Denmark

Anna Cecilia Frellsen has been the CEO of Maternity Foundation since 2013. During her leadership, Maternity Foundation has established itself as a well-respected player in the global maternal health scene. Among her responsibilities, Anna has led the scale-up of Maternity Foundation’s mobile health solutions, including the Safe Delivery App, which is now used in more than 40 countries.

Anna holds an MBA from IESE and has more than 15 years of business experience within strategy, marketing and general management. She has worked as the CEO for a small start-up, as a partner with KPMG Strategy, and she spent more than seven years with McKinsey & Company. She started her career working in the pharmaceutical industry in the US and the UK. In addition to her position with the Maternity Foundation, she is the Vice-Chair at the NGO Break The Silence and sits on the board of Ovacure and CfL (Danish Management Center) and is furthermore Board Member of William Demant Foundation & William Demant Invest.

Franka Cadee PhD, joined the Executive Leadership team at Maternity Foundation in 2023 to further strengthen and support the continued development of Maternity Foundation’s global work, aiming to ensure safer births for women and babies globally. As Director, Franka will lead some of the organization’s global strategic initiatives, impact work, and partnerships.

Franka is a midwife and anthropologist with expertise in sexual and reproductive health and rights with over 30 years of experience in strategy and policy development, advocacy, research, diplomacy, leadership, governance and management. Franka’s six-year tenure as the President of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), came to an end in June 2023. In her (working) life and as ICM President, Franka advocated for sexual and reproductive justice and gender equity by strengthening midwifery leadership, regulation, and education globally.

Helle is part of our Executive Leadership team and supports our global team in implementing our strategy and leads key operational and people processes to further strengthen our position as global non-profit organization.
Helle holds a MSc in Economics and business administration from Copenhagen Business School from where she also completed the CBS Executive Board Leadership with honor. She combines many years of experience in change management and leadership roles in management consulting, corporates and start-ups.

Mohit has over 17 years of total IT experience, and is adept in engineering processes, customer success and people management. With good experience in scaled agile methodologies, he was heading the product development teams in previous engagements. He has lead , in different roles in HCL and IBM, multiple portfolio involving global customer engagements.
Mohit is skilled in various new technologies, he has driven the solutions with innovations. Mohit has done his Masters in Computers and holds other certifications.

Søren holds a MSc in Political Science from Aarhus University and has 20+ years of experience in financial management and international project controlling in different NGOs.

He has previously worked in the Danish health sector and within the UN system where he was based in Bolivia and Costa Rica. Søren will be responsible for financial processes and activities across the organization.

Beyond bringing a smiling attitude to work, Sirin poses the ability of joggling between detailed health issues and holistic strategic thinking. Sirin supports the advancement of Maternity Foundation’s impact through new alliances, partnerships, and execution on strategic priorities.

Sirin has a medical background with clinical experience in e.g., Pediatrics. She also holds experience from Global Health at University of Copenhagen, The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and several NGO’s including Plan International and Doctors without Borders.

Julie has over ten years of experience in the development sector from Denmark and Mexico. Before joining Maternity Foundation, Julie worked for several years for Nordic Consulting Group in Copenhagen and for international NGOs in Mexico such as Article 19, Ipas Mexico, and Population Council Inc., where she focused on fundraising, grants management, and the implementation of donor-funded projects on sexual and reproductive health and rights as well as other human rights related issues. Julie holds a B.A. in Communication and an M.Sc. in International Development.

As a member of the Business Development team, Cathy works on many of Maternity Foundation’s Global and Nordic grants and partnerships.
She has over two decades of non-profit and NGO experience in development, fundraising and partnerships, grant management, event planning, training, and volunteer management, and has worked with a variety of both national and international organizations including New York Cares, Girl Scouts of the USA, Project Sunshine, Inc., and most recently the World Health Organization.

Cathy holds a BSc in Psychology and Social Studies from Aston University in the UK and a Middle Management Program Certification from the Institute for Not-for-Profit Management at Columbia Graduate School of Business in New York.

Helle oversees Maternity Foundation’s communication activities in Denmark and internationally, including press, events, partnerships, program support, content production and digital management.

Helle has many years of experience with communication, fundraising and campaign management through her previous positions within the UN system and Danish NGOs. She holds a MCs in Policital Science and a Diploma Degree in Journalism.

As a member of the Business Development Team, Miriam is supporting different fundraising projects and strategic initiatives within Maternity Foundation.
In the past, she has worked with the German Federal Ministry of Health, the German development agency (GIZ), and Young Experts Tech for Health. She has a special interest in digital innovations in healthcare and youth engagement within global health.

Miriam holds a BSc in Health Sciences from the Technical University Munich and has a Master’s degree in Global Health from the University of Copenhagen.

Hilde Cortier is Programme Director at Maternity Foundation and part of the Executive Leadership team. Hilde is a global expert in sexual and reproductive health and rights and has worked in multiple countries across sub–Saharan Africa and South Asia in both humanitarian and development settings. She has worked with numerous UN agencies, with Doctors Without Borders, and at Save the Children. Hilde has also served as a lecturer at KIT Royale Tropical Institute in the Netherlands and at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium. She is trained as a midwife and holds a master’s degree in Reproductive and Sexual Health Research from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

As Senior Program Manager, Kate supports Maternity Foundation’s partners in Southeast and Central Asia to implement the Safe Delivery Program to enable safer childbirths for women and newborns. Prior to joining Maternity Foundation, Kate worked for MSI Reproductive Choices in the UK for 5 years, supporting the implementation of safe abortion and family planning projects primarily in Asia and East and Southern Africa. Kate also has experience working in Timor-Leste and China on sexual and reproductive health and rights. She holds a LLB (Hons) and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Queensland and a Masters of International Public Health from the University of New South Wales.

Astrid leads our insights, research, and learning activities, supporting in-country monitoring and evaluation processes, leads research collaborations, analyses Safe Delivery App usage to provide insights, and disseminates best practices and learnings on the various implementation models.

Before joining Maternity Foundation, Astrid was working with UNHCR Lebanon where she supported various teams with data collection and analysis and production of knowledge outputs.

Astrid holds a master’s degree in Global Development and a bachelor’s degree in Economics, both from the University of Copenhagen.

Narender Goswami joined Maternity Foundation as the Country Director for India after scaling remarkable heights in the field of Public Health with more than 11 years of professional experience. Prior to joining Maternity Foundation, he has worked in Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India and PRONTO International. He has supported MoHFW, GOI and provided technical expertise in rollout of various national level programs including LaQshya, Midwifery, SUMAN, PMSMA, Maternal death and surveillance, Abortion care etc. His contribution towards the policy and program dialogue has been immensely supportive. He has been a member of various national expert groups for maternal health training initiatives and programs and thus proved his deft skills in the field by establishing himself as the go-to expert on maternal and new-born health. He is zealous in bringing about dynamic changes in the ways mothers and new-borns are given priority above all. He looks forward to making birth giving a special experience for all mothers and for the service provider.

Aparna is a member of the Programme Team and has previous background in medicine.

Before moving to Denmark, she worked as a dentist in her home country India. She holds a Master's in Public Health from Lund University, Sweden and a Bachelor's in Dental Surgery from Manipal University, India.

Katrine is responsible for the quality assurance and development of all clinical components in Maternity Foundations work, which spans from ensuring the highest clinical standards in our programmatic work to ensuring alignment with global and local guidelines and the clinical content in the Safe Delivery App. Katrine is a midwife and holds a Master of Public Health (MPH). Katrine has years of experience in midwifery, lactation and infant feeding, public health research and planning/quality assurance of continuing health education activities.

Sarah is part of the clinical team at Maternity Foundation, where she primarily works with the clinical content in the Safe Delivery App and the content management system.

She holds a Bachelor in Midwifery from Metropolitan University College, as well as a Master in Disaster Management from University of Copenhagen and a MSc in Global Health from University of Copenhagen. Previously Sarah has worked as a midwife at the postnatal ward at Herlev Hospital and Rigshospitalet.

Nanna is part of the clinical team where she is in charge of conducting remote trainings.
She holds a bachelor In Midwifery from Metropolitan University College and prior to joining Maternity Foundation she worked at Rigshospitalets labour ward.