025. Gabriela (Oxfam), Julia (ActionAid), and Sofia (CARE): a celebration of Latina women's leadership

Summary

How often does it happen that three of the biggest INGOs are all headed by three Latina women. Not often -- and definitely a reason to celebrate.

Sofia, Julia and Gabriela discuss their perspectives on leadership
When it comes to crafting the new employee experience after COVID, what changes in that experience stand out?

To what extent the interviewees experience that women leader still cannot bring their whole person to leadership, and need to adjust to male expectations of leadership?

How have the NGOs fared in the past year and a half of COVID? 

In this episode, we discuss women and leadership, and also their visions on leadership in general.

Gabriela Bucher’s Bio:

• Executive Director of Oxfam International
• Chief Operating Officer, Plan International (3 years)
• Executive President Plan Foundation, Columbia (10+ years)

 Julia Sanchez’s Bio:

• Secretary General, ActionAid
• Ex Senior Researcher, Canadian Union of Public Employees
• Federal NDP Ex-Candidate for by-election in Outremont 
• President-CEO of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCCI) – (7 years)

 Sofia Sprechmann’s Bio:

• Secretary General, CARE International
• Program Director, CARE International (8 years)
• Deputy Regional Director, Latin America & Caribbean (8 years)
• Board Trustee, International Budget Partnership

Quotes
“The pandemic has speeded up our delegation of authority to the country level, thereby allowing more space for decolonization to happen”

 “The pandemic has been like an X-ray: it has provided us visibility into what is wrong with the system in a way that has been evident to each family”

 “We have had to learn how to balance the global and the local in new ways now”

 ”How do we own our leadership behaviors, without worrying about how they may differ from ‘what is expected’”

We discussed: 

• What motivates them: to permit themselves to lead in their way, and be vocal about others being able to do the same
• Without wanting to essentializing women as leaders, and while recognizing the non-binary aspects of gender: preference to focus first on listening, learning, building bridges towards consensus
• The choice to own one’s leadership behaviors and style
• Change management and crisis leadership lessons from the past year and half of pandemic
• How the pandemic enabled new opportunities (the upside of pandemic): for example, for global teams that had been hybrid before to now truly ‘gel’, as well as equalizing those teams
• How the employee experience will be different after the pandemic: localization and shifts of authority/delegation, democratization

Resources:

Julia Sanchez: Linkedin, Twitter, Company
Gabriela Bucher: Linkedin, Twitter, Company
Sofia Sprechmann: Linkedin, Twitter, Company


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Email Tosca at tosca@5oaksconsulting.org