Our Governance

Ayesha Imam, Board Chair

Ayesha Imam is a rights and sustainable development activist and consultant. She has worked with and for a range of organisations including women’s rights and other Civil Society Organisations, as well as official aid and UN agencies on women’s rights, gender-sensitive research and programming, democracy, sustainable development and organisational support and training.

Ayesha was the chief executive of BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights in Nigeria (which won the John Humphrey Human Rights Award for defence of women’s rights under the Sharia Penal Codes and helped secure acquittals for women and men sentenced to stoning to death); Head of the Culture, Gender and Human Rights Department of UNFPA; and coordinated several global research or capacity-building programmes. She has lectured and carried out research at universities and research institutes in Nigeria, the U.K., Canada and Senegal. Her work is published widely for activist, policy, and academic uses, and includes books, journal articles, policy briefs and activist manuals.

Ayesha has also served on the boards of: the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRDIC); the Women’s Environmental Development Organization (WEDO); the Council for the Development of Economic and Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA); the international solidarity network Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML); the International Council for Human Rights Policy (ICHRP); Africa Action; and the African Centre for Democratic Governance. Ayesha was a member of the GPI Board for seven years (2006-2013) before being asked to come back as Chair in 2017.

Ayesha has a doctorate in social anthropology from the University of Sussex (UK) and a Master’s degree in sociology from Ahmadu Bello University (Nigeria).

Sue Cooper, Treasurer

Sue Cooper joined the Board of Greenpeace International in August 2018 and took the role of treasurer from January 2019. Previously, she served on the board of Greenpeace UK for eleven years, with over five years as the Board Chair.

Sue is a retired accountant and registered auditor, specialising in the charity and not-for-profit sector, a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and holds the Diploma in Charity Accounting issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAEW). For over 25 years she was a principal at the accountancy firm Slade and Cooper in Manchester, England, which works with a wide range of organisations from the not-for-profit sector.

Prior to her career as an accountant, Sue worked in the cultural sector; first in the music industry then as administrator for a multi-arts centre. She has a lifelong interest in music and has played in bands from punk to Klezmer.

Sue has been a political activist all her life – taken on CND demos as a child she progressed to teenage involvement with Anti-apartheid, CND, Anti-Vietnam war activities, school student activism and the Women’s Liberation movement. Currently she is involved with her local Transition group in New Mills, north Derbyshire, England.

Nikhil Aziz

Nikhil Aziz is Director of Land, Water, and Climate Justice (LWCJ) at American Jewish World Service (AJWS), where he oversees the LWCJ grantmaking program in 13 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean, and supports US policy advocacy on climate justice. Before joining AJWS, he was Executive Director of Grassroots International, which funded social movements for resource rights and climate justice in the Global South and did advocacy in the United States. Previously, Nikhil was associate director at Political Research Associates, which studied the US right wing for the progressive movement. He continues to speak, teach and write on human rights, international development and social change.

Nikhil has served on the boards of Africa Today Associates, Massachusetts Asians & Pacific Islanders for Health, MASALA (Massachusetts Area South Asian Lambda Association), Resist, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, the Human Rights Funders Network, and the Engaged Donors for Global Equity (EDGE Funders). He divides his time between New York City, US and Mumbai, India.

Nikhil has a Doctorate in International Studies from the University of Denver (USA) and a Master’s degree in International Relations from the Claremont Graduate University (USA).

Shanice Firmin

Shanice Firmin is a Senior Project Officer for Development, Infrastructure, and Climate Change at the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance with over 6 years of experience in the non-profit sector.

Shanice focuses her time on building community activism that critiques environmental impact assessments and unsustainable developments proposed by industry and government to secure livelihoods, social justice, and a healthy environment for the benefit of all. Shanice is a strong believer in meaningful public participation in environmental governance affecting change in climate legislation. Through the ‘Action 24 – Active citizens for responsive legislatures project’ – she served as the KwaZulu-Natal province lead from 2017-2020. Shanice has developed ‘public participation in the South African legislature’ booklets to assist and equip communities with improved access to information and public participation in decision making enhancing the quality and the implementation of decisions.

Shanice has contributed to research and writing contributions that looked at ‘A Gendered Lens: Mainstreaming Gender into South Africa’s Climate Change Response’. She has also developed an ‘Action 24 Toolkit for Citizens’ Engagement with Legislatures’ that offers step-by-step guidance on how the public can engage, based on the realities observed. Shanice also frequents parliament to make presentations to the department of the Environments oversight committee on incidents and accidents.

When Shanice is not occupied with defending the environment, she is occupied with her two girls.

Marcelo Iniarra

Marcelo Iniarra is an environmental activist, a senior public mobilisation & fundraising professional with over 30 years of experience acting in the non-profit sector. Marcelo has worked with many NGO’s, including; Amnesty International, Oxfam, Save the Children, Greenpeace International, Doctors without Borders and Action Aid. Marcelo is now leading his own international consultancy, providing advice and developing successful and creative strategies that helped to mobilise millions of people.

Marcelo began his activist activities to protect the Planet in the mid 80’s at Friends of the Earth & WWF, working in environmental education and interpretation of nature in Argentina. Later on, Marcelo joined Greenpeace where he was the Fundraising Director of Greenpeace Argentina from 1995-2003 and later the Fundraising & Campaign Innovation Manager for Greenpeace International in The Netherlands from 2001-2008. After leaving the executive roles at Greenpeace, Marcelo began to volunteer at Greenpeace, first as the Board Chair and trustee of Greenpeace Mexico in 2015 and therefore at Greenpeace Andino as a Board Member & Chair.

Marcelo was the co-founder and board member of Argentine fundraisers’ organisation AEDROS. Marcelo is an active member of the TED network & organiser of TEDx events in his hometown, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Helga Rainer

Helga Rainer has over 20 years of international and environmental development experience. Woven throughout her professional history, her work as a consultant, researcher, grant maker and organiser for environmental and development projects has made her an expert in developing policy, strategies, and programs. 

Helga has efficaciously acted as an expert liaison between a variety of different stakeholders, including conservation leaders, policy makers, researchers, governmental agencies, non-governmental agencies, corporations, and international donors. This has included informing access to water and sanitation for women in informal settlements in Dhaka, Bangladesh, facilitating dialogue between local communities, private and public sectors on ecotourism in Uganda, as well as advising world leaders in Jeju, South Korea on transboundary conservation. 

A passionate advocate of multi-disciplinary approaches, Helga has successfully leveraged multiple perspectives to inform shifts in how institutions engage with nature protection. In addition to numerous publications, she conceived and co-edited a novel interdisciplinary book series on non-human apes. Further building her transdisciplinary practice, Helga co-founded Borderlands Art, an agile space concerned with issues of environment, conflict and repair which uses exhibitions, events and research to foster critical inquiry and advocacy.

Helga has a Doctorate in Geography and Environment from the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK) and a Master’s degree in Environmental Science, Policy and Planning from the University of Bath (UK). Helga sits on several non-profit boards which include the Uganda Biodiversity Trust Fund and 32^oEast| The Uganda Arts Trust.

David Tong

David Tong is the Global Industry Campaign Manager at Oil Change International, a Washington DC-based research and advocacy organisation dedicated to exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy. In this role, David leads Oil Change International’s work to confront big oil and gas companies’ greenwash, working closely with allies across civil society. In particular, David coordinated the successful cross-sectoral ‘#FixTheWEO’ campaign to persuade the International Energy Agency to model a 1.5ºC-aligned energy scenario, resulting in the IEA’s landmark 2021 conclusion that there is no room for new oil and gas beyond existing fields for 1.5ºC.

He lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand), and grew up near the shore of the Waitematā Harbour in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland). Ecological issues and Greenpeace in particular have always been important to him. A few months before he was born, a friend of his father’s witnessed French agents launching a rigid inflatable boat on a boat ramp near his home – on their way to bombing the original Rainbow Warrior.

Before joining Oil Change International, David led WWF-New Zealand’s climate programme, coordinating the civil society coalition supporting youth organisation Generation Zero’s campaign for the country’s Zero Carbon Act, which became law in 2019. From 2014-2016, he worked as a regular freelance contractor for the Climate Action Network International (CAN-International), and in 2015 established the New Zealand CAN node. 

Though now working in climate policy and campaigning, David is a former lawyer, and has worked as a judges’ clerk, a big firm commercial litigator, and a community lawyer. He has a Masters degree in Law with First Class Honours from the University of Auckland, specialising in climate and human rights law. 

Before being elected to the Greenpeace International board, he was the chair of Greenpeace Aotearoa, and had served on that office’s board from 2015. He is also on the board of the Aotearoa New Zealand Human Rights Foundation.