Musimbi Kanyoro is a Kenyan human rights advocate who served as the CEO and President of the Global Fund for Women from 2011 until 2019. Kanyoro also serves with former President of IrelandMary Robinson on several projects, including the Board of Directors of Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative.
Early life
Kanyoro was born in Migori county, Kenya. She attended the Alliance girls school in Kenya and she attributes being in a girls-only space as having a powerful way of building and shaping confidence in her early life. She earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Nairobi and a PhD in linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin. For her second doctorate, Kanyoro studied feminist theology at the San Francisco Theological Seminary. She received three honorary doctorate degrees. She was also a visiting scholar of Hebrew and the Old Testament at Harvard. Born in rural Kenya, Kanyoro moved into suburban Nairobi where she attended high school. Growing up in the 1970s, her focus along with the African Continent was the liberation of South Africa. "She was a student when she joined the movement against apartheid which led her to fight for women and girls".
Career
From 1982 to 1997, Kanyoro served in the Lutheran World Federation as its executive secretary for Women in Church and Society. She also worked as a translation consultant for the United Bible Societies. From 1998 to 2007 Kanyoro became the first woman from the continent of Africa to serve as the YWCA's World Secretary General. Kanyoro was director of the Population and Reproductive Health Program of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation from 2007 to 2011. From 2018 until 2019, she served on an Independent Commission on Sexual Misconduct, Accountability and Culture Change at Oxfam, co-chaired by Zainab Bangura and Katherine Sierra.
Kanyoro served as a Member of the Board of Directors of the African Population and Health Research Centre, and was for seven years the Chair of the Board of ISIS Work. She also serves on the boards of CARE, Intra Health, CHANGE and Legacy Memory Bank, and is a member of the World Health Organization.
