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Roles & Engagements

Galvanizing Africa Consult Current and Recent Assignments

GAC takes on work either single handedly, but more often than not, joins teams of other like-minded individuals and firms to undertake the assignments it picks up. Below are some highlights of somf the transformative assignments that GAC has been part of:
i) GAC supported Comic Relief in 2023 to undertake a learning evaluation of their Organizational Strengthening (OS) work, with the aim to understand if they had been successful in implementing their OS framework with their partners, which they developed two years earlier.
ii) GAC is part of what has come to be called RINGO (Re-imaging the International NGO), a system thinking social lab, committed to support INGOs committed to reflect on their relevance and ways of working in a very changed AID sector around the world. For more information on the RINGO project.
iii) GAC is also part of a team contracted through NIRAS (a Swedish consulting firm) that is supporting the Ford Foundation to undertake a longitudinal evaluation of its BUILD programme, which is meant to explore through engaging the impact if any, the value of flexible funding to partners. For more information on BUILD project.
iv) GAC also offers coaching support to the leadership teams of several Africa-based NGOs who are exploring a systems approach to the work they do. We support these leaders through coaching to re-evaluate how to bring about lasting changes at scale, through a systems approach to the challenges they seek to resolve, away from just solving the problems of a small community or region.
v) Providing coaching to different leaders pursuing their passion in different areas, a process which helps them reflect on issues holding them back, supporting them to explore what moving forward would look like, and then providing them through sessions spread over an agreed period of time, to achieve the goals they have set for themselves.

GAC is thus open to support in diverse processes that bring about transformational changes, and enable leaders and the organizations they lead, to greater and impactful sustained change, which is rooted from the ground.

Janet’s Board Experience, Awards and Recognitions Received 

Janet has been in a number of several boards largely in the non-profit sector, which have given her a first-hand opportunity to appreciate the complexities faced by organizations especially in Africa and beyond.

She is currently:

  •  Member of The Advisory Council of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Crimes, since July 2021- to present.
  • Trustee of I&M Bank Foundation, since 2020 to present.
  • Director, ADAPO, which is an Investment Company that oversees the assets of KCDF since July 2021.

In the past she has also served in other Boards:

  • Chairperson and Director of the Open Society Initiative of East Africa (OSIEA), from 2018, and Chairperson from October 2019 to June 2023.
  • Director and Chairperson, VIWANGO (a Kenyan civil society standards body) from 2017 – 2021.
  • Board member of Trust Africa a Pan-African grant-making foundation based in Senegal, from 2012 – 2020.
  • Board member of Accountable Now, which was a Berlin based organization promoting accountability among international NGOs, from 2013 – 2019.
  • Founding Board Member (and first Co-Chair between 2010 – 2012), of the Africa Philanthropy Network between 2010 – 2017.

Janet is currently a Member of the Women on Boards Network (WOBN) – Kenya, and a Synergos Fellow.

Janet’s contribution to the philanthropic space has been recognized a couple of times, as demonstrated below:

  • In 2015 she was awarded the Exemplary Women’s Leadership Award by The Asian Confederation of Businesses, in Mauritius.
  • In 2017, when KCDF was commemorating 20 years, the Board and Trustees recognized her for Outstanding Leadership at the helm of the foundation for over a decade, which had made the work of the foundation to be visible and acknowledged as evidenced by both the impact various communities were having on the ground in promoting sustainable approaches to development, as well as continued interest by funders to support its work. The foundation at the same time had also made significant strides in diversifying income sources by growing its endowment fund and other types of investments as an approach to ensure the foundation was not depended on external funding only.
  • In 2021, she was nominated – An Invisible Giant by Africa Rising.
  • In 2022 she received the African Philanthropy Lifetime Award given by Africa Philanthropy Network in recognition of her contribution through various networks that continue to grow philanthropy in the continent.