Who We Are

BOARD OF TRUSTEES – UNITED STATES

Dana Ward, Board Chair: Dana Ward is an international public health and development expert with 35 years of experience, predominantly in Africa and Asia. In his various roles he has served as Country Representative in five countries with Population Services International and was chair of the board of an international school in West Africa. He currently works for the Vermont Department of Health, in Burlington Vermont. Dana has an MBA in marketing from New York University and holds a Masters of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University. His areas of interest include social marketing and mental health. He is impressed by StrongMinds’ unique, cost-effective, scalable approach that can treat millions of African women without resorting to pharmaceutical solutions

Andrea Agathoklis Murino, Treasurer: Andrea Murino is a partner at Goodwin Procter LLP in Washington, D.C., where she co-chairs the Antitrust and Competition practice.  Her practice focuses on assisting companies pursuing clearance for proposed transactions from the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), state attorneys general, and international competition law enforcement agencies.  Andrea has considerable and diverse legal experience having served as an Attorney-Advisor to the Chairman and Commissioner of the FTC and as counsel to two Assistant Attorney Generals at the DOJ. Andrea’s legal expertise adds substantial value to StrongMinds’ Board of Trustees, reducing our reliance on pro bono legal support and greatly strengthening our internal legal capabilities.  She was drawn to StrongMinds because of the tangible assistance it provides to women in need and the attendant opportunity to improve the lives of their children and families.

Dr. Misha Galperin, Secretary: Misha Galperin is the President of ZANDAFI Philanthropy Advisors. Before starting his philanthropic advisory firm in 2015, Dr. Galperin held several senior nongovernmental organization leadership roles including President and CEO of the Jewish Agency for Israel, the CEO and Executive Vice President of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, DC, the Chief Operating Officer of UJA-Federation of New York and the Executive Director of the Educational Alliance (NY). In addition to this vast experience spanning 20 years, Dr. Galperin is a clinical psychologist with a Ph.D. from New York University in Psychology, serving in a number of roles pertaining to case management, counseling, mental health evaluations, therapist oversight, program development, administration, and fundraising. He has over a decade of experience in private practice.

Rehmah Kasule, Trustee: Rehmah is a senior fellow at the Harvard Advanced Leadership Institute (ALI). Prior to ALI, Rehmah Kasule founded and was the president of Century Entrepreneurship Development Agency, a Ugandan nonprofit that has helped over 38,000 youth and women pursue equality and economic development opportunities. Ms. Kasule is also a member of the Parliament of Buganda Kingdom, and has earned multiple global awards recognizing her social impact leadership. She is currently developing the PLUS+AFRICA Apprenticeship and Leadership Institute, an incubator to prepare young people for jobs, promote enterprise development, create links with the private sector, and work with government to strengthen labor market systems that will transform Africa’s workforce.

James Rude, Trustee: Jim Rude is a Senior Consultant at Graham-Pelton Consulting, specializing in non-profit management, fundraising, non-profit executive leadership, marketing, and volunteer management. Prior to joining Graham-Pelton Consulting, he was the Director of Development and Communications for Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO) and led the fundraising efforts for United Way, increasing new funding sources and donor cultivation. Jim has an MBA in Management from Monmouth University and a BA in Business from Muhlenberg College. He believes strongly in the mission of StrongMinds and feels that mental health is too often a forgotten need.

Carol Squire, Trustee: Carol Squire is the Executive Director of Good Cheer, an innovative nonprofit integrating food bank services, organic farming, recycling of previously owned goods, and school and community outreach, which serves the population of southern Whidbey Island in Puget Sound in Washington State. She has spent the last 10 years as a management consultant, focusing on creating strategies to strengthen organizations and teams. Prior to that, she worked in the field for PSI, including as Country Director in India. Before working for PSI, she founded a professional development organization, ECOFORM, for corporations in Africa and grew the enterprise to 200 employees. The non-profit arm of this organization worked with bilateral and multilateral donors. She joined the StrongMinds board because she feels mental health is a basic human right which is not available to most women in Africa.  As she explains, “Nothing else is possible for an individual or their family without good mental health.”

Annika Sten Pärson, Trustee: Annika is the Founder and CEO of DanFei Holdings, an investment company focusing on seed-stage investments and former Chief Operating Officer at Seleni, a New York City-based organization focused on women’s mental and reproductive health. She has served on the Board of Directors for several organizations including Haldex AB and Vi-skogen, an NGO focused on agro-forestry aid in Eastern Africa.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS – UGANDA

Milly Katana: Chair: Milly (MPH, MA, MBA) is a public health specialist and internationally recognized community leader who has worked in different fields of social development. She was at the forefront of efforts for campaigning for access to HIV treatment in Uganda and throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Her efforts resulted in the creation of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in 2002. Milly was a founding member of the Board of the Global Fund representing communities affected by the diseases in the developing world, where she co-chaired the Monitoring and Audit committee. Milly co-founded the Pan-African AIDS Treatment Movement (PATAM). She was the founding Country Director for The International AIDS Alliance in Uganda, where she pioneered the decentralization of AIDS care in more than 30 districts in Uganda. She worked as a Regional Representative for Eastern and Western Africa for Bausch and Lomb, a Pharmaceutical Company that specialized in producing eye care products. She currently is a co-chair of the Community Working Group for the Microbicide Trials Network, a consortium of global researchers and community members looking at new HIV prevention interventions, a UNAIDS Consultant for Eastern and Southern Africa. She has provided technical support to several organizations working in different areas of public health including those working with key affected populations like commercial sex workers and people who have sex with people of the same gender identity. She has worked with programs that support children like Tearfund working in Zambia and Retrack International working in Uganda. Her special interests include focusing on access to care issues for marginalized and vulnerable individuals and communities. She has written on several public health-related issues including capacity building and stigma and discrimination as they affect access and uptake of existing health care services.

Mariam Lutakome: Mariam is an ambitious finance professional with a strong track record of delivering top performance over the past 15 years. She is a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and possesses a wide spectrum of experience in assessing and building organizational capacity of local non-government organizations (NGOs) at the community, national and international levels in the areas of grants and contracts management, finance, administration, human resource management across the health, education, agriculture and human rights sectors. Ms. Lutakome is familiar with the rules and regulations of all major donors supporting Uganda, e.g., USG, EU, SIDA, CIDA, and DFID. Mariam is a freelance finance management consultant. Previously Mariam worked as Finance Management Specialist on the JSI/TA-NPI project, to ensure that all twelve CDC and HRSA grantees developed sound financial, administration, and sub-partner management systems to effectively manage resources, adopt best practices and comply with their national regulations as well as USG funding requirements. Under this project she worked in east and southern Africa, in particular Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa conducting training, providing one-on-one technical support, and developing customized TA to meet the needs and capacity of each partner. Prior to this position, she was the Finance Unit Manager on the EU-Civil Society Capacity Building Program which promoted an inclusive and empowered society in Uganda through strengthening capacity of local communities and civil society organizations (CSOs)for social accountability, as well as strengthening “downward accountability” performance of local governments. She has also worked as Grants Accountant for the Human Rights Fund that is the present-day Independent Development Fund.

Roscoe Kasujja (bio coming soon)

Timothy Laku (bio coming soon)

Paul Mwirigi Muriungi: Paul is the Founder and Managing Director of Capital One Group, a marketing communications firm with operations in Uganda and Kenya. With twelve years of marketing communications experience, Paul has been a brand custodian for major local, regional and international brands in East Africa. During this time, he has contributed to various game-changing communication campaigns in various industries in the NGO sector, telecoms, manufacturing, retail, leisure, hospitality, beverages, professional services, banking, insurance and semi-autonomous Government bodies. Paul holds a Diploma in Public Relations from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) UK and a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) UK. He also holds a B.A. in Social Sciences from Makerere University and a Certificate in Oil & Gas Studies from Makerere University Business School. Paul’s ultimate mission in life is to position brands for market growth and help these brands communicate better to their key stakeholders.

Hafsa Sentongo (bio coming soon)

ADVISORY BOARD

Harbert Bernard is an entrepreneur and a management consultant at Delaware Consulting in Atlanta, Georgia. Harbert served in the Peace Corps as an English Teacher and Community Development Volunteer in Gabon in West Africa.  He is a graduate of Emory Universty’s Goizueta Business School.

Kathleen F. Clougherty, LCSW, is a senior Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) trainer and supervisor at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, Instructor in Clinical Psychiatric Social Work (In Psychiatry) at Columbia University, an instructor at the Columbia University School of Social Work, and a private practitioner specializing in the treatment of depression in adolescents and adults. She is the co-author, along with Gregory Henrichsen, of Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Older Adults.

Dr. Jordan Kassalow is the Founder and CEO of VisionSpring. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit improves the economic condition of families in the developing world by broadening the availability of reading glasses and other health products and services. Dr. Kassalow has more than 20 years of experience providing eye-care to the world’s poor.

Molly Knight-Raskin is a journalist, producer, writer and special foreign correspondent for PBS NewsHour.  She was awarded the 2007 Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism and the 2010 American Psychoanalytic Association’s Award for Excellence in Journalism.  Molly is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Peter Read is a Managing Director at Vitruvian; a venture partner at BlueYard and LocalGlobe; an advisor to Entrepreneur First, Future Positive Capital, and StrongMinds; and a Trustee of Frazzled Cafe, Doteveryone, and the Oxford Mindfulness Centre. In addition, he is an angel investor/advisor in over 100 tech startups. Peter received his Bachelor of Arts in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from the University of Oxford and his Master in Business Administration from INSEAD.

Dr. Lena Verdeli is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director, Global Mental Health Lab, both at Columbia University. She is also an adjunct Assistant Professor at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, where she teaches psychotherapy to psychiatric residents, postdoctoral fellows and psychology interns.

Dr. Myrna Weissman is Professor of Epidemiology and Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons and the School of Public Health at Columbia University and Chief of the Department of Clinical-Genetic Epidemiology at New York State Psychiatric institute. Dr. Weissman is one of the founders of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), one of only a few empirically validated (EV) and manualized forms of therapy designed for the treatment of depression.

MENTAL HEALTH ADVISORY PANEL

Rebecca Benghiat has worked in leadership positions in the philanthropic and nonprofits sectors for over 20 years.  She is currently Chief of Staff at RGI Home, where she is leading a portfolio of global corporate philanthropy initiatives.

Dr. Marni Chanoff is a psychiatrist in Boston. She trained at and is affiliated with McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She practices Integrative Psychiatry combining psychopharmacology and psychotherapy with Ayurveda and other eastern modalities.

Dr. Misha Galperin has a Ph.D. in Psychology and served in a number of roles pertaining to case management, counseling, mental health evaluations, therapist oversight, program development, administration and fundraising, in addition to being in private practice for ten years.

Amy Herskovitz, LCSW-R is Managing Director of Fortitude Fund, a new vehicle for Bill and Karen Ackman’s philanthropic giving.

Dr. DeShaunta Johnson is a clinical psychologist practicing in New York and New Jersey. She holds a Ph.D. from City University of New York.  She is currently serving as StongMind’s Mental Health Advisor and serves as chair of the Mental Health Advisory Panel.

Elizabeth Kibuka-Musoke is a clinical psychologist and has worked for the past eleven years in private practice in Uganda, specializing in both children and adults.

Tina Ntulo is the Mental Health Advisor for StrongMinds Uganda.  She holds a Bachelor of Psychology from the United States International University in Africa and a Master of Public Health from the International Health Sciences University.  Previously, she was the Chief Executive Officer at BasicNeeds Uganda.

Diane Powell is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Co-Founder of the Robertson Powell Foundation. She has lived and worked in North America, Asia and Europe, providing psychotherapy in various cultural contexts for clients struggling with mental health issues.

Dr. Joan Sarnat holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and is certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology.  She is a licensed psychologist in practice in Berkeley, California.

Dr. Lena Verdeli is Columbia University Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology & Director, Global Mental Health Lab.