Who We Are

Ge to know and work with the committed development professionals behind the EmBold Foundation.

Our Board Members

Experienced and visionary leaders providing strategic guidance, transformative change, and shared commitment to EmBold Foundation’s mission.

Mateja Bakker

Co-Founder & Board Chair

Himanshu Dube

Co-Founder & Programme Director Asia-Pacific

Aden Diis

Co-Founder & Treasurer

George Mihael Manea

Co-Founder & Programme Director EMEA

Aneesh Viyajan

Co-Founder & Secretary

Our Experts

A trusted network of professionals bringing deep expertise and high standards of quality.

Ana Rafaela Batista

Peacebuilding, Gender & Education Researcher and Consultant

Franka Egbe Arrahkow

Human Rights & Child Protection Expert

Pinar Mendes

Innovation & Intellectual Property Expert

Grejs Gjergji

Legal Affairs, Governance & Human Rights Expert

Ruchi Khurana

Gender & Social Development Expert

Governance and Transparency

Effective governance sits at the heart of the EmBold Foundation. Our Board – comprised of diverse leaders from Africa, Asia, and Europe – provides strategic oversight, ensures alignment with our mission, and upholds strong governance practices. Clear roles, defined responsibilities, and regular performance reviews underpin our commitment to accountability and organisational integrity.

Our governance and management structures are designed to support effective collaboration with partners, enabling clear decision-making, timely implementation, and reliable delivery across multi-stakeholder initiatives. We place strong emphasis on continuous learning and improvement, regularly reviewing our practices to strengthen performance, adapt to evolving contexts, and enhance long-term effectiveness. Our approach is aligned with internationally recognised standards for nonprofit organisations, including ethical leadership, financial accountability, and results-based management.

Strong governance and effective management allow the EmBold Foundation to focus resources where they matter most, supporting locally driven solutions, scaling what works, and delivering sustainable, measurable impact over time.

Our funding model is grounded in integrity and purpose. EmBold Foundation is financed exclusively through grants, donations, and strategic partnerships. This ensures that all resources are directed solely toward advancing inclusive, climate-resilient, and sustainable development.

All income received by the Foundation is carefully managed and fully reinvested in programmes and initiatives aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This reinvestment approach reinforces our commitment to long-term impact, capacity building, and the empowerment of underrepresented communities.

Mateja Bakker

Co-Founder & Chair

Mateja is a development and sustainability professional with extensive experience in international cooperation, organisational strategy, and stakeholder engagement. For over 15 years, she has worked in the development cooperation sector, coordinating and strengthening collaboration across a global network of consulting organisations and NGOs. With a strong background in advising organisations on sustainability transformation, ESG frameworks, and donor-funded projects, she works at the intersection of impact, governance, and long-term value creation. Mateja holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BA from the University of Birmingham, and has completed an executive sustainability leadership programme at Imperial College Business School.

Himanshu Dube

Co-Founder & Programme Director Asia-Pacific

Himanshu is a management post-graduate with over 30 years of multi-sectoral and multi-country experience as an M&E Specialist, Project Performance Management Specialist, and Institutional Development Specialist. He specialises in end-to-end design and delivery of M&E systems, including evaluation frameworks, M&E strategies and protocols, capacity building, and mixed-method assessments. He has extensive experience in sampling design, data collection tools, stakeholder consultations, data quality assurance, and preparation of high-quality formative and summative evaluation reports. His sectoral experience spans social inclusion, livelihoods, agriculture, climate change, forestry and environment, rural and urban development, and education. Himanshu has worked with major donor agencies including USAID, the World Bank, ADB, UNDP, FAO, KfW, and GIZ across almost all Indian states and union territories, as well as internationally in Afghanistan, Egypt, and Sri Lanka.

Aden Diis

Co-Founder & Treasurer

Aden is a legal and corporate-finance specialist with 13 years’ multi-sector experience across East Africa and Europe. He advises on regulatory and policy matters and specialises in corporate and blended-finance transactions and impact investing, with a focus on transaction structuring, investor engagement and deal documentation. Aden has advised on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) regulation and regional market-integration frameworks and led legal and governance assignments including consortium and partnership frameworks, regulatory reviews and programme quality-assurance. He also oversees treasury and financial governance—managing cash and banking relationships, budgeting, internal controls and donor reporting—leads long-term financial planning, supports audit readiness, and helps shape business development and blended-finance partnerships with DFIs, foundations and local banks. Aden holds an LL.M. in Law and Business and has worked with multilateral and bilateral agencies, national governments, civil-society organisations and private investors across Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Germany and Luxembourg.

George Mihael Manea

Co-Founder & Programme Director EMEA

George Mihael is a development and international cooperation professional committed to advancing the UN SDGs and MCR 2030 agenda. With a strong focus on societal resilience, he combines strategic vision with hands-on experience to design impactful mechanisms, tools, and partnerships that generate measurable results across Europe and beyond. A Certified Professional Business Continuity Practitioner and IVLP Alumnus, he has a proven track record in leading multidisciplinary teams, managing complex projects, and fostering sustainable growth through collaboration with multilateral development banks and donor agencies.

George Mihael has previously worked at the European Commission and within the EU Delegation to Gabon, São Tomé and Príncipe, Equatorial Guinea, and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). He also coordinated civil security programmes and contributed to high-level crisis response efforts, including major global emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Hurricane Dorian, the Beirut port explosion, and humanitarian assistance for Ukrainian refugees.

Academically, George Mihael holds a PhD in Political Science from the West University of Timișoara (Romania) and has further strengthened his expertise through studies at the College of Europe (Poland) and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). His research interests are centered on EU policy, resilience, innovation, and active engagement across Horizon Europe clusters.

Aneesh Vijayan

Co-Founder & Secretary

Aneesh is a management professional with an MBA in Rural Management and over 19 years of experience across social inclusion, livelihoods, climate resilience, rural development, environment, agriculture, forestry, WASH, energy, education, health, and nutrition. He specialises in end-to-end Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E), including indicator development, M&E frameworks and strategies, monitoring, evaluations and impact assessments. Aneesh is adept in sampling design, tool development, stakeholder consultations, data quality assurance, and documentation of formative and summative M&E reports. He has extensively worked with multilateral/ bilateral funding agencies, civil society, and private sector organisations across almost all Indian states and union territories, and internationally in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, The Gambia, and Tanzania. He has also worked with private sector companies working in the Fintech, Edtech, Agtech space and with new age technology companies like Google, UBER, Facebook, Amazon etc. on regulatory and competition related aspects.

Our Team

Who We Are

Our Board Members

Our Experts

Governance and Transparency