This month, ChildFund Alliance says goodbye to one of our longest serving CEOs, Michael Kiely. Mick joined ChildFund Ireland 14 years ago, and has been a strong advocate for the Alliance. We will miss him greatly!

Mick recently spoke with some of the Alliance Secretariat staff and shared reflections on his years of international service, including his time at ChildFund Ireland, and involvement with ChildFund Alliance.

Anna Svärd joined Barnfonden as Secretary General in May 2017.

Anna has broad experience from the business world. She has worked in business development, sales, marketing and branding in various positions in different companies. For five years before joining Barnfonden, she was responsible for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability at Trygg-Hansa, one of the largest insurance companies in Scandinavia. In this position, she was responsible for developing, implementing and communicating strategy. In 2016, she and her team received the prestigious “Communicator of the Year” award.

Anna has always focused on helping children and human rights in her previous work and worked closely with many NGOs, including volunteering work for the last seven years.

Florence Provendier started working as Chief Executive Officer of Un Enfant par la Main, France, in January 2012. Prior to Un Enfant par la Main, she has had extensive experience in management positions in international services companies, where she took care on one hand of business development as well as institutional communication and on the other hand of Social Responsibility.

Florence has a MBA in Management from Cornell/ESSEC University in Paris.

Her slogan for Un Enfant par la Main: "Make the organization grow, to enable a maximum of deprived children to build a better future."

Fred is devoted to helping the most vulnerable children, their families and their communities overcome adversity and achieve their dreams.

The global humanitarian’s reputation for improving results in complex situations has led him on diverse journeys. Fred has gone from leading a multi-ethnic church in Canada to facilitating conflict mitigation in Kenya, to overseeing the transition from emergency relief to development programming in Pakistan. Most recently, he grew an established sponsorship program into a juggernaut for development and humanitarian grant growth in Bangladesh.

The dynamic, supportive leader comes to Children Believe from global senior roles at World Vision and World Renew. Prior to that, he founded and pastored the multi-ethnic Friendship Community Church in Toronto.

Fred encourages individuals and organizations to flourish by tapping into his expertise in organizational and program assessments, operations management, strategic planning as well as coaching and group facilitation, among other skill sets.

Fred holds a masters in business from Toronto’s Schulich School of Business at York University; a masters in divinity from Michigan’s Calvin Theological Seminary; and a bachelor of arts from Michigan’s Calvin College.

Isam Ghanim returned to ChildFund as its ninth president and CEO in March 2022, most recently having served for three years as president of Search for Common Ground, a $60 million organization focused on transforming how the world deals with conflict. His career in international development began at CARE Sudan, just after he completed his master's degree at Sudan's University of Khartoum. In his 21 years with CARE, Ghanim held various roles in Sudan, Somalia, India and at the regional level before eventually becoming its vice president for Global Program Resources and Learning. He held that position from 2003 until 2007, when he joined ChildFund as vice president for the Africa region. Isam would later assume responsibility for the Asia and Americas regions as VP of Global Operations, and then, with his promotion to Executive Vice President for Programs in 2011, for program development, the role he held until his departure to SFCG in 2018.

Isam Ghanim returned to ChildFund as its ninth president and CEO in March 2022, most recently having served for three years as president of Search for Common Ground, a $60 million organization focused on transforming how the world deals with conflict. His career in international development began at CARE Sudan, just after he completed his master's degree at Sudan's University of Khartoum. In his 21 years with CARE, Ghanim held various roles in Sudan, Somalia, India and at the regional level before eventually becoming its vice president for Global Program Resources and Learning. He held that position from 2003 until 2007, when he joined ChildFund as vice president for the Africa region. Isam would later assume responsibility for the Asia and Americas regions as VP of Global Operations, and then, with his promotion to Executive Vice President for Programs in 2011, for program development, the role he held until his departure to SFCG in 2018.

Joelle Sicamois has a background in international development, with a particular expertise in education and children.

In 2011, she joined Enfants sans Frontières as administrative and financial manager and then general delegate until June 2017, when the association merged with Un Enfant par la Main. She is currently co-leading the organization.

Joelle has a degree in international economics from the University of Paris Dauphine, with a specialization in development.

Joern studied theology in Göttingen and Heidelberg. He started his professional career working in various roles for the International Society for Human Rights in Frankfurt (1981 - 1990). He continued as a fundraiser for World Vision in Germany (1991-1995) and then as director of social marketing with the Christliches Jugenddorfwerk Deutschlands (1996 - 2000). He joined ChildFund Deutschland in 2001 as managing director and was appointed CEO of the organization in 2007. He served as a director of the ChildFund Alliance from its foundation in 2001 until 2008, and was a member of the Alliance´s Executive Committee from 2005 to 2007.

Joern is married to Susanne; the couple has six children, including an adopted son from Afghanistan.

Katsuhiko Takeda became Executive Director of ChildFund Japan in May 2017.

After working in commercial banking, Katsuhiko obtained an M.A. in Politics and International Relations in the United Kingdom.

For more than two decades he has been involved in humanitarian and developmental field work, including with AAR (Association for Aid and Relief, Japan) from 1996 to 2003 as director and in senior positions based in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Balkan region and Japan; World Vision from 2004 to 2006 as project manager based in Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Jordan (for Iraq); CARE International Japan from 2007 to 2016 as program director and national director (CEO).

He served as international board director of the Alliance of CARE International from 2010 to 2016, and sat on the finance and governance committees.

Margaret Sheehan is CEO of ChildFund Australia, an independent international development organisation that works to reduce poverty for children in developing communities.               

Previous to this role, Margaret spent four years as ChildFund Australia’s International Program Director, overseeing the development and implementation of child-focused development  programs in the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to joining ChildFund, Margaret held senior international roles with UNICEF and the World Health Organisation.

With a Masters in Public Health, Margaret has over two decades of experience in managing international development programs and personnel in field office. 

Martina Hibell has worked with international, child focused development, within different organizations since 2017, whereof eight years at Barnfonden. She is motivated by the possibility to support change in contexts where change appears impossible, and to find the key factors that need to be interlinked in order for this to happen.

As a Program Director she has been the head of organizational changes for a stronger and better development work. Martina believes in partnerships and has strengthened Barnfonden’s relations both with country offices and donors.

Her focus now will be to continue finding new and innovative collaborations with different kinds of actors in order to jointly contribute to a safer world for children.