesapeake Energy, Intelsat, GTT Communications, Avaya and Sears, to name a few. Abid is also extensively involved in pro bono and community initiatives. Abid leads Akin Gump’s long-standing partnership with Lawyers Without Borders. Furthermore, Abid pursues his passion for global justice by serving as President of the United Nations Association of New York, a non-profit organization that educates, inspires, and mobilizes Americans to support the principles and vital work of the United Nations.