Board Member
Ann Svensén is an executive leader and communications specialist with four decades of experience in both strategic and operational communications, policy advocacy, resource mobilization, branding, corporate social responsibility and organizational development. She has 35 years of experience in sexual and reproductive health and rights and more than 25 years in global development.
The last six years Ann has worked as a consultant, advisor and interim’s leader in different positions, in a wide range of areas like e.g. Organizational Development, Fund Development, Child Rights and Dementia. She has served as the Secretary General in IM, Individuell Människohjälp, Swedish Development Partner, a Swedish development organization with partnership operations in 13 countries. During her 20+ years in RFSU, Riksförbundet för Sexuell Upplysning (the Swedish Association for Sexuality – Education), one of the four founding member organizations to IPPF, she was the Communications and Advocacy Manager for five years and the Director of External Relations for 11 years. She was RFSU’s Program Manager in Zambia in late 1990s in the Kafue Adolescent Reproductive Health Program, identified as one of the groundbreaking catalytic programs at the time by the World Bank.
Ann has a reputation of being a keen and timely innovator and business developer. Her leadership was key in the shaping and launch of the @HumanuimMetal initiative in IM. She explored and introduced multiple ground breaking avenues and business models in RFSU. As an example of some of her prominent successes RFSU was the first Swedish NGO to become a Gate’s Foundation grantee. She’s also known as an effective connector between civil society and the private sector and she e.g. served as RFSU’s internal business development liaison, between the civil society organization RFSU and the independent for-profit company RFSU AB, owned by RFSU.
Ann has previously served on Pathfinder’s Board of Directors between 2014 and 2023 and has also served on as a board member in various Swedish Civil Society Organisations, the board of directors to the Guttmacher Institute for six years, has been a member of the UNFPA Global NGO Advisory Panel, and the chair of the EuroNGO network twice. She rejoined Pathfinder’s board in 2025.
“The issues of sexual and reproductive rights have been a part of my life since the late 1980s and I’m tremendously proud and honored to be able to, once again, support Pathfinder’s lifesaving work. Today, more than ever, the world is in need of the brave defenders of women’s and young people’s rights to access the health facilities with evidence based support and services, that will enable them to make their own sexual and reproductive health and rights choices.”