Leadership

Rahela Sidiqi is the Director and Founder of Rahela Trust, an Educational Trust for Afghan Women. Rahela Sidiqi was the Senior Advisor of Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission of Afghanistan (IARCSC), where she developed and led various reform policies across the country, such as civil service law, reform procedures and structural adjustment processes.  ​

Rahela Sidiqi has been governance and reform advisor at senior levels of both government and International organisations, where she helped develop strategic policies, implementation plans, administrative reform, capacity building and the grassroot development for UN-Habitat, CIESVE, DFID, USAID, UNHCR and OXFAM, and Civil Service Commissions along with 47 ministerial agencies and several NGOs in the private sector. ​

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Kiomars Barakzai is an experienced public affairs consultant and counselor, and is the founder of GRA. He has previously consulted for the The Institute for State Effectiveness (ISE), Marine Corps, Smart SBC and the Embassy of Afghanistan in London. Kiomars holds a Master’s of Intelligence and International Security from King's College London and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics and International Relations from Kingston University London.

Heledd founded Recruit for Spouses in 2011 when, with a new posting, a young family and a serving partner she recognised a need to provide support and agile working opportunities to a much forgotten pool of talented individuals - military spouses. She has worked tirelessly since.

Mel has been working in the not for profit sector for 15 years, running a small UK based charity building schools across Afghanistan and giving thousands of children there the opportunity to gain an education. She is on the board or an advisor for several other not for profit organisations and has managed and delivered large scale projects and events. A catalyst for change, Mel is passionate about impacting people’s lives to offer them a brighter future.

Sahar Halaimzai is an Afghan-British rights advocate, writer and human rights campaigner. Her experience includes seven years as the Global Head of Campaigns and Communications for the worldwide literary organisation, PEN International where her work focused on bringing the voices of marginalised and silenced individuals and communities to centre stage. In 2018, she received the inaugural London Writers Award and is now working on her first book. She is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council in the US, where her work focuses on human rights and Afghanistan and is the Deputy Director of the Afghanistan Engagement Project supported by the The Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

In 2019 she co-founded and today leads the Afghan campaign, Time4RealPeace, to counteract the exclusion of Afghan women, civil society and minorities from policy discussion and public debate on Afghanistan. The core of the groups mission, which is made of a coalition of activist and rights groups from Afghanistan and the diaspora, is to capacity-build, provide a platform and amplify the voice of Afghans.

Mumtaz Habib is a Senior British Diplomat who is passionate about women’s education and promoting sport as a platform for young people to engage and develop soft skills. He was recently appointed Marylebone Cricket Club Foundation (MCCF) Young ambassador. Mumtaz Habib arrived in the UK as an Afghan refugee winning scholarship to HarrowSchool. He attended Durham University where he played First Class Cricket for Durham University Cricket Club (DUCC) and was the second Afghan to play first class cricket.