ICM Staff

Ann Yates is a New Zealand midwife appointed in 2017 as Lead Midwife Advisor at the International Confederation of Midwives. Her experience spans over 40 years and several countries in clinical and senior leadership roles in high and low income countries and communities. Prior to her current role, Ann worked clinically and as a midwifery lecturer in Papua New Guinea. This 4-year government led maternal, newborn, child health initiative resulted in improved quality and quantity of midwives in PNG. As a former President of the New Zealand College of Midwives, Ann supported PNG midwives to strengthen the Midwives Association to represent midwives at a national level.  Ann is passionate about respectful maternity care and access for all childbearing women to the care of a midwife. 

Charlotte has a bachelor's degree in International trade, a master's degree in NGO Management and 18 years of experience working for both commercial and non-profit organizations. Her professional strengths are in operational support, strategic planning, relationship building and project coordination. Charlotte is fluent in French, English and Spanish, allowing her to engage with and represent the views of global partners and stakeholders. She also reads and speaks intermediate Dutch. Charlotte has worked at ICM for the past six years. In her current role as Membership Coordinator, she contributes to strengthening more than 140 Midwives Associations in more than 120 countries globally, improving their capacity to advocate for the health of mothers and their babies.

Devrol has two decades of experience driving organisational change and implementing effective programmes to improve lives and make communities safe. A social justice advocate who is committed to giving a voice to the voiceless and ensuring that the rights of children, women, and the vulnerable and marginalised are respected. Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, Devrol arrived in the Netherlands in 2017 to take up the position of Chief Operations Officer of a global public safety NGO that became a Dutch Foundation in 2016. Prior to that, Devrol spent ten years in Barbados where he was very involved in community building initiatives including a three-year tenure with the Red Cross Movement. He has held several senior and board-level positions at the local, regional and international levels, and brings a unique skillset to the International Confederation of Midwives. He is married with three daughters and enjoys reading, walking and meditating. His personal vision is to help make the world a safer place for all.  

Faridah is an advocate and communicator for sexual and reproductive health with over 15 years of experience. She has worked with a range of stakeholders across the sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (SRMNCAH) continuum. Faridah has coordinated multi-country campaigns, demonstrated advocacy successes resulting in policy change, and built multi-sectorial partnerships at various levels.

As an advocate for midwives and midwifery, and the key role health workers and their associations play to improve health outcomes for women and newborns, Faridah is privileged to be working on these issues from a supply-side perspective, having initially advocated for SRMNCAH from the demand-side.

Faridah joined ICM in April 2021. Prior to her current role, she worked on advocacy and social accountability issues for SRMNCAH, supporting national alliances in Africa and Asia. She is a member of the Coalition Steering Committee of the Self-care Trailblazers Group.

Faridah holds a Bachelor of Mass Communication degree, a Master of Business Administration and served as a Fellow with the MakSPH-CDC HIV/AIDS Fellowship Programme at the School of Public Health.

Florence is an Australian midwife with a passion for international health development. Since 2004 she has supported midwives in clinical practice, midwifery education, research and policy development in low, middle- and high-income countries. She has lived and worked in South East Asia, Western Pacific, Eastern Mediterranean, Europe and Africa and is aware of the diverse contexts in which midwives work globally. Florence has a bachelor's degree in Nursing, Post-Graduate Diploma in Midwifery, Master's degree in International Public Health and a PhD in Midwifery. Florence has been working as a Midwife Advisor at ICM since 2017, providing technical support to the team and manages projects which aim to strengthen Midwives’ Associations and the midwifery workforce.   

Justine joined ICM in July 2021 as Operational Support Coordinator. She holds a Master's degree in Applied Languages English & German, specialised in European and Regional Development. She has experience in project support, translation and event coordination that she gathered thanks to various roles in the United Kingdom, Germany and France. She is driven by social justice, equity and sustainability and is thrilled to be working for the ICM that strives for equal access to midwifery care around the world.

Martha joined ICM in 2012 as Project Coordinator and now works as a Midwife Advisor. She is currently based in Blantyre, Malawi where she supports coordination of ICM’s 50,000 Happy Birthdays Project and coordinates the Midwife Kit Project. She is a midwife and holds a master’s degree in Reproductive Health and Family Planning Management. Before coming to work with ICM, Martha worked in Malawi, Ethiopia, and Liberia where she managed various maternal and child health programmes, including health systems strengthening.    

As a communications professional, Molly has worked across many marketing sectors for both small and international organisations. She has a diploma in public relations from Red River College and a degree in communications from the University of Winnipeg. In 2019, Molly moved to East Africa to work for the Tanzania Midwives Association. From there, she developed a passion for advocating for midwives and their life-saving work. She is thrilled to be a part of the ICM and to have the opportunity to promote midwives and midwifery on a global scale.

Morgane joined ICM in December 2019 as Administrator. She has a master's degree in Communication and Marketing. She has experience in media, project management and planning. Morgane is French but lived in many countries such as England, China, New Zealand and The Netherlands. Her international development experience has shaped her open-minded personality. She’s also passionate about communication, people, Chinese culture and sustainability. 

Ony Anukem is an advocacy and communications specialist, with a bachelor's degree in Law & Politics and Master of Laws (LLM). She has a track record of developing and implementing successful creative advocacy campaigns for the social impact and non-profit sectors, with a particular focus on maternal, newborn and adolescent health, gender equality, sexual and reproductive health and human rights. Before joining the ICM Head Office team, she worked with ICM as a consultant on a number of advocacy and communications projects. In her current role as Advocacy Manager, Ony oversees ICMs global advocacy strategy and supports Midwives Associations with advocacy capacity-building.

Pascal was appointed to the Controller role at ICM in March 2021. Originally from The Netherlands where she obtained degrees in Cultural Anthropology and Latin America Studies, she moved to Central America in 2010 to work for an international human rights organisation. As part of this role, she started to take up finance and administration responsibilities and realised how much impact could be made via the finance function. In 2015, she moved to London where she’s worked for different organisations, providing her with 360° exposure to financial management in the non-profit sector. She’s driven by a desire to build strong organisations with systems in place that allow for pro-active implementation of strategies. 

Sally is a New Zealander who arrived in the Netherlands in January 2017 to take up the role of Chief Executive at ICM. Before that, she had a 35-year career spanning all aspects of midwifery – practice, education, regulation, professionalism and politics including roles as President of the New Zealand College of Midwives, inaugural Chair of the Midwifery Council of New Zealand, and Head of Midwifery, Professor of Midwifery, and Director of Learning and Teaching at Otago Polytechnic. Sally holds various academic qualifications including a Doctorate in Midwifery and has authored numerous papers and books including co-editing an Australasian Midwifery Textbook (now in its 4th edition). Sally is passionate about midwives and midwifery and believes strong midwives’ associations can incite changes in their countries to ensure strong midwifery professions and midwife-led continuity of care services for women and their families. In 2008 she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to midwifery and women’s health. She is married to Michael Lucas, and the couple have two adult sons, Oscar and Felix.

Sigrid has worked as the executive assistant to the Chief Executive and Governance Officer since October 2019, but joined ICM one year earlier as an administrative assistant. She has a degree in Human Resource Management and has also studied communications, leadership and gender studies. Prior to ICM, she worked in project support and administration at Uppsala University and The Armed Forces in Sweden. Sigrid is Swedish but has enjoyed life in The Netherlands since January 2018.

Before joining the International Confederation of Midwives, Sultan spent over 20 years generating revenue, increasing support bases and driving strategic organisational growth for non-profit organisations in the USA, UK and Europe, within a broad range of industries and causes. 

Sultan brings an in-depth expertise in marketing, resource mobilisation, business development, private sector partnerships, impact investments and venture philanthropy. He holds an advanced degree in International Development and Non-Profit Management from New York University.

Shree is ICM's Head or Programmes and Partnerships, she has been working with ICM since 2018. Shree has over 24 years of experience in resource mobilisation, capacity strengthening. partnership building, programme design and management across public, private and NGO sectors. Shree is an Economist by background and lives in the UK.  You can access Shree's LinkedIn profile here: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/shree-mandke-a6281911

Toochi has been the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Lead at ICM since April 2021. She has over eight years of experience working with UK government-funded projects in sub-Saharan Africa and the UK, developing and leading teams in monitoring, evaluation and learning strategies. Her experience cuts across several thematic areas such as Health, Agriculture, Youth Empowerment and Urban Development. She has a degree in Economics from the American University of Nigeria and the University of Warwick. She is also a Project Management Professional (PMP).  She currently based in the UK.  You can find out more about Toochi on her LinkedIn Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/toochiegbe/