Shiferaw Weldemikael, LL.M; MA

Shiferaw is lawyer by training. He received his MLB from Columbia Law School, Columbia University in New York (1974) and his LLB from Haile Selassie University (1971). He also has earned Masters Degree in Organizational Leadership from Eastern University in Pennsylvania (2005).

Shiferaw served in different capacitates as a civil servant of the Ethiopian government and was Minister of Justice for a brief period before he left government service.  He taught in the Law Faculty of the Haile Selassie University for nearly 14 years as an adjunct lecturer. He also had started a law firm that he led for a few years. 

Shiferaw established and led the work of Compassion International in Ethiopia and then that of Tanzania. He was the Child Advocacy Director for Compassion International for  Africa for a little over 5 years.  After retiring from Compassion he started the Child Development Training and Research Center (CDTRC), a nonprofit organization that has as its vision ‘to see a new generation of Ethiopians that becomes source of holistic transformation of the country.’  Shiferaw now serves as the CEO of this Organization.

Shiferaw was and continues to be a member of executive boards of many global children related movements and organizations including Viva Network, the Global Children’s Forum and the Transform World Global Movement. Shiferaw led many delegations to different governments and international and regional institutions representing the Ethiopian government during his civil service years.

Shiferaw has written 5 books 4 of which are in Amharic, one in English.  The one in English is entitled Vision Casting and Partner Development Handbook and was prepared for Compassion Africa.

Sylvia Vriesendorp

Sylvia received her Doctorandus (Drs.) in Psychology from University of Leiden, the Netherlands, in 1977. She worked for Management Sciences for Health (MSH) for over 30 years in different capacities. Her last role at MSH was Principal Technical Advisor for Leadership and Management Development. Prior to that, she was a staff of UNESCO Regional Office for Africa based in Dakar, Senegal for over 10 years.  She has had teaching engagements with Tilburg University (The Netherlands), Erasmus University, Graduate School of Business (Rotterdam, the Netherlands), Johns Hopkins University, University of Michigan School of Public Health and many others. She had made palpable contributions for the global leadership development work in general but for the health sector in particular through various high level International conferences and publications.

Sylvia has 40 years of experience working primarily in low and middle-income countries to help people change the way they work with each other so that they (especially the leaders) can create a safe workplace that allows for co-creation, innovation and the full use of talent.

Tone Baller

Mrs. Tone holds a Master of Arts in Transformational Leadership and Change from Greenwich University in London and International Leadership Institute, Addis Ababa. She did her Bachelors in Management at the Norwegian Business School in 1990, and then a Diploma in Coaching for Leaders at the University in Hedmark in 2005.

In the past 20 years she has consulted and managed a variety of initiatives and provided strategic advices. She has been advising, facilitating and leading social- and business development work internationally. This has helped her cultivate a number of relationships with leaders on the African continent and around the world. She is an experienced trainer, certified by DISK Persolog and Xpand. In the last 15 years she has also served in several boards as a member and as a chair.

Tone, born and raised in Norway, grew up in a large family with compassion for people and great interest in national and international development with major investments in shipping and entrepreneurial (social and profit) businesses around the world. This upbringing has greatly influenced her professional life and involvement, as she has been traveling and working in more than 46 nations of the world.