Geneva Office staff

Michael French – UN Geneva Representative & Head of Office
With over 25 years experience in the sector, Michael leads both the advocacy work and also the general Save the Children presence in Geneva. He places an emphasis on relating our global level advocacy to field impact and the voice of children in their communities, including in priority areas such as EVERY ONE and Emergency response. His original background was in Civil and Water Engineering, and he worked in the field in Peru and Bolivia before moving towards advocacy. He was involved in grass-roots campaigns around Fair Trade and then founded and directed a university-based advocacy and development education initiative working with Christian Aid. He has worked in Latin America, Asia and Africa, with NGOs, faith communities, and in senior-level dialogue with multilaterals, governments, industry and international institutions such as the World Bank and UN. He speaks English, French, Spanish and Swedish, and holds Masters degrees in Engineering and Theology from Cambridge University and in International Development from Manchester University.

Mike Penrose – Humanitarian Director, Save the Children International
Mike joined Save the Children International in June 2011 after having built and developed a new Humanitarian Department in Save the Children Australia. Mike has extensive experience in the fields of disaster and crisis management from NGOs, the British Government, the United Nations and corporate such as International SOS and Control Risks. He has operated and managed programs in a diverse range of locations across Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe and has worked extensively in both complex conflict-based disasters and natural catastrophes. This has included both practical management and strategic roles leading humanitarian response operations, advising government ministers and supporting commercial enterprise. Mike works closely with the emergencies teams in all Save the Children member organizations, bringing focus and impact to our global humanitarian response. Mike speaks English and French.

Misty Buswell – Senior Advocacy Adviser & Deputy Head of Office
Misty has been focusing on advocacy and policy with Save the Children for over seven years. She leads the Geneva office’s work on Humanitarian advocacy. She spent three years in the New York office advocating on humanitarian issues to the UN Security Council before joining the Geneva office. Prior to working with Save the Children, Misty was the Head of Inventory Control for Title 9 Sports, a women’s athletic apparel company based in northern California, which also has a mission to promote the participation of girls and women in athletics. While working there she coached a girls’ basketball team and completed two sprint distance triathlons. Misty holds a Master’s degree in Global Affairs from Rutgers University and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley. Misty speaks English, French and German.

Roberta Cecchetti – Advocacy Manager, Child Protection Initiative
Roberta has 14 years of advocacy experience, including over 8 with Save the Children at national and international level, and has demonstrated advocacy achievements within the areas of child rights and child protection. She is currently the Advocacy Manager of the Child Protection Initiative within Save the Children, based in Geneva. She is also the President of the NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Children and co-chair of the NGO Advisory Council for the follow-up to the UN Study on Violence against children. She has been working on child protection and child rights advocacy both within Save the Children and with other NGOs, networks and inter-agency groups. She has substantial knowledge of UN Human Rights and Child Rights Machinery and headed SC Geneva’s office for 5 years. Roberta has developed the skills of linking the humanitarian and human/child rights world, creating strategic bridges between them. She has a solid child-rights based approach to advocacy and the ability of bringing the every-day reality of children to the global level.

James Sparkes – Education Cluster Co-Coordinator
James joined Save the Children Geneva in January 2012, where he is responsible for ensuring the global humanitarian system is prepared to coordinate and guide education programming in humanitarian crises, wherever they may occur. James was previously Education Cluster advisor and has substantial cluster field experience. As an Emergency Response Personnel (ERP) with Save the Children UK for three years, he initiated one of the first co-led education clusters in Sri Lanka, and has also been deployed as a cluster coordinator in Zimbabwe and the occupied Palestinian territories. James is a founder member of the Education Cluster Working Group. He has recently worked as a consultant with UNICEF at the Cluster Unit in Geneva and also with IRC and the University of Nairobi developing a new Masters course in education in emergencies. James’s first career was as an IT consultant and Lecturer and he has a Masters degree in Microelectronic systems engineering.

Davinia Ovett Bondi – Advocacy Manager, Child Rights Governance Initiative / Advocacy Advisor, Child Rights
Davinia is an advocate specialised in children’s rights and human rights, with experience in interagency coordination, international advocacy and the use of international human rights accountability mechanisms. She joined Save the Children in May 2010, focusing on child rights advocacy towards the United Nations human rights mechanisms in Geneva. Since January 2012 she has taken on the role of Advocacy Manager of the Child Rights Governance Initiative and Advocacy Advisor on Child Rights for the Geneva Office. Before joining us, she was Secretariat Coordinator of the Interagency Panel on Juvenile Justice (IPJJ) from 2007-2010 and worked in human rights NGOs in Geneva and London. She has an LLB in European Law from Warwick University, an LLM in International Business Law from London School of Economics and a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice (LPC) from the College of Law, Guildford. Davinia speaks English, French and Spanish.

Diana Keller – Humanitarian Capacity Building Programme Manager
Since working with Save the Children, Diana has managed a number of humanitarian capacity building programmes focused on developing sector capacity to operate safely and effectively in emergencies. Diana started working in the sector with MSF as country manager for finance, HR and Logistics. She has lived and worked in Morocco, DRC, Kenya, and Nicaragua and spent significant time in South and Southeast Asia. Diana has a Master in Public Administration and an undergraduate degree in International Economics and International Affairs from Georgetown University. Her key skills include project and people management, operations support, training, facilitation, and coaching. She speaks English, French, and German.

Wendy Wheaton – Knowledge Management Adviser, Education Cluster
Wendy has over 15 years of experience working on education programs in humanitarian crisis settings. In particular, her expertise lies in technically supporting country operations, both at the field and headquarters level, as well as developing new guidance and standards for assessment, monitoring and evaluation for emergency and post disaster settings in the education sector. Wendy’s experience has included working with UNICEF, WFP, INGOs, the INEE, UNDP and the World Bank. Throughout her career, she has held representational roles and been responsible for technical areas that include, but are not limited to needs assessment, program technical support, capacity building and knowledge management in education and child protection programs implemented in humanitarian crises. Specifically, she has worked directly with education programs in Kosovo, Ethiopia, the Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda, DRC, Sierra Leone and South Sudan. Wendy is a current doctoral candidate in international education with a focus on education in emergency and fragile states and she speaks English and French.

Lisa Sabot-Schmid – Office Administrator & Education Cluster Programme Assistant
Lisa has been in her current role with Save the Children since November 2009. She provides administrative, logistical and Human Resources management support to the Advocacy Office and the Education Cluster Unit, she is also responsible for the communication of both entities. Before joining Save the Children, Lisa worked as Project Officer for IOM Gender Unit where she focused on activities preventing Female Genital Mutilations, and as Programme Officer & Chief Administrative Officer for Soroptimist International of Europe. She also conducted a gender analysis of development projects for Terre des Hommes Suisse. She has some humanitarian experience in the field, in India and Romania. Lisa holds a Master of Advanced Studies in Asian studies and a Master’s degree in international relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. She speaks English and French.

Chantal Berger – Project Officer Child Survival and Health
Chantal joined Save the Children in January 2011 and has sinced worked with the organization in several different capacities. She has been engaged in humanitarian / development work since 2005, allowing her to expanded her knowledge of the human rights and humanitarian coordination systems. She has worked for both the Child Protection Working Group (UNICEF) and Education Cluster (UNICEF/Save the Children) at global level in Geneva and in the field in Cote d’Ivoire. She has also worked with UNICEF’s Office of Emergency Programmes as well as an NGO in Cambodia on child protection issues. Chantal also has considerable experience in the global health sector, gained through her work with the Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, from which she also holds a Masters in International Affairs. Throughout her career, she has developed practical experience in project and information management, capacity development, administration and fundraising. She speaks English, French, German and Spanish.

Diarra Diop – Assistant Project Officer
Diarra joined the Geneva advocacy office in May 2011 and has been working on advocacy and mainstreaming of children’s rights in the work of United Nations human rights mechanisms in Geneva. She played an active role in the international campaign around the new Optional Protocol to the CRC and is now taking part in projects on child survival and health, supporting the efforts around the EVERY ONE campaign through a child rights-based perspective. Prior to Save the Children she worked in the International Federation for Human Rights and has experience working in UN and EU agencies in the postal sector and social policy research. She holds a Master’s of Science in Human Rights from the University College Dublin and a Master’s in Politics and International Relations from the Institute of Political Studies, Toulouse. She speaks French, English and German.