Our Team
Our Board of Directors
Guided by leaders in medicine, programs, law, and finance, our diverse Board of Directors ensures strong governance and strategic direction for our mission.
Ms. Jacqueline Ingutiah
Board Chair
Ms. Jacqueline Ingutiah
Board Chair
Ms. Jacqueline Ingutiah Is a Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a renown human rights enthusiast. She has successfully designed and implemented programmes supported by Government of Kenya, United Nations agencies and development agencies including USAID, DFID, SIDA and DANIDA aimed at promoting and protecting human rights in Kenya and other parts of Africa.
Ms. Ingutiah is widely trained and experienced in Human Rights Based Approach in programming and is currently the Regional Coordinator at the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR). At KNCHR, she undertakes investigations, strategic litigation and ADR to protect human rights; and engages the judiciary, parliament and government ministries, independent offices, departments and agencies in promotion of human rights.
She is passionate and experienced in supporting initiatives that promote rights with and for young people.
Jacqueline holds an MA from Coventry University and LLB from Moi University. She is a member of Law Society of Kenya, ICJ-Kenya, FIDA Kenya and Chartered Institute of Arbitrators
Prof. Elizabeth Bukusi
Board Member
Prof. Elizabeth Bukusi
Board Member
Professor Elizabeth Anne Bukusi (ObGyn), MPH, PhD, PGD (Research Ethics), Masters in Bioethics, Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, earned her general medical degree and Masters in Obstetrics and Gynecology degree from the University of Nairobi. She then earned a
certificate in international health, MPH and a PhD from the University of Washington’s Department of Epidemiology; a post graduate diploma in Research Ethics from the University of Cape Town and a Masters in Bioethics from Centre for Bioethics and Culture at the Sind Institute of Urology and Transplantation in Karachi. She is a certified IRB Professional. She is a Senior Principal Clinical Research Scientist at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), a Research Professor at the University of Washington (Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Global health), an honorary lecturer at Aga Khan University in Nairobi And Maseno University (Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology) and Volunteer Clinical faculty – Professor at the University of California San Francisco (Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences). Prof. Bukusi, in collaboration with Dr. Craig Cohen at UCSF, established the KEMRI Research Care and Training Program in 1995.
In addition to her substantial experience in conducting socio-behavioral and biomedical research and providing HIV care, mentoring and training health care and research personnel to enhance local and international capacity, she has a strong interest in research and clinical ethics and the development of systems and structures for regulation of research at KEMRI and in the country. She is the chairperson of the National Bioethics Society of Kenya, (BSK), a multidisciplinary, non-political, non-discriminatory, and not-for-profit organization with a primary objective to promoting
high ethical standards in bio-medical research, medicine and health care in Kenya. She is a board member of AVAC, Chairs the WHO HRP Alliance (capacity building for RH research), and is a trustee for the HIV Trust, and an Elected Fellow ofthe African Academy of Sciences (FAAS).
Mr. Mathews Onyango
Director / Board Secretary
Mr. Mathews Onyango
Director / Board Secretary
Rose Adem
Board Member
Rose Adem
Board Member
Rose Adem is a Funds management and Finance operations specialist. She is Certified Public Accountant and currently pursuing PHD in finance at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. Rose holds an MBA in strategic management and an undergraduate degree in Finance and Accounting and has over 15 years’ experience managing finance and administrative portfolios in the development sector. Rose is passionate about institutional strengthening and development and more specifically on the localization agenda of organizations for better implementation of delivery mechanisms and to achieve value for money.
Rose serves as the Director Finance and Operations at Lwala Community Alliance since 2018, Previously she was the CFO and led the Finance and Grants portfolio at the International Community of Women Living with HIV global secretariate in Nairobi (ICW- Global). Prior to that She worked as the Finance and Administration Manager at The HJF Medical Research International, Kisumu program.
Mr Edwin Makori
Board Member
Mr Edwin Makori
Board Member
CPA Edwin Makori is a passionate, high performing, leader with broad managerial experience in Leading teams, Strategy, Finance, Business Development, Innovation, and IT. A solid business executive with ability to lead and motivate ordinary people to achieve excellence. Inspires individuals and teams to deliver world class performance in their organizations.
He has over the time built the capability to collaborate with and inspire teams to deliver extra-ordinary results, transform organizations and impact society positively with scale to grow balance sheet (statement of financial position) and P&L (statement of income) positions with an entrepreneurial spirit.
He is the team lead of the 5th largest professional accountancy organization and serves as the Chief Executive Officer at the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK). He oversees the technical issues, accounting and auditing standards, ethical standards regulation, compliance, audit quality monitoring (assurance), registration, public policy and governance and research. CPA Makori has been a Lecturer in the School of Business at Egerton University and Nairobi University, Kenya. At the University, he focused on Strategy, Finance and accounting work. He has previously practiced as an auditor in a renowned audit firm and also served as a Finance Director at various government (public sector) entities and private sector and held senior management positions in many other organizations.
CPA Makori has an undergraduate degree in Commerce (Finance and Accounting) and an MBA in Finance from the University of Nairobi. He is also a certified ERP Consultant, CISA, a member of Institute of Directors (IoD), ISACA and ILM (Institute of Leadership
Management).
CPA Makori served in the board of Kenya Accountants and Secretaries National Examination Board (kasneb) and serves regionally in the Interim Oversight Board (IOB) for African Professionalization Initiative-Africa, Africa Integrated Reporting Council (AIRC) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) where he serves as a technical advisor. He has also served on several other boards Internationally and locally including the International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB).
DR. SYLVESTER ODANGA
Board Member
DR. SYLVESTER ODANGA
Board Member
Rev. Dr. Odanga is the Senior Pastor of Shalom Logos Church, Kisumu and a lecturer
in the University of Kabianga, Kericho. He is a spiritual leader, a professional counsellor
and educational psychologist and a life skills expert.
Rev. Dr. Odanga was a high school teacher from 1991 to 2019. He has been a lecturer at the Univeristy of Kabianga since 2019 to date. He was an assistant pastor from 2003 to 2014. He then helped in founding Shalom Logos Church where he has been serving from 2016 to date. He has also been a professional counsellor on personal, marital, adolescent, spiritual, educational and professional issues since 2005. Rev. Dr. Odanga joined the Board of Directors of IRDO in 2019 as a Board member.
In addition, Rev. Dr. Odanga has published academic articles in peer-reviewed journals.
He holds PhD in Educational Psychology (Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology), Master of Education in Guidance and Counselling (MasenoUniversity), and a Trainer of Trainers in Counselling (Kenya Association of Professional Counsellors). He is currently pursuing his Masters of Arts in Christian Ministry. He is also a motivational speaker whose passion is in public education, mentoring and life coaching young people.
Dr. Zachary Kwena
Board Member
Dr. Zachary Kwena
Board Member
Dr. Zachary Kwena is a Lead Social Scientist at Kenya Medical Research Institute’s Center for Microbiology Research since 2002. He is also the Science Coordinator of the Lake Victoria Consortium for Health Research (LVCHR), aiming to improve access to health care and
other social services through research and implementation of resultant interventions.
Dr. Kwena received his training in Medical Geography at Kenyatta University, where he graduated with a Ph.D. in 2014. This was followed by a 2-year post-doctoral training fellowship from 2015-2016 and several other fellowships, including the University of California Global Health Institute (GloCal) and African Research Excellence Fund (AREF). He has published numerous scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals (see a complete list of publications )
Dr. Kwena has extensive experience in the design and management of formative qualitative studies and intervention trials. He has collaborated with many local and international investigators on various intervention projects that target HIV prevention in high-risk groups in fishing communities. His research interest is in HIV program evaluations and HIV prevention with a bias towards understanding sexual risks and networks among heterosexual couples and adolescent girls, and young women. He was the winner of the 2018 International AIDS Society Women and Girls Cash Award for his outstanding work on barriers to retention in HIV care among adolescent girls and young women.
Cynthia Achieng
Board Member
Cynthia Achieng
Board Member
Cynthia Achieng is a counselor and a mentor on Sexual Health related rights issues and a girl advocate In Charge of Siaya County and Kisumu County at NIGEE organization.
She is a social worker with about three years experience. Cynthia joined NIGEE as a mentor in 2017 who was trained to a counselor, she also participated in PREP and PEP study while working with NIGEE.
Cynthia has also worked with Family Search International as a field agent to a position of field coordinator. She has also worked with IRDO as a trained facilitator on entrepreneurship under DREAMS project.
In addition, she has worked with KEMRI in doing TB research in Siaya County. Cynthia holds a Diploma in Social work and a certificate in HTS and was a scholar at TKNP Kisumu Kenya.
Management Commitee
Guided by leaders in medicine, programs, law, and finance, our diverse Board of Directors ensures strong governance and strategic direction for our mission.
Mathews Onyango
Redempter Odeny
Redempter is the Programs Manager of Impact Research and Development Organization. She has over 10 years’ experience in project management and M&E in HIV, TB and malaria programs. Originally an educationist, she taught Mathematics in high school for 8 years before shifting focus and pursuing a Masters degree in MPH (Epidemiology and Population Health). Upon completion of her Masters degree, she landed a career in Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Learning at IRDO. For close to 10 years, she has been involved in capacity building, designing, implementing and supervising the program’s M&E activities; ensuring that lessons learned are integrated into program implementation to continuously improve quality of interventions and outcomes. She is very passionate about digital transformation and data and how the effective transformation of data can lead to effective decision-making, near real-time precision and complete insight using data analytics. Redempter is currently pursuing a PhD in Health Informatics at Maseno University.
Rael Owira
Winnie Odhiambo
Winnie is an accomplished dedicated Certified Public Accountant with over ten years’ hands on experience in grants management, financial reporting, proposal writing, strategic planning, budget management, auditing, payroll management and inventory tracking. She has worked in both for-profit and not-profit sectors, gathering immense experience needed to deliver of her current position. She holds and Business Management Degree and is a member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK).