Who We Are - Conducive Space for Peace

Innovators Hive

Picture of staff members and board members of CSP from august 2023

Our team is made up of dedicated individuals who are committed to shifting power to civil society actors in conflict affected contexts, addressing the challenges in international peacebuilding and development and highlighting the potential for change.
Mie Roesdahl

Founder & Co-Director Strategy, Innovation and Finance

Mie Roesdahl

Founder & Co-Director Strategy, Innovation and Finance

Mie Roesdahl has for the past 25 years worked as a peacebuilding, human rights, and systems change practitioner in countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. Mie founded Conducive Space for Peace in 2016 with the view of transforming the global peacebuilding system and shift power to locally-led peacebuilding. At CSP, she harnesses her first-hand experience of working in conflict affected countries with civil society and state actors and with leadership level of INGOs, bilateral donors, national institutions in Denmark and other countries including the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Office of the Prime Minister in Nepal. She has a wide network of change agents and decision-makers who she regularly convenes and consults to ensure the work of CSP builds on and supports the work of others in enabling local leadership and systems transformation.

Email:mie@conducivespace.org

Sweta Velpillay

Co-Director Organisational Leadership

Sweta Velpillay

Co-Director Organisational Leadership

Sweta Velpillay has collaborated with and worked for CSP since 2018. She has 16 years of experience in peacebuilding and working in fragile contexts marked by humanitarian and development challenges. She has worked for and with INGOs, UN agencies and local organisations globally as conflict advisor, programme manager, facilitator and trainer. Sweta brings a nuanced understanding of the global peacebuilding system, the aid architecture and the limitations they pose to local leadership, as well as the opportunities that exist for change. At CSP, she is committed to shifting power to local actors, and has been involved in and managed multi-stakeholder reimagining initiatives; leads the design and delivery of long-term capacity building initiatives for enabling local leadership among international change agents with the view of accompaniment; and supports the team in strategic delivery of activities.

Email:sweta@conducivespace.org

Ralph Ellermann

Senior Programme Manager

Ralph Ellermann

Senior Programme Manager

Ralph Ellermann, Senior Programme Manager, has for the last 14 years worked as a researcher, practitioner, and companion at the intersection of peacebuilding, social change, and organisational development. His interest lies in a structural and polit-economic critique on local to global infrastructures of power and acting upon it toward an equitable, just, and peaceful future. He holds a diversified experience in designing peacebuilding programmes, dialogue processes, and organisational change processes. In his previous work he collaborated with grass-root CSOs, think tanks, bilateral donors, international NGOs, inter-governmental organisations and private businesses in varying roles such as process facilitator, advisor, mediator, programme manager and researcher. He further provides an expertise on re-territorialisation processes in the Horn of Africa and the emerging African Peace and Security Architecture.

Email:ralph@conducivespace.org

Maja Vidstrup Nielsen

Intern

Maja Vidstrup Nielsen

Intern

Maja Vidstrup Nielsen is a recent MSc graduate in International Development and Global Studies from Roskilde University. Additionally, she holds a minor in International Studies and Cultural Encounters, which included a semester in Seoul, South Korea. Maja has critically explored the realms of development and humanitarian aid through extensive project work, field experiences, volunteer roles, and internships, providing her with a keen understanding of the complexities within these fields. In her master thesis, Maja scrutinized: “The Potential of Cash as a Modality to Bridge the Humanitarian-Development Nexus”, analyzing the use of cash transfer by humanitarian organizations for protracted refugees in Uganda. Maja has actively engaged in various organizations such as The Red Cross Youth, The Danish Red Cross, and a Swedish NGO, Yennenga Progress. She has also conducted fieldwork in Tanzania and Uganda, solidifying her understanding of how challenges within the aid system impact those in need.

Email:maja@conducivespace.org

Mathilde Wieland Thorsen

Programme Officer

Mathilde Wieland Thorsen

Programme Officer

Mathilde Wieland Thorsen is a recent MSc graduate in Global Studies and International Development from Roskilde University. In addition to her studies at RUC, she holds a minor in “Globalisation and Inequality” from Maastricht University. Throughout her academic career, Mathilde has critically explored the field of development to complement and provide nuance to sometimes simple analyses. For her master’s dissertation “Navigating Oppression: Land Right NGOs in an Enclosing Authoritarian Cambodia”, she analysed how a rising global, authoritarian wave severely restricts civil society actors working on highly sensitive issues, yet also how, through deliberate negotiation and re-strategising, some of them manage to carefully carve out a space for their activities. Mathilde has fieldwork experience from Nairobi, Kenya, and one year of practical experience for an INGO in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where she worked on food security, subsistence farming, digital advocacy and rights issues.

Email:mathilde@conducivespace.org

Kara Wong

Senior Programme Manager

Kara Wong

Senior Programme Manager

A peace practitioner, educator, and action researcher, Kara’s expertise sits at the intersection of peacebuilding, social change, and learning. For the past two decades, Kara has worked with UN agencies, grassroots and International NGOs, academic institutions, multi-donor trust funds and activist-led networks, facilitating education-driven responses to complex social issues, focusing on communities impacted by conflict. With formal training in human rights and social justice and a background in experiential learning, Kara has a keen interest in designing processes that elevate local knowledge and support personal transformation and systems-level change. She brings this interest to CSP where she leads the organisation’s accompaniment work.

Email:kara@conducivespace.org
The board provides support and advice to CSP, and is responsible for the strategy, management and finances of the organisation. Our board is composed of people with experience, integrity, and proven records of founding, leading and supporting new initiatives that address societal challenges.

Theresia Kirkemann Boesen

Chair of the Board

Theresia Kirkemann Boesen

Chair of the Board

Theresia Kirkemann Boesen joined Nordic Consulting Group (NCG) in 2015 and is currently working as human rights and governance consultant. Before joining NCG, she was for 16 years employed at the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR), including as the director of the Department for Human Rights Education and National Human Rights Institutions covering both the national mandate on education of DIHR and international projects and programmes on human rights education (HRE). As part of her engagement with DIHR, Theresia Kirkemann Boesen has been living and working in Turkey and Malawi. Theresia has extensive experience in collaboration and capacity development with donor institutions, state institutions and local civil society organisations with a focus on human rights, democratisation, rule of law and development of organisational capacity and management.

Line Brylle

Line Brylle

Line Brylle has worked for more than 15 years in managing programmes for international organisations within the fields of humanitarian mine action, conflict resolution and humanitarian assistance, mainly with and in central Africa and the Sahel region. In her current position as Global Peacebuilding Advisor for the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), Line supports DRC’s peacebuilding programming worldwide, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, the Sahel, among others. The work is focused on advising on and supporting peacebuilding programming, providing training to colleagues and communities on community-based safety approaches, conflict management, mediation and dialogue facilitation, and supporting development of local peacebuilding initiatives. Line is a member of the Nordic Women Mediators network (NWM), she is also involved in the Danish Network for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding (NCPPB), and a member of the International Advisory Board for the Nigerian Mediation Training Institute. Line has an academic background in Anthropology of Development (MA) and has a professional training in mediation.

Laura Davis

Laura Davis

Laura Davis is a feminist peacebuilding practitioner who specialises in transitional justice and mediation. She also has a strong background in promoting gender equality in longer term peacebuilding and conflict prevention processes. She has worked in a range of dynamic security environments across Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, with extensive additional experience in Europe. Laura has a PhD in transitional justice and mediation in EU foreign policy, and has twenty years’ experience in advocating for greater EU capacities in peacebuilding policy and practice. She regularly produces high-quality research for academic, practitioner and policy-making audiences. In addition to her consultancy practice, she has served at the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) as a Senior Associate for the last 5 years. She has recently returned to her adopted home in Belgium after a decade living and working in Central Africa and the Middle East.

Anine Hagemann

Anine Hagemann

Anine Hagemann has broad experience working in peacebuilding in both policy and academia. She is currently on leave from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to pursue a PhD at the Center for Resolution of International Conflicts (CRIC) at the University of Copenhagen, where she is involved in Nordic peace research and policy work as well as research on peacekeeping and Protection of Civilians. Prior to starting her PhD, Anine worked as a diplomat for the UN Department of Peacekeeping and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in and on conflict-affected states and stabilisation and security policy. She was posted to Nepal from 2013 to 2015 and to South Sudan from 2015 to 2016. Anine has extensive experience with diplomatic negotiations and coordination among development partners and international agencies, funds and programs. She has experience managing large development portfolios, including dialogue with state institutions, other donors and recipients in the fields of peacebuilding, human rights, rule of law and good governance. Anine holds degrees in economics and political science.

Bjørn Nygaard

Bjørn Nygaard

Bjørn Nygaard is coordinator of international projects at the Danish Centre for Conflict Resolution (DCCR) and manager of his own consultancy firm. He has 25 years experience working with NGOs, Danish MoF and the UN on three continents as advisor, manager and consultant. Most recently he has been working for the Ukrainian Red Cross creating conflict resolution capacity in the organisation. Bjørn is anthropologist from University of Aarhus. His focus areas are conflict transformation, cooperation across cultures (fusion approach) and Results Based Management. He has served both as board member (vice chair person) and manager of finance and international projects at DCCR. He is the author of “The Cultural Encounter at the Work-Place” and “Evaluation as a Management Tool” (both in Danish only)

Ola Saleh

Ola Saleh

Ola Saleh is a peacebuilding practitioner and mediation support advisor. She is committed to decolonising aid and knowledge in her various engagements. Since 2005, her professional background is rooted in feminist social movements from humanitarian and peacebuilding contexts in West Asia, Eastern Europe, and West Africa. Ola is a creative problem solver and systems thinker whose experience includes supporting women’s participation in political and peacebuilding processes (track i, ii and iii), policy advising, developing peacebuilding strategies, and conducting gender-sensitive conflict analysis as well as practice-informed research. Ola is a member of the Swedish women’s mediation network. She is a trustee of Saferworld and currently serves a second term as a member of the EU Radicalisation Awareness Network expert pool.

Fatiha Serour

Fatiha Serour

Fatiha Serour is Co-founder of Justice impact Lab as well as chair of the Africa Group of Justice & Accountability (AGJA), an independent group of Senior African experts on international criminal law and human rights, including political figures, members of domestic tribunals, and human rights advocates that came together in November 2015 to strengthen justice & accountability in Africa. Prior to joining AGJA, Fatiha was United Nations Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Special Representative in Somalia. She is an international development and peace-building expert with over 25 years-experience and has held numerous positions within the United Nations, including senior gender adviser in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan(UNAMA) as well as was Regional Director in the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). She was also the Director of the Youth Division and Commonwealth Youth Programme (Commonwealth Secretariat). Ms. Serour holds a PhD in Political Economy from the University of Aberdeen (UK) and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Lille. She is fluent in French, Arabic and English

Our team is made up of dedicated individuals who are committed to shifting power to civil society actors in conflict affected contexts, addressing the challenges in international peacebuilding and development and highlighting the potential for change.
Mie Roesdahl

Founder & Co-Director Strategy, Innovation and Finance

Mie Roesdahl

Founder & Co-Director Strategy, Innovation and Finance

Mie Roesdahl has for the past 25 years worked as a peacebuilding, human rights, and systems change practitioner in countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. Mie founded Conducive Space for Peace in 2016 with the view of transforming the global peacebuilding system and shift power to locally-led peacebuilding. At CSP, she harnesses her first-hand experience of working in conflict affected countries with civil society and state actors and with leadership level of INGOs, bilateral donors, national institutions in Denmark and other countries including the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Office of the Prime Minister in Nepal. She has a wide network of change agents and decision-makers who she regularly convenes and consults to ensure the work of CSP builds on and supports the work of others in enabling local leadership and systems transformation.

Email:mie@conducivespace.org

Sweta Velpillay

Co-Director Organisational Leadership

Sweta Velpillay

Co-Director Organisational Leadership

Sweta Velpillay has collaborated with and worked for CSP since 2018. She has 16 years of experience in peacebuilding and working in fragile contexts marked by humanitarian and development challenges. She has worked for and with INGOs, UN agencies and local organisations globally as conflict advisor, programme manager, facilitator and trainer. Sweta brings a nuanced understanding of the global peacebuilding system, the aid architecture and the limitations they pose to local leadership, as well as the opportunities that exist for change. At CSP, she is committed to shifting power to local actors, and has been involved in and managed multi-stakeholder reimagining initiatives; leads the design and delivery of long-term capacity building initiatives for enabling local leadership among international change agents with the view of accompaniment; and supports the team in strategic delivery of activities.

Email:sweta@conducivespace.org

Ralph Ellermann

Senior Programme Manager

Ralph Ellermann

Senior Programme Manager

Ralph Ellermann, Senior Programme Manager, has for the last 14 years worked as a researcher, practitioner, and companion at the intersection of peacebuilding, social change, and organisational development. His interest lies in a structural and polit-economic critique on local to global infrastructures of power and acting upon it toward an equitable, just, and peaceful future. He holds a diversified experience in designing peacebuilding programmes, dialogue processes, and organisational change processes. In his previous work he collaborated with grass-root CSOs, think tanks, bilateral donors, international NGOs, inter-governmental organisations and private businesses in varying roles such as process facilitator, advisor, mediator, programme manager and researcher. He further provides an expertise on re-territorialisation processes in the Horn of Africa and the emerging African Peace and Security Architecture.

Email:ralph@conducivespace.org

Maja Vidstrup Nielsen

Intern

Maja Vidstrup Nielsen

Intern

Maja Vidstrup Nielsen is a recent MSc graduate in International Development and Global Studies from Roskilde University. Additionally, she holds a minor in International Studies and Cultural Encounters, which included a semester in Seoul, South Korea. Maja has critically explored the realms of development and humanitarian aid through extensive project work, field experiences, volunteer roles, and internships, providing her with a keen understanding of the complexities within these fields. In her master thesis, Maja scrutinized: “The Potential of Cash as a Modality to Bridge the Humanitarian-Development Nexus”, analyzing the use of cash transfer by humanitarian organizations for protracted refugees in Uganda. Maja has actively engaged in various organizations such as The Red Cross Youth, The Danish Red Cross, and a Swedish NGO, Yennenga Progress. She has also conducted fieldwork in Tanzania and Uganda, solidifying her understanding of how challenges within the aid system impact those in need.

Email:maja@conducivespace.org

Mathilde Wieland Thorsen

Programme Officer

Mathilde Wieland Thorsen

Programme Officer

Mathilde Wieland Thorsen is a recent MSc graduate in Global Studies and International Development from Roskilde University. In addition to her studies at RUC, she holds a minor in “Globalisation and Inequality” from Maastricht University. Throughout her academic career, Mathilde has critically explored the field of development to complement and provide nuance to sometimes simple analyses. For her master’s dissertation “Navigating Oppression: Land Right NGOs in an Enclosing Authoritarian Cambodia”, she analysed how a rising global, authoritarian wave severely restricts civil society actors working on highly sensitive issues, yet also how, through deliberate negotiation and re-strategising, some of them manage to carefully carve out a space for their activities. Mathilde has fieldwork experience from Nairobi, Kenya, and one year of practical experience for an INGO in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where she worked on food security, subsistence farming, digital advocacy and rights issues.

Email:mathilde@conducivespace.org

Kara Wong

Senior Programme Manager

Kara Wong

Senior Programme Manager

A peace practitioner, educator, and action researcher, Kara’s expertise sits at the intersection of peacebuilding, social change, and learning. For the past two decades, Kara has worked with UN agencies, grassroots and International NGOs, academic institutions, multi-donor trust funds and activist-led networks, facilitating education-driven responses to complex social issues, focusing on communities impacted by conflict. With formal training in human rights and social justice and a background in experiential learning, Kara has a keen interest in designing processes that elevate local knowledge and support personal transformation and systems-level change. She brings this interest to CSP where she leads the organisation’s accompaniment work.

Email:kara@conducivespace.org
The board provides support and advice to CSP, and is responsible for the strategy, management and finances of the organisation. Our board is composed of people with experience, integrity, and proven records of founding, leading and supporting new initiatives that address societal challenges.

Theresia Kirkemann Boesen

Chair of the Board

Theresia Kirkemann Boesen

Chair of the Board

Theresia Kirkemann Boesen joined Nordic Consulting Group (NCG) in 2015 and is currently working as human rights and governance consultant. Before joining NCG, she was for 16 years employed at the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR), including as the director of the Department for Human Rights Education and National Human Rights Institutions covering both the national mandate on education of DIHR and international projects and programmes on human rights education (HRE). As part of her engagement with DIHR, Theresia Kirkemann Boesen has been living and working in Turkey and Malawi. Theresia has extensive experience in collaboration and capacity development with donor institutions, state institutions and local civil society organisations with a focus on human rights, democratisation, rule of law and development of organisational capacity and management.

Line Brylle

Line Brylle

Line Brylle has worked for more than 15 years in managing programmes for international organisations within the fields of humanitarian mine action, conflict resolution and humanitarian assistance, mainly with and in central Africa and the Sahel region. In her current position as Global Peacebuilding Advisor for the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), Line supports DRC’s peacebuilding programming worldwide, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, the Sahel, among others. The work is focused on advising on and supporting peacebuilding programming, providing training to colleagues and communities on community-based safety approaches, conflict management, mediation and dialogue facilitation, and supporting development of local peacebuilding initiatives. Line is a member of the Nordic Women Mediators network (NWM), she is also involved in the Danish Network for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding (NCPPB), and a member of the International Advisory Board for the Nigerian Mediation Training Institute. Line has an academic background in Anthropology of Development (MA) and has a professional training in mediation.

Laura Davis

Laura Davis

Laura Davis is a feminist peacebuilding practitioner who specialises in transitional justice and mediation. She also has a strong background in promoting gender equality in longer term peacebuilding and conflict prevention processes. She has worked in a range of dynamic security environments across Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, with extensive additional experience in Europe. Laura has a PhD in transitional justice and mediation in EU foreign policy, and has twenty years’ experience in advocating for greater EU capacities in peacebuilding policy and practice. She regularly produces high-quality research for academic, practitioner and policy-making audiences. In addition to her consultancy practice, she has served at the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) as a Senior Associate for the last 5 years. She has recently returned to her adopted home in Belgium after a decade living and working in Central Africa and the Middle East.

Anine Hagemann

Anine Hagemann

Anine Hagemann has broad experience working in peacebuilding in both policy and academia. She is currently on leave from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to pursue a PhD at the Center for Resolution of International Conflicts (CRIC) at the University of Copenhagen, where she is involved in Nordic peace research and policy work as well as research on peacekeeping and Protection of Civilians. Prior to starting her PhD, Anine worked as a diplomat for the UN Department of Peacekeeping and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in and on conflict-affected states and stabilisation and security policy. She was posted to Nepal from 2013 to 2015 and to South Sudan from 2015 to 2016. Anine has extensive experience with diplomatic negotiations and coordination among development partners and international agencies, funds and programs. She has experience managing large development portfolios, including dialogue with state institutions, other donors and recipients in the fields of peacebuilding, human rights, rule of law and good governance. Anine holds degrees in economics and political science.

Bjørn Nygaard

Bjørn Nygaard

Bjørn Nygaard is coordinator of international projects at the Danish Centre for Conflict Resolution (DCCR) and manager of his own consultancy firm. He has 25 years experience working with NGOs, Danish MoF and the UN on three continents as advisor, manager and consultant. Most recently he has been working for the Ukrainian Red Cross creating conflict resolution capacity in the organisation. Bjørn is anthropologist from University of Aarhus. His focus areas are conflict transformation, cooperation across cultures (fusion approach) and Results Based Management. He has served both as board member (vice chair person) and manager of finance and international projects at DCCR. He is the author of “The Cultural Encounter at the Work-Place” and “Evaluation as a Management Tool” (both in Danish only)

Ola Saleh

Ola Saleh

Ola Saleh is a peacebuilding practitioner and mediation support advisor. She is committed to decolonising aid and knowledge in her various engagements. Since 2005, her professional background is rooted in feminist social movements from humanitarian and peacebuilding contexts in West Asia, Eastern Europe, and West Africa. Ola is a creative problem solver and systems thinker whose experience includes supporting women’s participation in political and peacebuilding processes (track i, ii and iii), policy advising, developing peacebuilding strategies, and conducting gender-sensitive conflict analysis as well as practice-informed research. Ola is a member of the Swedish women’s mediation network. She is a trustee of Saferworld and currently serves a second term as a member of the EU Radicalisation Awareness Network expert pool.

Fatiha Serour

Fatiha Serour

Fatiha Serour is Co-founder of Justice impact Lab as well as chair of the Africa Group of Justice & Accountability (AGJA), an independent group of Senior African experts on international criminal law and human rights, including political figures, members of domestic tribunals, and human rights advocates that came together in November 2015 to strengthen justice & accountability in Africa. Prior to joining AGJA, Fatiha was United Nations Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Special Representative in Somalia. She is an international development and peace-building expert with over 25 years-experience and has held numerous positions within the United Nations, including senior gender adviser in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan(UNAMA) as well as was Regional Director in the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). She was also the Director of the Youth Division and Commonwealth Youth Programme (Commonwealth Secretariat). Ms. Serour holds a PhD in Political Economy from the University of Aberdeen (UK) and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Lille. She is fluent in French, Arabic and English

Mie Roesdahl

Sweta Velpillay

Ralph Ellermann

Maja Vidstrup Nielsen

Mathilde Wieland Thorsen

Kara Wong

Theresia Kirkemann Boesen

Line Brylle

Laura Davis

Anine Hagemann

Bjørn Nygaard

Ola Saleh

Fatiha Serour

Mie Roesdahl

Sweta Velpillay

Ralph Ellermann

Maja Vidstrup Nielsen

Mathilde Wieland Thorsen

Kara Wong

Theresia Kirkemann Boesen

Line Brylle

Laura Davis

Anine Hagemann

Bjørn Nygaard

Ola Saleh

Fatiha Serour

Liam Nemit

Chiff Executive Officer

Daniel Orson

Operations Director

Colin Jameson

Blockchain Engineer

Colin Jameson

Blockchain Engineer

Sweta Velpillay

Mie Roesdahl

Theresia Kirkemann Boesen