WomenStrong International Announces Dr. Chisina Kapungu as New Executive Director
PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Annmarie Pisano, [email protected]
January 30, 2025, Washington, DC: WomenStrong International is thrilled to welcome Dr. Chisina Kapungu as their new Executive Director, effective immediately. Dr. Susan M. Blaustein, the global gender equity organization’s founder and longtime leader, will remain as Chair and President of the Board and Strategic Advisory Council.
“Chisina is exactly the right person to lead WomenStrong at this moment,” said Dr. Blaustein. “She has built trust and mutual respect among our community of partner organizations from Cambodia to Rwanda to Guatemala. Her passion for equity and justice, and her determination to advance the rights and empowerment of women and girls worldwide, are unparalleled and unstoppable.”
Dr. Kapungu previously served as WomenStrong’s Director of Learning and Partnerships. She has nearly 20 years of experience as a clinical psychologist, community-based researcher, and program developer with special expertise in adolescent health, sexual and reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS. Prior to joining WomenStrong, she served as Senior Gender and Youth Specialist at the International Center for Research on Women.
“I am deeply honored and excited to step into this role at such a critical time, and to work alongside WomenStrong’s incredible team, Board, Strategic Advisory Council, and grantee partners to advance gender equity,” said Dr. Kapungu. “We will continue to address the challenges ahead in women’s rights, and more broadly, in human rights. I am inspired by WomenStrong’s mission to move power, money, and resources to women-led organizations worldwide.”
WomenStrong’s current partner organizations work in the areas of girls’ education, reproductive health, violence prevention, and economic security, across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. In early 2025 the nonprofit will launch a new cohort of partners focused on climate and environmental justice.
“Our partners have unique expertise creating effective, sustainable solutions to the many issues facing women and girls globally right now. I look forward to working with them in solidarity to make sure their voices are heard, and to make the world that they envision into a reality,” said Dr. Kapungu.
About WomenStrong International: Founded in 2014-15, WomenStrong grew out of The Millennium Cities Initiative, an urban anti-poverty project co-founded and led by Dr. Blaustein at Columbia University. Over the course of that decade-long effort, Dr. Blaustein and her colleagues observed repeatedly that local women leaders knew precisely what their communities needed in order to thrive, but lacked the technical and financial resources to realize their solutions. When that project closed, Dr. Blaustein founded WomenStrong as a 501©3, to elevate the expertise of local women leaders and help bring their solutions to fruition. WomenStrong’s support includes unrestricted funding, robust capacity strengthening, peer learning and sharing in a community of practice, and amplifying partners’ solutions on regional and global platforms. For more information, visit womenstrong.org.
