We would like to thank Karen Ingala Smith for her tremendous service to nia as she steps down as CEO after 14 years.
Inheriting a challenging financial situation and in the face of long-term cuts in funding to the women’s sector, Karen has consistently acted to secure nia’s future. This has ensured our incredible, dedicated staff can keep delivering vital specialist services for women and girls subjects to sexual and domestic violence and abuse, including prostitution.
With her unwavering feminism and clarity of vision, she leaves nia confident of how we put our values into practice with and for women today. In particular, we would like to recognise Karen’s leadership in developing nia’s Prioritising Women policy, the first of its kind in our sector.
Owing to her personal work to expose the scale and extent of men’s violence against women and children, particularly founding the Femicide Census, Karen has become a leading public advocate for women’s rights. This comes at some personal risk to herself, and her brave and uncompromising commitment to women will always be inspiration to us all.
We are delighted to welcome Jodie Woodward as our new CEO. Jodie brings extensive expertise and experience in the sector, including at nia, and we look forward to working with her in this new chapter for our organisation.
