US Board Members
Leslee Udwin
Leslee was voted by the New York Times the No.2 Most Impactful Woman of 2015 (second to Hillary Clinton) and has been awarded the prestigious Swedish Anna Lindh Human Rights Prize (previously won by Madeleine Albright). She has also been named Safe’s Global Hero of 2015, Global Thinker by Foreign Policy, and received the GlobalMindED award for Arts and Education. In 2019, Leslee was awarded the UN Women for Peace Activist Award at the United Nations, UN Association USA’s Global Citizen of 2019 and the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award. Leslee is on various high-level think tanks, including the Inter-American Development Bank’s ‘Coalition for 21st Century Skills’; Pope Francis’s Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences: ‘Global Compact for Education’; and the Education Task Force for Mission 4.7, the patrons of which include former Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, and the Director General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay; it is co-chaired by Jeffrey Sachs, Stefania Giannini, Jeffrey Cheah and Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo.
Henriette Nielsen
Henriette is a unique combination of an experienced international businesswoman with strong operative leadership abilities and a gift for innovative thinking and an international lawyer. She is currently EVP of Business Transformation at Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. She has executive responsibility for all human resources, communications and people-related matters, is responsible for building out our ESG program and is a member of Mallinckrodt’s executive committee. Henriette also worked as General Counsel for a number of pharmaceutical companies and start-ups, as well as for eight years as a commercial lawyer for the largest law firm in Denmark. Henriette has worked globally and lived in the US, Scotland, Iceland, Switzerland, and Denmark.
Marie Amerasinghe
Marie has an extensive background handling corporate governance, securities, and general corporate legal matters. She has worked as a senior attorney in the pharmaceutical, online media, non-profit and banking spaces for over 20 years. She is currently the Head of Corporate Governance and Assistant Secretary at Apple Bank for Saving, advising the bank and its Board of Directors and executive management team on governance matters. Marie is passionate about making quality education accessible to all children across the globe.
Maniza Ntekim
Maniza Ntekim leads the Early Childhood Development East and Southern Africa initiative for the Conrad Hilton Foundation. Previously, Ntekim served as regional advisor for UNICEF’s Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, overseeing the early childhood development programmes of 21 UNICEF Country Offices. She has served as a senior programme officer at the Open Society Foundations (OSF), where she led on OSF’s global ECD advocacy programme, supported ECD systems strengthening in Africa, and represented the private sector and private foundations on the Global Partnership for Education’s Country Grants Committee. Maniza has worked as a policy advisor and advocate for the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, Amnesty International UK, and the Confederation of British Industry, the UK’s largest employers’ federation. She has also worked as a consultant for Save the Children UK, UNESCO, Oxford Policy Management and DfID. Maniza holds a master’s degree in international politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Oxford.
Ilian Mihov
Professor Ilian Mihov has been Dean of INSEAD since 2013. He is also the Rausing Chaired Professor of Economic and Business Transformation. His expertise is in macroeconomics, focusing on monetary policy, fiscal policy, and economic growth in the MBA, EMBA, PhD, and many executive education programmes. He has been recognised several times with the Outstanding Teacher Award. In 2018, he received the UN Women (Singapore Chapter) HeForShe Leader Award for his outstanding service and contributions towards gender equality at INSEAD.
Ilian is a board member of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), Stewardship Asia Centre and the Singapore American School (SAS). In addition, he is the Academic Director of the Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society Chair of the Board at the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), a United Nations Global Compact initiative, in 2020.
UK Trustees
Philip Bier
Copenhagen born, Philip moved to London in 1985 and completed his degree in photography in 1988. Philip worked until 2008 as a commercial photographer-his claim to fame is 2 of his portraits are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. In 2005 Philip joined forces with the Danish retail chain Tiger and brought the brand to the UK in a 50/50 JV. At the end of 2016, Philip exited the business having been CEO for 12 years and growing the business to 44 stores, with 700 staff. Since leaving Tiger Philip has become a business consultant, investor and NED/trustee for several charitable organisations.
Stephen Harvey
Stephen is an experienced charity leader and has led teams at Oxfam, Riders For Health and Practical Action before becoming CEO of CHIVA Africa. He has built high performing teams, and delivered wide-ranging strategies which have changed the culture and direction of organisations. Now, as co-founder of advisory group Bateleur Partners, Stephen works with boards, senior teams and founders of social impact organisations to help them work smarter and have more impact.
Aparajita ‘Aps’ Ajit
Aparajita ‘Aps’ Ajit is the Managing Director responsible for Growth at Capita Experience, having formerly acted as MD for the Financial Services market vertical. Prior to that, she was at Genpact, a global transformation company, where she was the Vice President and Global Relationship Partner to clients across Financial Services in Europe. Aps has 25+ years of international experience in the technology, transformation, and managed services sectors, building and leading high-performing international teams.
She has lived and/or worked in Asia (India, Singapore), Europe (London, Paris) and the US. She has an MBA from École des Ponts (ENPC) France and an Executive Master in Change from INSEAD, France. She champions racial diversity and gender balance, is passionate about CSR and has been actively involved in leading social impact programmes both personally and professionally. Her philanthropic commitments range from actively supporting orphanages in India and Vietnam and rehabilitation initiatives in Bhutan to charities focused on breast cancer, mental health and education for children.
David Salisbury
David has extensive experience in complex operational delivery, including adult education and apprenticeships, health and social care, wholesale and distribution supply chains, and compliance with government service contracts worldwide.
Having worked in the charity and commercial sectors, he has a unique insight into understanding common and uncommon blockers to success. He has developed and led high-performing executive and senior high-performing teams to success across multiple sectors.
David is passionate about the third sector and has also been sitting on the Board of a Health and Social Care Charity since 2021.