LEADERSHIP

Roya Mahboob

Roya Mahboob is Afghanistan’s first female tech CEO and entrepreneur, making a significant impact beyond the business world. She leverages her tech success to foster education and empowerment for Afghan women and girls and champions their rights. Mahboob founded the Digital Citizen Fund (DCF) to improve Afghan women’s technological and financial literacy. She is also the co-founder of the Afghan Girls Robotics Team and supports their endeavors while promoting robotics education through the Inoura platform. She is launching Zalla, an online platform to elevate the voices of Afghan women and journalists.

Roya Mahboob’s commitment to STEAM education and economic opportunities for women, with a strong emphasis on human rights, has earned her global recognition. She was named among TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in 2013, received the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award in 2014, and received other prestigious accolades, such as the Advancement of Gender Equality through Education Award. She was a Young Leader at the World Economic Forum in 2015, an Asia Game Changer in 2019, and received the Doha Forum Award in 2022. Her contributions have been honored with the Lantos Human Rights Awards, the Presidential Leadership Scholarship, and an honorary Doctorate of Science from McMaster University.

Elizabeth Schaeffer Brown

Elizabeth Brown is a co-founder of Uncommon Union, a technology and multimedia communications firm providing services for clients working in economic development, international justice, and human rights.

Elizabeth has pioneered integrated business and communications models which balance commercial tactics and meaningful community engagement. She has worked extensively in Haiti and the Middle East. She spearheaded the global campaign which was instrumental in the rise of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Elizabeth began her career in advertising, introducing leading international brands, like Sony Ericsson, into the North American market. She co-founded Studioe9 in 2004, which functioned as an independent digital laboratory servicing global advertising agencies including IRIS Nation and TBA Global. At StudioE9, Elizabeth emerged as the driving force behind the creation of some of the first public/private partnerships focused on job creation for women in developing countries.

Kimberley Motley

Kimberley Chongyon Motley is an international human rights and civil rights attorney from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Motley is the first foreign attorney to practice in Afghanistan since 2008 and is considered one of the most effective International Human Rights Attorneys and Defense Attorneys operating in Afghanistan.

While Motley’s international human rights work began in Afghanistan she also represents a wide variety of high profile in other countries as well. Her clients include Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, Matthew Rosenberg New York Times Journalist in his expulsion from Afghanistan, Niloofar Rahmani Afghanistan’s first female pilot, and Cuban artist Danilo Maldonado Machado where Motley was arrested for representing him.