our people

DARIA CALIGUIRE 

DIRECTOR OF THE SAGE FUND

Daria Caliguire is the founding director of the SAGE Fund. She was responsible for conducting an in-depth mapping study, Advancing Human Rights Accountability for Economic Actors, analyzing challenges and approaches to holding corporations, development finance institutions and non-state actors accountable to human rights obligations. The mapping study laid the groundwork for the design and launch of the SAGE Fund in 2015. Previously, she worked with donors and NGOs as an advisor on economic, social and cultural rights (ESC Rights), human rights and global economy issues. She has experience developing new strategies, programs and organizations to advance human rights, development and economic justice. Beginning in 2001, Daria worked with a global group of human rights NGOs to create the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net), and became the first director of the network. Previously, she was a Project Manager in the Ford Foundation’s Peace and Social Justice Program, developing new initiatives and thematic lines of work across the foundation’s offices. Beginning in 1994, she spent four years in South Africa working with local NGOs on governance, environment and economic development issues in the new post-apartheid democracy. She holds a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a BA from Kalamazoo College, and studied at the University of Cape Town as a Rotary Scholar.

Kris Genovese

Program officer

Kris Genovese joined SAGE Fund in April 2021. In the last several years, Kris was instrumental in developing the Early Warning System, now hosted by the International Accountability Project; the creation of the Coalition for Human Rights in Development; and most recently, the launch of the Community Resource Exchange. Prior to SAGE, Kris worked at the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) based in Amsterdam where she supported communities in accessing the complaints mechanisms associated with development finance institutions. Kris previously worked at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), where she was the director of the People, Land, and Resources Program. Earlier in her career, she served as international counsel at Defenders of Wildlife, where she led a campaign to improve environmental protections in the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement. Kris holds a law degree from New York University School of Law and a B.S. in Environmental Policy and Behavior from the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and the Environment. Kris is based in Haarlem, The Netherlands. 

Advisors

EMILIENNE DE LEóN AULINA

care advisor

Emilienne is Mexican and has over 30 years of experience working as a supporter and consultant of local and international human rights and women’s rights organizations. From 2000-2009 she served as the Executive Director of the Mexican Women’s Fund: Semillas. As the Executive Director of Semillas, Emilienne contributed to a very significant growth of the fundraising and grant making of this organization and to the establishment of its endowment. Emilienne was the Executive Director of Prospera, the International Network of Women’s Funds from 2010 till 2020.  She has been working since May 2021 in the creation of the Global Alliance for Care and she is acting as the Interim Technical Secretary. Emilienne has served in various local and international Boards Women’s Funding Network (2001-2008). She is a member of the Board of the Institute of Leadership Simone de Beauvoir and in FUNDAR, 2 NGO’s in Mexico. Emilienne received the E-News XXI Century Leaders Award in 2005. She is a coach and is also consulting at regional and global level in feminist philanthropy and promoting fair and feminist leadership. 

lesley carson

senior advisor

Lesley Carson directs the International Human Rights Program at Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, where she has worked since 2007. From 2015 to 2024, she served as the founding advisory board chair of SAGE. She specializes in work on disability rights, human rights in the global economy, and transitional justice. With over 20 years of experience in international public service, Lesley has field experience in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, as well as policy and grant making experience in the United States. She has served as Co-Chair of the Human Rights Funders Network, a global philanthropic network of more than 600 member foundations. Prior to Wellspring, she served as founding director of Forefront, an advocacy, training, and protection network of frontline human rights defenders from around the world. She has worked for Amnesty International USA, served on the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee with Senator Patrick Leahy, and taught a course on the role of civil society in human rights at New York University. Lesley has a Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University and a BA from Harvard.

PAOLA CYMENT

care advisor

Paola Cyment brings 15 years of expertise in migration, gender, and human rights. She has been part of the Women in Migration Network (WIMN) since 2015 and joined WIMN’s Secretariat in 2020. Currently, she serves as the network's Advocacy Lead and coordinates the Local/Global Nexus of Intersectional Movement-Building project, which aims to amplify grassroots migrant women's voices in global migration governance spaces. Paola has held various roles in domestic and international organizations, focusing on research, advocacy, institutional development, and project management.

ellen dorsey

advisor

Ellen Dorsey is an activist and partner to movements advancing economic, environmental, racial, and gender justice. From 2008 through early 2024, Ellen served as Executive Director of the Wallace Global Fund, a private foundation recognized for its creative philanthropic strategies and mission-related investing to address climate change, advance human rights, and hold corporations accountable to the public good. Under her leadership, WGF helped seed and grow the global fossil-fuel divestment movement and launch Divest-Invest Philanthropy, a group of 200 foundations committed to deploying their investments to address the climate crisis and accelerate the clean energy transition. For this work, Ellen was awarded the 2016 inaugural Nelson Mandela–Graca Machel Brave Philanthropy Award. Ellen has held a series of academic, philanthropic & non-profit leadership positions, including launching the Human Rights and Environment program at Amnesty International, serving as Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University, and as Senior Program Officer in the Heinz Endowment’s Environment Program. She has been a board member of numerous organizations promoting human rights and environmental change. Ellen holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Pittsburgh.  

ALBERTO VÁSQUEZ ENCALDA

care advisor

Alberto Vasquez Encalda is a Mad/disability activist with nearly 20 years of experience in disability rights and mental health policy. He is the co-director of the Center for Inclusive Policy (CIP) and has been a consultant for several UN agencies. He graduated in Law from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and holds a Master’s degree in Disability Law and Policy from the National University of Ireland, Galway. He also chairs Sociedad y Discapacidad – SODIS, is a founding member of the RedEsfera Latinoamericana por las Culturas Locas, la Diversidad Psicosocial, la Justicia, el Buen Vivir y el Derecho al Delirio, co-chairs the Disability Rights Fund, and is an honorary researcher at the University of Essex.

TRICIA FEENEY

ADVISOR EMERITUS

Patricia Feeney’s career has been spent on the front lines of human rights and humanitarian work in Latin America and Africa. During that time, she has had senior roles and extensive field experience with Amnesty International, where she investigated the enforced disappearance of thousands of opponents of the Argentine military juntas, and with Oxfam, where she studied the impact of development projects funded by international financial institutions such as the World Bank. In 1998, Patricia Feeney founded Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID), a trail-blazing research and advocacy organization in the field of business and human rights. While leading RAID as its executive director until 2017, she travelled extensively in Africa—to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania—and developed RAID’s work, ranging from legal actions against mining companies complicit in war crimes to pressing stock markets for more effective regulation of companies involved in corruption and human rights abuses. Patricia read modern languages at London University, and has worked as a consultant for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and advised the UK Government on corporate governance.

fish ip

care advisor

Fish Ip is the Asia Pacific regional coordinator at the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF). Her roles include advocacy, delegation and representation, coordination, capacity-building and training, as well as case management. Coming from a labor union background, she has extensive experience in transnational organizing, research, and movement building. Fish is also involved in immigration detention issues and understands the implications of the incarceration industrial complex on the most vulnerable. She is also a board member of the Asian Migrant Centre (AMC) and will be bringing her experience navigating complex and diverse ethnic contexts in Asia and beyond, within the global care chain.

Rachel Moussié

CARE ADVISOR

Rachel Moussié is the Director of Programmes at WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing) – a global network aimed at securing the labour and economic rights of workers in informal employment.  she joined WIEGO in 2016 to lead the Child Care Initiative supporting organisations of workers in informal employment to mobilise for quality, affordable, accessible, and publicly financed child care services as a component of labour and social protections. Prior to joining WIEGO, Rachel was the Policy Manager for the Women’s Rights program at ActionAid International where she raised funds and oversaw multi-country research and advocacy projects on addressing women’s unequal responsibility for unpaid care work.  She started her research and policy work on global tax policy reform and public education financing with a feminist economics lens.  Rachel holds a MSc in Development Management from the London School of Economics and a BA from McGill University. She is from and resides in Mauritius.

PROGRAM SPECIALISTS

KATRINA ANDERSON

gender

Katrina Anderson is a human rights lawyer and feminist consultant working to advance gender justice in partnership with social justice movements around the world. She has worked in the U.S., Europe, South Asia and Southeast Asia for a range of local, national and global human rights organizations. Prior to starting her consulting practice in 2017, she was Senior Human Rights Counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights for eight years. Before that she worked as a program officer for UN Women’s Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, and as Legal Officer for the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice in The Hague. She has a B.A. from the University of Virginia, a J.D. from Seattle University School of Law, and an LL.M. in international human rights law from American University’s Washington College of Law. Since 2019 she has worked with SAGE to bring a gender analysis to its grantmaking, first by helping to launch a pilot round of grants to strengthen women’s economic justice, and currently as SAGE’s coordinator for the Natural Resources and Resilient Women Initiative, which maps the dimensions of gendered structural violence in extractivism and amplifies strategies by women environmental defenders around the world.

Marion Cadier

corporate accountability

Marion Cadier is a human rights advocate focusing on corporate accountability and human rights and environmental protection. She was a Program Officer at the SAGE Fund between 2019 and 2021and now supports SAGE’s thematic grantmaking as an advisor. She is currently a consultant for various NGOs and donor organizations. Her past experiences include working with the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR)where she led work on corporate reporting on modern slavery, mandatory human rights due diligence, and G20 advocacy; as a Corporate Legal Accountability Researcher at the Business and Human Rights Resource Center; with the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) focusing on community-driven documentation and international advocacy including around the Treaty on human rights and business; and as a Researcher for Amnesty International’s International Secretariat focusing on forced evictions of Roma communities in France. Marion holds a BA from King’s College London and an MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). She is fluent in Spanish, French and English.

Jessica Dalton

Care and Labor Rights

Jessica Dalton is a human rights and social justice consultant specializing in labor rights and care work. Throughout her career and in her current consulting work, Jessica has collaborated with philanthropic foundations, worker organizations, UN agencies and academia to support initiatives at the intersection of labor, gender, and migration, supporting projects that promote the rights of informal and migrant workers and rights based, community led approaches. Prior to consulting, Jessica spent five years at the Ford Foundation on the Future of Workers team, where she played a key role in developing and advancing a global strategy focused on worker power, social protections, and economic security. She also collaborated with funders and advisors to establish cross-sector partnerships for systemic change, including building funder collaboratives that bridged the gaps between workers’ rights, climate justice, and economic justice systems. Jessica is based in Bangkok, Thailand. She holds a Master's Degree in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University, and a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from the University of Oklahoma.

advisory board

Conniel malek

TRUE COSTs Initiative

Conniel Malek is the Executive Director of True Costs Initiative (TCI), which seeks to increase corporate accountability and strengthen legal systems in the Global South. Her work centers on driving collaboration among communities, funders, and creative leaders in an effort to tip the balance so corporations are held accountable for and internalize the true environmental and human costs of their actions. She is a proud daughter of the Caribbean and is particularly committed to advocating for the rights of those in often overlooked parts of the globe as it pertains to climate justice and technical expertise. In addition, Conniel is a Board Member of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), the Environmental Defender Law Center (EDLC) and EDGE Funders Alliance. Under her leadership, TCI became one of the founding members of Funders Organized for Rights in the Global Economy (FORGE). She was an Equity in Philanthropy Fellow with the Rockwood Leadership Institute and prior to TCI, practiced corporate law for a decade. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and received her BA in Government and International Relations from Cornell University.

greg mayne

oak foundation

Greg Mayne is a Programme Officer for the International Human Rights Programme, Oak Foundation. He leads the Programme’s grant-making on criminal justice reform, with a focus upon issues of due process, pre-trial detention and torture, primarily in Brazil and India. He is also responsible for the Programme's grant-making on business and human rights, specifically corporate accountability and increasing access to justice, as well as its overall grant-making in India. Greg is also Chair of the Advisory Board of Ariadne, the network of European Funders for Social Change and Human Rights. Greg has more than 20 years’ experience in a range of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America on upholding human rights and the rule of law, with an emphasis on ensuring respect for human rights in criminal justice systems. He formerly assisted the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers and also worked at the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association focusing on the capacity-building of bar associations in Southern Africa. Greg holds degrees in Business from Australian Catholic University and Law from University of New South Wales. He also holds an LLM in International Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Greg Regaignon

WELLSPRING PHILANTHROPIC FUND

Greg Regaignon (he/him/his) is Senior Program Officer in International Human Rights at Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, based in New York, with a focus on human rights in the global economy. Greg previously served in leadership of Business & Human Rights Resource Centre for nearly 14 years, from 2003-17, helping to develop it from near its inception into a 60-person organization in 15 countries. He developed and managed its work in Africa and North America; on legal accountability of companies to human rights norms; on natural resource impacts of companies; on the UN Guiding Principles on business and human rights; and on community-led and -centered approaches to corporate accountability. He currently also serves on the board of Association Sherpa in France, and the Steering Committee of Funders Organized for Rights in the Global Economy (FORGE). He holds graduate degrees in law (JD, Columbia U., focus on international human rights) and African Studies and International Economics (MA, Johns Hopkins SAIS).

CONTACT US  for more information on the fund.