Sussan Tahmasebi is the Executive Director and co-founder of Femena, an organisation that promotes women’s rights and supports women human rights defenders, their organisations and feminist movements in the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) region. From 1999-2011, Sussan was based in Iran, promoting women’s rights and building the capacity of civil society. She regularly speaks in leading news outlets about developments in Iran and the region and has authored or co-authored numerous articles on women’s rights and women’s movements. She is a member of the Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, a non-resident fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), and a board member of the Doria Feminist Fund.