Nicolette Naylor

Nicolette Naylor is a global strategic leader and experienced executive with over two decades of experience leading strategies at the intersection of justice, feminism and philanthropy.

She has spent over fifteen years working within one of the largest global philanthropies, the Ford Foundation, where she led the Ford Foundation's Southern Africa office and International Program on Gender, Racial & Ethnic Justice. She has managed diverse teams across New York, India, West Africa, Southern Africa and Latin America. Her work has focused on gender justice, gender-based violence and increasing resources for movements in the global South. She is committed to strengthening the feminist funding ecosystem for BIPOC women, girls and gender expansive individuals.

She has philanthropic and legal experience in the fields of human rights and governance at the Pan African and global level working in the field of HIV/AIDS discrimination; sexual & reproductive justice; GBV; land rights and extractivism; economic justice; gender and racial justice and the role of local philanthropy in Africa.

From her humble beginnings growing up under apartheid in a township in South Africa, to litigating on behalf of survivors of violence in the highest Courts of South Africa and before the African Commission on Human & Peoples' Rights and the European Court of Human Rights she has sought to speak truth to power in her role as a feminist lawyer and activist. She spent the early part of her career developing feminist jurisprudence whilst at the Women’s Legal Centre in Cape Town and also during her time at Interights in London. She has been involved in test case litigation that has fundamentally shifted the law in relation to child sexual abuse; sexual harassment and sexual offences in South Africa and before the African Commission on Human & Peoples’ Rights and the European Court of Human Rights.

Nicolette is a highly skilled, purpose-driven leader who believes in the power of collective solidarity and building bridges between and amongst stakeholders who do not ordinarily work together, such as, civil society, feminists, social movements, artists, governments, foundations, the private sector and multilateral institutions.

Nicolette has published extensively in the social justice, philanthropy, legal and gender fields. She also serves on a number of global Boards and Advisory Committees. She has a B.Proc. LLB degree from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa and an LLM in International Human Rights from University College London in the United Kingdom.

Learn more at nicolettenaylor.com.