Media Contact: Laurel Lundstrom, llundstrom@pathfinder.org
As part of the journey to becoming a more locally led organization, Pathfinder International is moving its leadership closer to its programs. Over the next couple of months, Pathfinder will be recruiting a new President, Pathfinder Africa and President, Pathfinder South Asia and Middle East.
The Presidents will be based in the regions they lead, providing close oversight of country programs, fostering important new partnerships across their regions, and developing locally relevant strategies that will allow Pathfinder to deliver on its mission and advance country-led solutions for sexual and reproductive health and rights. They will work closely with Lois Quam, Pathfinder’s CEO based in the US.
Regionally based Presidents in these most senior executive leadership roles will strengthen Pathfinder, allowing the organization to be more responsive to local needs, fostering South-South collaboration, and offering greater talent mobility and career advancement for teams around the world. Pathfinder’s locally led programs will continue to be united by a common mission and shared values and guided by best-in-class global standards, policies, and procedures.
Recruitment of the Presidents is part of a larger organizational strategy that grants greater local control of operations and strategies. This has included transferring decision-making powers and resources to offices around the world; creating a Global Leadership Council that joins country directors outside of the US with US-based executives; diversifying the Board of Directors; applying a strategic framework that is more completely driven by the needs and priorities of the communities served; and fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Pathfinder has always benefitted from strong country teams and leaders who live within the communities they serve: 91% of staff are currently from the countries where they work. The President roles extend from a long legacy with locally led development programs. With this leadership structure, Pathfinder is breaking new ground and creating a new model that the organization hopes other international NGOs can follow.
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Pathfinder International is driven by the conviction that all people, regardless of where they live, have the right to decide whether and when to have children, to exist free from fear and stigma, and to lead the lives they choose. As a global health organization with locally led, community-driven programs, Pathfinder supports women to make their own reproductive health decisions. Pathfinder works with local partners to advance contraceptive services, comprehensive abortion care, and young people’s sexual and reproductive rights in communities around the world—including those affected by poverty, conflict, climate change, and natural disasters. Taken together, Pathfinder’s programs enable millions of people to choose their own paths forward.
