We are delighted to welcome Mais Irqsusi as the new Executive Director of the Leading Change Network at this moment of unique global social, economic, and political crisis and opportunity.

During the last 3 years, a successful relaunch of LCN led by Ana Babovic established a solid foundation for further growth. We are excited that Mais has stepped up to build on this work by growing LCN’s capacity to meet the profound needs, challenges and opportunities for organizing in the world today.

Mais brings to the role experience as an executive director, organizer, and educator, and has been an active contributor of LCN since its inception in 2013. As a co-founder of Ahel, the distinguished organizing institute, in Jordan and later as founder of Community Organizing Europe in Sweden, Mais brings rich experience adapting practices of leadership development, organizing and campaigning to widely diverse geographic, institutional, cultural and political settings.

She has pursued her mission of developing leadership, building civic capacity, and campaigning for social justice by leading over 100 workshops; coaching 15 organizing campaigns, and building organizational infrastructure to sustain, improve, and expand on this work

Her vision for LCN is to develop leadership committed to building locally rooted organizing capacity, to grow the reach and the impact of campaigns, movements, civic action worldwide, and to expand the LCN community of practice devoted to continual learning, information sharing, and coordination that already includes 350 members from 49 countries. Her focus will be deepening critical work in the US, cultivating projects in Australia, Japan, India, Kenya, Nigeria, and across Latin America, and nurture exemplary work in the Arab Middle East.

The global character of our work matters because the challenges we face — including race, ethnic, and religious conflict — are not confined to the US. LCN’s uniquely disciplined, yet adaptive, approach to developing leadership, community organizing, and public narrative — in the development of which Mais has played a key role — enables us to work with people, projects, and campaigns across cultures, issues, and institutions around the world.

The key to turning this moment of challenge into one of opportunity is leadership — leadership that can build effective teams, create a shared vision, and build the strategic capacity to turn hopes into realities.

We are happy to have found such leadership in Mais Irqsusi.

To learn more about Mais, click here to read her bio.

Yours sincerely,

LCN Board

  • Ian Simmons
  • Marshall Ganz
  • Jennifer McCrea