Our Team

Meet the Team

KAREN EXEL

Karen Stone Exel is an accomplished global development strategist with over 20 years of experience advancing equity, rights, and resilience in some of the world’s most complex environments. Her work spans Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Western Balkans, and the Middle East, with a focus on gender equality, disability rights, youth empowerment, governance, and humanitarian response.

Karen’s leadership has shaped transformative programs across government and civil society. In Kenya, she spearheaded USAID’s efforts on disability inclusion, securing $12 million to support organisations led by persons with disabilities and forging the agency’s first formal partnership with Kenya’s National Council for Persons with Disabilities. She also led a nationwide assessment that reshaped government and donor strategies on disability rights and institutionalised trainings on accessibility, allyship, and inclusive leadership.

As USAID’s Division Chief for Humanitarian Assistance in Southern Africa, Karen directed a $300 million emergency portfolio, delivering critical relief across Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, and Zambia. She also played key roles in humanitarian responses in Venezuela and Haiti, scaling operations and addressing urgent needs in public health, education, and gender-based violence prevention.

In her role as Director of USAID’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Office, Karen managed a $40 million annual portfolio and led flagship girls’ education programs in Malawi and Tanzania under the Let Girls Learn initiative. She developed the office’s first five-year strategy, expanded global gender training, and coordinated directly with the White House, National Security Council, and U.S. Department of State to align inter-agency action on gender equality.

Karen also led the Family Care First initiative in Cambodia, a groundbreaking effort to strengthen child protection systems and shift national care practices from institutionalisation to family-based support. In the West Bank and Gaza, she drove education reform and youth development through public-private partnerships that expanded internet access, digital learning, and decentralised school governance.

Earlier in her career, she led post-conflict development in Bosnia and Herzegovina, managing a $26 million portfolio and launching national anti-trafficking and youth stability programs—mobilising an additional $6 million in funding to scale impact.

Across all her roles, Karen is known for building diverse, high-performing teams and driving long-term, inclusive change. Her ability to connect grassroots needs with high-level strategy has made her a trusted leader in complex development settings.

She holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs from George Washington University and a Bachelor’s in Third World Studies from the University of California, San Diego.

DINAH KIHARA

Deputy Executive Director

Dinah Kihara is a distinguished development professional with over 25 years of directing high-impact initiatives at USAID/Kenya and East Africa. In her role at USAID, she was responsible for the design, development, and implementation of donor-funded programs across the region, ensuring that initiatives delivered sustainable solutions to locally identified challenges. She served as the lead liaison officer for USAID’s support to regional organisations such as the East African Community (EAC), strengthening regional collaboration and advancing inclusive development priorities.

Dinah’s leadership at USAID included guiding the mission’s portfolio on locally led development, funded by USAID/Washington, with a focus on reaching marginalised communities and ensuring their voices shaped program outcomes. Her work emphasised equity, sustainability, and impact, making funding decisions that prioritised transformative change and long-term resilience.

Now serving as Deputy Executive Director at Inclusion Unfolding-Africa, Dinah brings her extensive expertise in program strategy, policy influence, and organisational leadership to advance disability rights, women’s empowerment, and gender-based violence prevention. She supports the Executive Director in shaping organizational priorities, amplifying the voices of marginalized groups, and building strategic partnerships that strengthen the organization’s impact across Africa.

Dinah holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration (Entrepreneurship) and a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting & Finance. Her career reflects a deep commitment to inclusive development, operational excellence, and advancing justice and equity for all.

FELESIA MUYIA - ODADA

Senior Governance Specialist

Felesia Muyia-Odada is an accomplished Senior Democracy and Governance Leader with over 17 years of experience in designing, managing, and scaling high-impact programs across East Africa. Her expertise lies in driving social justice, local governance strengthening, inclusion, and gender equality.

Felesia’s career is distinguished by her ability to secure and manage large-scale, complex development initiatives. Before joining the Inclusion Unfolding-Africa Team, she worked at USAID Kenya and East Africa where she directed and managed over $50 million in awards. At USAID, she led the design and implementation of USAID’s $12.7 million flagship localisation initiative that mobilised over 11,000 local organisations to established Local Development Organisations (LDOs) in 11 counties. Complementing this, she has a proven track record of successfully securing over $10 million in funding from major donors like USAID, FCDO, and DANIDA to support democracy and governance programs. Furthermore, she served as the Mission Technical Lead on Locally-Led Development at USAID, spearheading a mission-wide localisation strategy that strengthened civil society and county government collaboration and represented USAID as a thought leader in global forums. In driving systems change, Felesia has successfully integrated gender equality and Persons with Disability (PWD) empowerment into program designs, and has provided capacity building for over 100 grassroots organisations in advocacy, policy influence, and organisational development.

Prior to founding Oron Consulting, she held senior roles at USAID and Act Change Transform (Act!), where she translated strategic goals into tangible results. She has a deep understanding of multi-sector partnerships, having represented both organisations in high-level forums with donor groups, government agencies like the Council of Governors, and global bodies such as the UN General Assembly and the Community of Democracies.

Felesia holds a Master of Arts in Sociology and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work from the University of Nairobi, and has further training in Negotiation and Leadership from Harvard Law School, a blend of academic rigor and practical expertise she now leverages to make Oron Consulting an indispensable partner for systemic, lasting change.

JANE KARANJA

Financial Management Specialist

Jane Karanja is a Strategic Finance Leader, PMP, CSIA(K), and CPA(K) with 13+ years of experience in financial governance, budgeting, reporting, and compliance within complex, donor-funded, and multi-entity organizations.

She holds a Master's and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and has managed multi-million-dollar projects, strengthened financial systems and controls, led ERP implementations, and consistently delivered clean audit outcomes. She also brings board-level oversight experience from Utafiti Sacco Ltd.

Jane has worked with organisations including CHAI, USAID, ILRI, Wyss Academy for Nature, and part-time supports Inclusion Unfolding-Africa. Outside of work, Jane enjoys running and poetry.

KYRA TEKLU

Fundraising and Outreach Ambassador

Kyra is someone who truly believes sports should be a space where everyone feels seen, valued, and given equal opportunity to thrive.

As a Volunteer Fundraising & Outreach Ambassador with Inclusion Unfolding-Africa in the Netherlands, Kyra supports efforts to grow awareness and partnerships for locally led initiatives in Kenya, work that deeply resonates with her as a passion project rooted in equity and inclusion.

In her own time, she coaches young girls in football in Amsterdam and works on a podcast highlighting equality and inclusion in women’s football, continuing her commitment to creating more inclusive pathways for the next generation.

MARGARET NYAMBURA

Program and Partnerships Coordinator

Margaret Nyambura is the Program and Partnerships Coordinator supporting Inclusion Unfolding-Africa’s mission to advance disability rights and women’s empowerment across East Africa. She plays a strategic role in grant coordination, partnership engagement, compliance readiness, and strengthening internal systems to position the organisation for effective resource mobilisation and sustainable impact.

With over 10 years of experience in executive support, administration, and program coordination. Margaret has supported complex regional initiatives and multi-stakeholder collaborations involving governments, civil society, development partners, and private sector actors. She has supported executive leadership, coordinated high-level partner engagements, strengthened reporting and compliance systems, enhanced performance reporting processes, and ensured seamless executive and operational support.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Development Studies and a Diploma in Project Planning and Management.

NATASHA MURIGU

Communications Specialist

Natasha Murigu is a communications specialist and advisor supporting Inclusion Unfolding-Africa's mission to advance disability rights and women's empowerment across East Africa. Her work focuses on strategic communications, partners and community-centred storytelling, and ensuring the voices of persons with disabilities and women are at the forefront of how the organisation communicates its impact.

With over 14 years of experience in strategic communications and capacity building, Natasha has helped mission-driven organisations across Kenya and globally mobilise over $5 million in funding. Her communications work has supported forging groundbreaking philanthropic partnerships from international and local donors, including a $4 million unrestricted philanthropic gift from MacKenzie Scott. She is known for equipping grassroots organisations with communications tools that enable them to advocate for themselves, document their impact, and engage funders on their own terms. Her work has been recognised with two Epic Africa Excellence Awards and the TechSoup Global Leadership Award for crisis innovation.

At Inclusion Unfolding-Africa, Natasha is developing the organisation's communications strategy, crafting authentic messaging, managing digital presence, and supporting partnerships and fundraising efforts to help achieve the organisation's goal of advancing equity for 1 million persons with disabilities and women by 2030.

She holds a Bachelor's degree in Journalism with a minor in Environmental Studies from United States International University-Africa in Nairobi, Kenya.

VANESSA DEGBOE

Fundraising and Outreach Ambassador

Vanessa Degboe was born in France and has roots in Togo and Benin. She holds a Master's degree in Anthropology, a foundation that shaped her enduring interest in people, culture, and social dynamics. While her academic path began in anthropology, life guided her into a different professional direction, allowing her to build a diverse and international career.

Vanessa spent over eight years in the French cosmetics industry before transitioning into the sportswear sector. For the past decade, she has been based at Nike in the Netherlands, where she brings a people-centred mindset, strong operational skills, and a passion for collaboration to her work.

Alongside her role at Nike, Vanessa serves as Operations Pillar Lead for an Employee Resource Group, where she helps bring the group's initiatives to life by maintaining the health of the network, coordinating internal and external events, and continuously refining processes and ways of working. She partners with external organisations such as Patta Academy and Omek, and collaborates closely with Nike's internal DEI team. Her goal is to contribute to a more diverse workplace and to help create fair access and opportunities for all.

Most recently, Vanessa joined Inclusion Unfolding–Africa, where she leads outreach and fundraising efforts in the Netherlands.

Sheila Karani-Monda

Program Design & Partnerships Specialist

Sheila Karani-Monda is a distinguished international development leader with over 25 years of experience advancing democratic governance, human rights, rule of law, and social impact across Sub-Saharan Africa. Her work is grounded in a strong commitment to inclusion, protecting the rights of historically marginalized communities and ensuring that systems, policies, and institutions are responsive to their needs and voices -particularly women, youth, and persons with disabilities. She has led high-impact strategies and programs that strengthen civic participation, promote accountability, advance human rights, expand equitable access to essential services, and foster social cohesion.

Throughout her career, including her role as Senior Governance Advisor at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Kenya and East Africa, Sheila designed and implemented programs that bridged policy and practice while centering local ownership and inclusive civic engagement. She has built partnerships and collaborated with stakeholders across government, civil society, academia, development partners, and the private sector to advance reforms in democratic governance, decentralization, constitutional processes, and the protection of vulnerable populations. Sheila brings expertise in integrating gender equality and disability inclusion into program design, addressing gender-based violence, and expanding opportunities for women and girls. She also strengthens research, assessment, and MEAL systems to support evidence-based, adaptive programming - driven by a clear vision of societies where inclusion, equity, and collective opportunity lead to lasting, transformative change.

Bamusiime Mary Alice

Regional Manager, East Africa

Alice Bamusiime is a seasoned gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) specialist with over 20 years of experience in gender mainstreaming, gender audits, and gender-transformative programming across diverse sectors, including education, natural resources, agriculture, renewable energy, and policy development.

She brings deep expertise in conducting baseline studies and needs assessments, developing gender mainstreaming strategies, and designing and delivering training modules on women's empowerment.

Alice currently serves as a research and training associate with several academic and non-academic institutions. Her recent engagements include serving as a Gender Audit Expert with the Rwanda Men's Resource Centre and as a GESI Expert on the LIFT project, implemented by Mott MacDonald–Cambridge Education, where she led a comprehensive study across six districts examining the needs and challenges of out-of-school children, with a particular focus on children with disabilities.

Her consulting portfolio includes short-term assignments with the World Bank on climate change, education, and socio-economic livelihoods projects, as well as work with the USAID mission office as a GESI consultant contributing to its gender corporate strategy. Earlier in her career, Alice spent five years as Gender and Cooperatives Advisor on the USAID/Land O'Lakes Rwanda Dairy Competitiveness Program II, where she also championed environmental compliance.

Alice holds a Master's degree in Development, Gender, and Rural Development and a Bachelor's degree in Social Sciences, Gender, and Development, both from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. She is fluent in English, Kinyarwanda, and Kiswahili, with a working knowledge of French.

Margaret Rono Bii

Monitoring, Evaluation & Research Specialist

Margaret Bii is a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Research Specialist with over 15 years of experience designing, implementing, and managing large-scale public health programs and research initiatives in Kenya. She brings deep expertise in PEPFAR-funded programs, applied public health research, and multi-partner project coordination, with a strong focus on data-driven decision-making and program performance improvement.

Throughout her career, Margaret has led multi-partner program evaluations, coordinated high-impact studies, and delivered strategic insights through KPI analysis, data quality assessments, and cost-efficiency evaluations. Her work spans proposal development, stakeholder engagement, and capacity building, including facilitating trainings, supporting institutional collaborations, and contributing to peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations.

Margaret is passionate about strengthening systems through evidence-based approaches that advance inclusive, high-impact programs across diverse sectors. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Community Development from Daystar University.

MITCHELL OGUNA

Co-Founder and Board Member

Mitchell Nyakoa Oguna is a seasoned public policy strategist and inclusion advocate with over 15 years of experience advancing equity, rights, and access for marginalized populations across Kenya and East Africa. As the Co-Founder of Inclusion Unfolding Africa, she is committed to reshaping systems, strengthening community voice, and embedding inclusive values across policy, service delivery, and development practice.

Her leadership has influenced national legislation, digital infrastructure, and community programming. Mitchell played a pivotal role in Kenya’s Disability Act 2025 and led the National Disability Landscape Analysis, positioning disability inclusion as a national development priority. She has developed policy tools such as the National Guidelines for Schools to Procure Sanitation Services and supported the design of Kenya’s WASH and Menstrual Hygiene policies.

Mitchell has advised USAID/Kenya and East Africa (KEA) in mainstreaming inclusive development across the Country Development Cooperation Strategy and East Africa Regional Development Cooperation Strategy, supporting alignment with gender, youth, and disability priorities. She has also supported performance planning, strategic communications, and co-creation events across Kenya's 47 counties.

As a champion of inclusive digital transformation, she led a national study on the impact of emerging technologies and digital public infrastructure on service access for persons with disabilities and senior citizens, and provided technical guidance to enhance the accessibility of the Kenyan government's National Council for Persons with Disabilities Career Portal.

Mitchell has built coalitions across government, civil society, and private sector actors, representing organisations such as Synergy, Penda Health, and regional networks like AMCOW and ESAWAS. She has driven systems-level advocacy, enabling inclusive sanitation strategies in Kenya, Rwanda, and the DRC, and advancing urban equity through tools like Shit Flow Diagrams.

At the community level, she has mobilised residents of informal settlements to advocate for housing rights, access to services, and anti-corruption reforms, implementing programs on HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence, and governance in Kenya's informal settlements such as Kibera, Mathare, and Kisumu. Her work has consistently bridged grassroots empowerment with policy innovation.

Mitchell holds a Master of Research and Public Policy from Maseno University and a Bachelor of Science in Family and Consumer Science from Kenyatta University. She continues to lead with the vision of “inclusion that transforms lives—one community, one person at a time.”