Smruti Patel is a humanitarian and development professional with expertise in facilitating conversations on safeguarding, accountability, localisation and collaborative partnerships. She is passionate about accountability to affected populations and promoting local leadership and is interested in using new more strategic and holistic approaches to ensure more of local voices are heard and influence policy decisions. She is a qualified coach using Human Potential methodology to accompany local leaders, teams and organisations to reflect on deeper attitudes and behaviours to lead to being at full potential. In 2014, she founded the Global Mentoring Initiative (GMI) based in Geneva. It works in collaboration with partners to promote holistic and equitable partnership approaches. She is one of the founder member of the International Convenor Committee of Alliance for Empowering Partnership (A4EP). She joined the IARAN fellowship because she would like to work with others to lead courageous conversations to bring change in the aid architecture to ensure equitable partnerships and sector fit for the future.
Miguel Leroy
Miguel is local development and public affairs expert. Member of the staff of the Senate in France for many years, he is himself today a local elected representative from regional institutions (Mayor and President of a community of communes). Miguel worked as director of development in the waste, recycling and energy sector. Particularly interested to the involvement of local actors in the humanitarian aid decision making, Miguel has decided to join the IARAN because he is passionate about collaborative design, he believes in the strength of collective intelligence and because of his strong desire to contribute to the raise of a new aid paradigm.
Marie-Rose Romain Murphy
Marie-Rose is the Founder of ESPWA, Inc. (Economic Stimulus Projects for Work and Action-acronym means hope in Haitian Creole), a transnational organization and a Haitian leadership network. She’s the Co-Founder of the Haiti Community Foundation (Haiti’s first community foundation). She’s also the Founder and President of RMC, a management and strategy consulting firm. A multilingual professional with US and international experience, she has over 25 years of experience and a strong track record in community development, humanitarian projects and initiatives, philanthropy, marketing, executive leadership, social entrepreneurship and consulting. Her core interest is the creation of viable and sustainable pathways of development for low-income individuals, marginalized communities and developing countries. Over the course of her career, Marie-Rose has worked as a project manager, an executive director, a deputy director and a consultant for local, regional, national and international organizations.
Sigrid Kühlke
Sigrid is currently a Thematic Expert for Forced Displacement, Migration and Social Protection for the African Continent at the European Commission, European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operation office. She has worked in the humanitarian sector for more than 17 years for different INGOs based in Germany and abroad. Lately she has helped develop a social protection system that can respect humanitarian and protection principles in conflict zones.
Mariana Merelo Lobo
Mariana is a humanitarian and development practitioner with specific expertise in collaborative leadership development, action learning, coaching and facilitation of groups and individuals. An accredited Associate of the Partnership Brokers association, Mariana combines over 15 years’ experience working with international humanitarian organisations in a variety of settings. She currently lives in the Netherlands, with her husband and two children.
Mariana joined the IARAN fellowship because of a passion for humanitarian futures and a belief that the humanitarian collaborative practice needs to be ‘re-sourced’ beyond its existing paradigm. Mariana is also very keen to explore how her own experience and expertise can be put into action, together with other complementary sets of talents and passions.
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Eilidh Kennedy
Eilidh is a strategic foresight professional, with an expertise in future studies. Former Chief Analyst at Save the Children International and at Action Against Hunger, she is Associate Research Fellow at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS). She has published numerous papers and, teaches courses on analysis, scenario development and the humanitarian system.
Having led a pool of regional analysts in Save the Children International and Action Against Hunger, Eilidh founded and directs the Interagency Research and Analysis Network consultancy branch. Today, Eilidh leads a number of foresight studies for the IARAN, and when she is not busy with research projects and strategy support, Eilidh designs ad hoc training courses for foresighters and analysts.
You can see some of Eilidh’s ideas and work on the ALNAP 2021 Annual Meeting, which explored the challenges posed by uncertainty and the ways in which humanitarians can better equip themselves to respond within this context.
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