board of directors
Benya Kraus
Benya Kraus is currently Co-Founder and Director of the American Connection Corps at Lead For America, a national
nonprofit that recruits, trains, and places young and diverse recent college graduates into two-year local government
fellowships in communities across the country — particularly in their hometowns and places struggling to attract and retain
talent.
Benya has served as a Board Member of Amnesty International USA, currently attends the University of Chicago as a Civic Scholar at the Booth School, and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Tufts University in 2018 with a B.A. in International Relations and minors in Urban Studies and Colonialism Studies. She served as President of the Tufts Community Union Senate, realizing a platform to tackle spatial inequity on campus. She spoke on these themes as a TEDxTufts speaker, drawing parallels to her directed research on urban design as a peace-building tool in conflicted cities. As an Oslo Scholar with the Human Rights Foundation, Benya conducted research and wrote speeches on the intersection of gender, health, and security presented before the UN General Assembly and White House for Dr. Alaa Murabit, a UN High Level Commissioner on Health Employment and Economic Growth.
Richard Swarttz
Richard Swarttz serves as Chief Financial Officer at Lead For America (LFA). Originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
Richard attended Philadelphia University and received both his bachelor's degree in accounting and master's in business
administration with a concentration in management. In addition, he is a certified public accountant.
Richard brings over 35 years of experience as a Chief Financial Officer in various industries such as manufacturing,
information technology and various non-profit agencies such as Volunteer Florida and the United Way. Prior to joining LFA, he was appointed by the White House to serve as the CFO of the Peace Corps, where he spent almost three years overseeing almost 100 employees in the Office of the CFO as well as direct involvement in strategic planning and policy-making within the Agency. In addition, he has held positions as an adjunct professor for Tallahassee Community College and a tax instructor for H&R Block, Inc.
Richard is also currently a Board member of Americas Service Commission (ASC) where he was also previously elected Treasurer for a two year period. He currently resides in Estero, Florida with his wife Harriett and four dogs.
Rumbidzai Chisenga
Rumbidzai is the Director of Programs at the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development.
She leads the Amujae Initiative, the EJS Center’s flagship program that prepares African women to unapologetically
take up roles in the highest echelons of public leadership. Rumbidzai is one of twelve globally identified civic innovators
who were part of the inaugural class of Obama Foundation Scholars (2018 -2019) at Columbia University in New York City.
Prior to that, Rumbidzai was a Program Manager at the Mandela Institute for Development Studies (MINDS), a pan-African think tank that advocates for the adoption of Afrocentric approaches in addressing the continent’s socioeconomic development challenges. Rumbidzai was instrumental in establishing the MINDS Scholarship Program for Leadership Development, setting up the program’s operational processes at inception. She was also in charge of the MINDS Youth Program on Elections and Governance, a civic education initiative that equips African youth for meaningful participation in governance. Under this program, Rumbidzai coordinated an alumni network spread across 53 African countries.
Rumbidzai received a bachelor’s degree of commerce (Economics and Accounting) from Rhodes University in South Africa and a master’s degree of management (Entrepreneurship) from Wits Business School in South Africa. She has extensive experience working as a cross-sectoral management consultant and has previously founded a social enterprise. Rumbidzai is an alum of the Emerging Leaders programs of the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance (University of Cape Town) and the Policy Center for the New South (Atlantic Dialogues).
Emmanuel Fuhbang
Rev. Dr. Fuhbang Emmanuel Tanifum is a theologian, interculturalist, jurist, and an ordained pastor in the Mission of Evangelical Church
in Cameroon. He holds a PhD in Theology and Intercultural Studies from the Cameroon Faculty of Evangelical Theology, Yaoundé.
Emmanuel is the director of the Institute of Evangelical Theology in Bamenda, Cameroon, and also lectures in seminaries within Cameroon.
He is the founder of, and chief executive officer at, Rohi Foundation Cameroon, a non-profit, grassroots, and non-governmental
organization founded in 2008 with the aim of promoting peace, human rights, humanitarian actions, and interreligious and intercultural
friendships. He is also the current Chapter President for Cameroon of a non-profit organization based in the United States called the Euphrates Institute.
He is currently running a youth peacebuilding training programme in Cameroon which brings youths together from different religious and cultural backgrounds and he also enjoys teaching and researching in the area of Muslim-Christian relations. His motto is ‘faith, hope and love.’
